Hi Quico. I always enjoy reading your blog, even when I disagree with parts of it. I found this piece particularly interesting because I take a somewhat similar approach when teaching my environmental economics course. That said, I felt the argument was rather one-sided and omitted some important considerations.
I broadly agree with the first two "levels", but I think public disengagement with climate change is more complex than simply reacting against climate activists. Climate change is a long-term, abstract issue, while most people are focused on immediate concerns. After years of constant media coverage, many have simply tuned out. Climate activism may contribute to disengagement, but I doubt it is the primary cause.
I was also unconvinced by the claim that only our great-great-grandchildren face catastrophic climate risks. Much depends on how "catastrophic" is defined. For those already experiencing deadly heatwaves and floods, catastrophe has arguably already arrived. More importantly, the scientific literature suggests that several potentially catastrophic outcomes, such as coral reef collapse, Amazon dieback, or major AMOC disruption, could occur this century. These risks remain uncertain, but they make it difficult to confidently claim that only distant future generations are at risk.
The biggest omission, however, is the mainstream net-zero/sustainable growth perspective. The piece moves from climate activists to de-growthers without acknowledging the dominant view in climate science and economics: extensive electrification combined with decarbonised electricity systems. Whether this ultimately succeeds remains uncertain, but it is backed by a substantial body of research. Given how central this perspective is to the debate, its absence felt strange.
More generally, I came away feeling that the piece presented your own position as the only enlightened one, with all others dismissed. Given the deep uncertainties surrounding this issue, such confidence seems difficult to justify, including with respect to the solution you favour.
My skepticism is towards dismissing individual actions as irrelevant. Protest has often been a force that changed human history (anti-apartheid, suffragettes, civil rights movements, etc). Climate action is not necessarily so different. It also is not to be dismissed as virtue signalling. Instead this is usually a signal of panic and alarm— for many parents it is simply doing whatever action is open to us.
Having read George Monbiot’s ‘Regenesis’, about land use, reducing meat consumption in large enough numbers, would perhaps put some pressure on food industries. Meanwhile, moving money out of banks that support fossil fuels, would send a message as well. It’s far from everything, but it’s not nothing either.
Our management of protein as a species is truly unsustainable (with the literal meaning that it cannot be sustained), so it’s not an insignificant field of protest to change our diets. And ‘following the money’ can also be significant.
But where it falls apart is that far too few people have the knowledge + appetite to change their habits on their own. It appears preachy to people who don’t grasp this. And systems are not in place to support massive changes in lifestyle. That renders it less relevant. It’s not *irrelevant*, though - it’s still part of the picture.
Do you think we can electrify airplanes and cargo ships and mining equipment and then have it all run on inherently intermittent renewables plus batteries (which would need a big increase in mining, with all the environmental costs that entails)? We can’t even keep the lights on in homes and factories without fossil fuels backing up renewables with dispatchable power. And that’s in jurisdictions which have embraced net zero!
My worry here is that all the optimistic talk of net zero via electrification will just lead to higher energy costs and more right wing populism.
Five years ago I would have bought this argument, but the cost curves of solar and now batteries torpedo it. We can decarbonize 70% of our economy with those two, and need nuclear in the medium term or just “more batteries and solar” in the long term to decarbonize the remaining 25%. From there, it’s basically niche solutions but doable with focus. We can decarbonize shipping with e-methanol for instance.
The question that I like is what do we owe future generations? I think we need geoengineering at some scale to go backwards and recapture some of the carbon.
My confidence is limited to the economics and the tech. The politics I am not confident on, but hopefully it will prove impossible to resist the low costs.
My scepticism is based on the tech. It doesn’t always get better. I’ve been hearing about radically better batteries for ages. Instead we get incremental improvements.
It seems to me that the technology is advancing at such a rapid pace that over time it’s quite plausible we could substantially electrify industry, and continue to lower the carbon intensity of the generation of that electricity.
The artificial ‘net zero by 2050’ deadline seems to be forcing this transition probably in a way that will spike energy costs significantly (in countries that actually seriously try) but absent that deadline I could see massive solar, storage, nuclear (fusion eventually?) providing massively abundant energy.
Hey Quico, this is great -- I think I might use it on the first day of my course on climate change. However, I would add one level between 3 and 4. This would be something like the "climate technocrat" level, which focuses exclusively on mitigation, and understands the superiority of pricing instruments over traditional command-and-control regulation. Personally, I find that this is the largest, hardest "leveling up" for students -- they need to get over the deontological mindset ("pollution is bad, we should ban it"), realize that it's an optimization problem ("how much GHG should we be emitting?"), get past all of the moralization objections to pricing ("it commodifies nature"), and figure out why permit trading and carbon taxation are equivalent policies. This is the level at which most people involved in serious policy debates find themselves (I think of the Pembina Institute as typical: https://www.pembina.org/). This is still not your level 4 though, because of the overwhelming focus on mitigation. The level beyond involves thinking more seriously about adaptation, SRM, NET, sequestration, as well as situating climate change in a basket of other issues.
Also, I should mention that I find myself somewhat self-conscious about having made my major contributions at level 5, precisely because it's not the most helpful level to be at, in terms of solving the actual problem at hand. The discounting issue is neat because it's the one point at which the very deep philosophical questions, about what it means to treat future generations fairly, intrude into the policy debates. But you don't want to hold policy hostage to the resolution of these deeper questions. So the "level" metaphor falls apart a bit between 4 and 5, because you don't want to imply that people at the higher level are necessarily seeing things more clearly.
The climate discussion has become so adversarial, we are still missing the foundational understanding of uncertainties tied to scientific interpretations and attribution of damaging changes to warming. Before we continue to spend trillions on Chinese manufactured equipment and lose our jobs and industry to high energy costs we need to achieve a real scientific consensus that doesn’t yet exist. We maybe inflicting massive economic and social damage trying to cure a problem whose potential impacts have been exaggerated.
What I like about this framework is that it treats climate engagement as a progression, not a personality trait. From my work in climate technology and carbon removal, I’ve seen how easily we jump from awareness straight to solutions without asking whether people understand the problem well enough to act on it.
That gap between knowing, caring, and actually changing behavior may be one of the most important pieces of the climate puzzle. 🌍
I am sorry to say it but I feel Nordhaus does not belong near the top of climate engagement. I feel he falls into Level -1 with the deniers & doubters.
This is because as a non climate scientist, he and his team gave a form of reassurance to people who are doubtful. He seemed to enormously ring fence his own perception of risk, & the perception of many in industry.
And not only Nordhaus, but about 20 other economists. I feel economists need to stop making such limited assumptions about the climate and how it interconnects with human industry. There are few externalities here! Many factors interlink. Try as we might we are still part of the natural world, and subject to it.
I like this and appreciate the approach of a typology. I would argue there’s a level between 4 and 5 that necessarily needs to focus on operationalising responses in a sociopolitical context. How do we build consensus/support to deploy technical approaches? How do we talk about it? How do we take small steps in a meaningful way? I think that’s the level that would capture this post and it’s where a big chunk of the climate NGO class is at. (Side note, the simplified villain stories you identify in large part come about as a strategic frame used by people who think it will work to build support, not because they actually believe it.)
I think you've left out essential issues that it is absolutely necessary to address if you want to elevate to level 4 and above: most people have lost faith in the institution of Science (capital S) ; Climate Research does not have enough hard data and relies too heavily on models; and lastly, there is grossly hyperbolic media coverage of those models.
To restore faith, all of the junk "science" must be dropped from consideration, all models must be made open source, and policy must be based on hard data. Then comments would say (accurately) that we accept the latest IPCC outlook that heat waves are becoming more common and more intense, but floods are not, and that overall impacts from this warming are that humans are better able to thrive in their environment than ever and that none of our best science shows above a low probability of these trends reversing.
After that, people would get on board with spending significant time and effort to test solutions that might be needed for future generations, because the mathematically inclined understand that the Science says "low" not "no". Manipulating the albedo or carbon capture? Sure thing. Or just build the reactors already and be done with it.
Well said! This is a great way to get people past the self made gulf of nihilism/ apathy about the climate future that only leaves them embittered without any positive impact. Degrowth as policy is of course a dead end and proscribing certain areas of research even worse. I think the most receptive nation to new approaches will be Japan and wish you every success in your efforts.
This is a constructive, positive and solution oriented approach to the climate challenge. We need more of this.
Anti-growth, anti-nuclear and a larger state are goals that many in the climate movement rate higher than climate solutions. Those categories are no better justified than the much maligned climate change denial category, yet each is far larger and more influential and each is granted honour rather than disdain.
The ability to achieve any kind of actionable consensus has been crippled by those who would hijack the fact of warming to achieve other ends. Since they won't be honest about the other ends they are automatically distrusted even as they sabotage productive consensus that is not aligned with their real agenda. Worse, the incentives are to not solve the problem as the existence of the problem is useful to maintain cover while advancing the real agenda.
Since almost anything that would work toward the climate runs afoul of one of those three things, little can be agreed.
Hi Quico. I always enjoy reading your blog, even when I disagree with parts of it. I found this piece particularly interesting because I take a somewhat similar approach when teaching my environmental economics course. That said, I felt the argument was rather one-sided and omitted some important considerations.
I broadly agree with the first two "levels", but I think public disengagement with climate change is more complex than simply reacting against climate activists. Climate change is a long-term, abstract issue, while most people are focused on immediate concerns. After years of constant media coverage, many have simply tuned out. Climate activism may contribute to disengagement, but I doubt it is the primary cause.
I was also unconvinced by the claim that only our great-great-grandchildren face catastrophic climate risks. Much depends on how "catastrophic" is defined. For those already experiencing deadly heatwaves and floods, catastrophe has arguably already arrived. More importantly, the scientific literature suggests that several potentially catastrophic outcomes, such as coral reef collapse, Amazon dieback, or major AMOC disruption, could occur this century. These risks remain uncertain, but they make it difficult to confidently claim that only distant future generations are at risk.
The biggest omission, however, is the mainstream net-zero/sustainable growth perspective. The piece moves from climate activists to de-growthers without acknowledging the dominant view in climate science and economics: extensive electrification combined with decarbonised electricity systems. Whether this ultimately succeeds remains uncertain, but it is backed by a substantial body of research. Given how central this perspective is to the debate, its absence felt strange.
More generally, I came away feeling that the piece presented your own position as the only enlightened one, with all others dismissed. Given the deep uncertainties surrounding this issue, such confidence seems difficult to justify, including with respect to the solution you favour.
Thanks for this! I started to write a reply here in comments and eventually realized I was writing a new post.
Which is here: https://www.onepercentbrighter.com/p/the-rounding-error-climate-activists
My skepticism is towards dismissing individual actions as irrelevant. Protest has often been a force that changed human history (anti-apartheid, suffragettes, civil rights movements, etc). Climate action is not necessarily so different. It also is not to be dismissed as virtue signalling. Instead this is usually a signal of panic and alarm— for many parents it is simply doing whatever action is open to us.
Having read George Monbiot’s ‘Regenesis’, about land use, reducing meat consumption in large enough numbers, would perhaps put some pressure on food industries. Meanwhile, moving money out of banks that support fossil fuels, would send a message as well. It’s far from everything, but it’s not nothing either.
Our management of protein as a species is truly unsustainable (with the literal meaning that it cannot be sustained), so it’s not an insignificant field of protest to change our diets. And ‘following the money’ can also be significant.
But where it falls apart is that far too few people have the knowledge + appetite to change their habits on their own. It appears preachy to people who don’t grasp this. And systems are not in place to support massive changes in lifestyle. That renders it less relevant. It’s not *irrelevant*, though - it’s still part of the picture.
Do you think we can electrify airplanes and cargo ships and mining equipment and then have it all run on inherently intermittent renewables plus batteries (which would need a big increase in mining, with all the environmental costs that entails)? We can’t even keep the lights on in homes and factories without fossil fuels backing up renewables with dispatchable power. And that’s in jurisdictions which have embraced net zero!
My worry here is that all the optimistic talk of net zero via electrification will just lead to higher energy costs and more right wing populism.
Five years ago I would have bought this argument, but the cost curves of solar and now batteries torpedo it. We can decarbonize 70% of our economy with those two, and need nuclear in the medium term or just “more batteries and solar” in the long term to decarbonize the remaining 25%. From there, it’s basically niche solutions but doable with focus. We can decarbonize shipping with e-methanol for instance.
The question that I like is what do we owe future generations? I think we need geoengineering at some scale to go backwards and recapture some of the carbon.
My confidence is limited to the economics and the tech. The politics I am not confident on, but hopefully it will prove impossible to resist the low costs.
My scepticism is based on the tech. It doesn’t always get better. I’ve been hearing about radically better batteries for ages. Instead we get incremental improvements.
I don’t share your confidence, but we’ll see.
It seems to me that the technology is advancing at such a rapid pace that over time it’s quite plausible we could substantially electrify industry, and continue to lower the carbon intensity of the generation of that electricity.
The artificial ‘net zero by 2050’ deadline seems to be forcing this transition probably in a way that will spike energy costs significantly (in countries that actually seriously try) but absent that deadline I could see massive solar, storage, nuclear (fusion eventually?) providing massively abundant energy.
Hey Quico, this is great -- I think I might use it on the first day of my course on climate change. However, I would add one level between 3 and 4. This would be something like the "climate technocrat" level, which focuses exclusively on mitigation, and understands the superiority of pricing instruments over traditional command-and-control regulation. Personally, I find that this is the largest, hardest "leveling up" for students -- they need to get over the deontological mindset ("pollution is bad, we should ban it"), realize that it's an optimization problem ("how much GHG should we be emitting?"), get past all of the moralization objections to pricing ("it commodifies nature"), and figure out why permit trading and carbon taxation are equivalent policies. This is the level at which most people involved in serious policy debates find themselves (I think of the Pembina Institute as typical: https://www.pembina.org/). This is still not your level 4 though, because of the overwhelming focus on mitigation. The level beyond involves thinking more seriously about adaptation, SRM, NET, sequestration, as well as situating climate change in a basket of other issues.
Also, I should mention that I find myself somewhat self-conscious about having made my major contributions at level 5, precisely because it's not the most helpful level to be at, in terms of solving the actual problem at hand. The discounting issue is neat because it's the one point at which the very deep philosophical questions, about what it means to treat future generations fairly, intrude into the policy debates. But you don't want to hold policy hostage to the resolution of these deeper questions. So the "level" metaphor falls apart a bit between 4 and 5, because you don't want to imply that people at the higher level are necessarily seeing things more clearly.
Thank you! This was a refreshing framing of the climate discussion.
I
The climate discussion has become so adversarial, we are still missing the foundational understanding of uncertainties tied to scientific interpretations and attribution of damaging changes to warming. Before we continue to spend trillions on Chinese manufactured equipment and lose our jobs and industry to high energy costs we need to achieve a real scientific consensus that doesn’t yet exist. We maybe inflicting massive economic and social damage trying to cure a problem whose potential impacts have been exaggerated.
What I like about this framework is that it treats climate engagement as a progression, not a personality trait. From my work in climate technology and carbon removal, I’ve seen how easily we jump from awareness straight to solutions without asking whether people understand the problem well enough to act on it.
That gap between knowing, caring, and actually changing behavior may be one of the most important pieces of the climate puzzle. 🌍
I am sorry to say it but I feel Nordhaus does not belong near the top of climate engagement. I feel he falls into Level -1 with the deniers & doubters.
This is because as a non climate scientist, he and his team gave a form of reassurance to people who are doubtful. He seemed to enormously ring fence his own perception of risk, & the perception of many in industry.
Professor Steve Keen highlights the fatal flaws in Nordhaus’s assumptions quite wittily here: https://www.ucl.ac.uk/news/2020/sep/nobel-prize-winning-economics-climate-change-misleading-and-dangerous-heres-why
And not only Nordhaus, but about 20 other economists. I feel economists need to stop making such limited assumptions about the climate and how it interconnects with human industry. There are few externalities here! Many factors interlink. Try as we might we are still part of the natural world, and subject to it.
I like this and appreciate the approach of a typology. I would argue there’s a level between 4 and 5 that necessarily needs to focus on operationalising responses in a sociopolitical context. How do we build consensus/support to deploy technical approaches? How do we talk about it? How do we take small steps in a meaningful way? I think that’s the level that would capture this post and it’s where a big chunk of the climate NGO class is at. (Side note, the simplified villain stories you identify in large part come about as a strategic frame used by people who think it will work to build support, not because they actually believe it.)
I think you've left out essential issues that it is absolutely necessary to address if you want to elevate to level 4 and above: most people have lost faith in the institution of Science (capital S) ; Climate Research does not have enough hard data and relies too heavily on models; and lastly, there is grossly hyperbolic media coverage of those models.
To restore faith, all of the junk "science" must be dropped from consideration, all models must be made open source, and policy must be based on hard data. Then comments would say (accurately) that we accept the latest IPCC outlook that heat waves are becoming more common and more intense, but floods are not, and that overall impacts from this warming are that humans are better able to thrive in their environment than ever and that none of our best science shows above a low probability of these trends reversing.
After that, people would get on board with spending significant time and effort to test solutions that might be needed for future generations, because the mathematically inclined understand that the Science says "low" not "no". Manipulating the albedo or carbon capture? Sure thing. Or just build the reactors already and be done with it.
Well said! This is a great way to get people past the self made gulf of nihilism/ apathy about the climate future that only leaves them embittered without any positive impact. Degrowth as policy is of course a dead end and proscribing certain areas of research even worse. I think the most receptive nation to new approaches will be Japan and wish you every success in your efforts.
This is a constructive, positive and solution oriented approach to the climate challenge. We need more of this.
Anti-growth, anti-nuclear and a larger state are goals that many in the climate movement rate higher than climate solutions. Those categories are no better justified than the much maligned climate change denial category, yet each is far larger and more influential and each is granted honour rather than disdain.
The ability to achieve any kind of actionable consensus has been crippled by those who would hijack the fact of warming to achieve other ends. Since they won't be honest about the other ends they are automatically distrusted even as they sabotage productive consensus that is not aligned with their real agenda. Worse, the incentives are to not solve the problem as the existence of the problem is useful to maintain cover while advancing the real agenda.
Since almost anything that would work toward the climate runs afoul of one of those three things, little can be agreed.