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From the Lutzowufer: Climate Change
- Posted by Bright Simons
- On October 23, 2008
Indur Goklany works part of the time for the American Federal Government. Which I presume is like saying Al Gore works for Apple. The public persona of Dr. Goklany is defined by other commitments.
The Electrical Engineer turned world leader in public policy analysis is known more for his incessant, unrelenting, insistence on objective, empirical, analysis as the bedrock of sound economics-informed political discussion. He lives up to this role as a freethinking, freelancing, round-the-globe harbinger of sober reason.
So you will expect Indur to show up at a discussion about how to reconcile seemingly disparate environmental and free market ethics. Big, complex, subject of global essence and significance. He did. A few days ago in Berlin I was able to partake in a wide-ranging conversation involving some very passionate people, of which, to my great delight, Indur was an enthusiastic participant too.
In a later posting, I might try to generate a readable transcript of some of the eclectic dialogues for the benefit of those who may be interested. This time however I thought I had share a few of the dozens of insights Indur Goklany sprinkled all over the Lützowufer in the few days we spent in Berlin.
A kind of public-discourse consensus now exists that Climate Change is a bad thing. In a certain logical formulation one might put this as meaning: ‘regardless what residual discomfort the notion of Climate Change may hold for some people, if indeed it is occurring then it would bring disaster to many, especially those in the poorest parts of the world’. Another way of saying this is that if Climate Change forecasts come to pass, this planet in the future will certainly be a worse place than it is now.
Indur claims that according to the very reports and figures (the latter especially) based upon which that assertion is usually made, the opposite is true!
He produced several analyses of the Stern Review’s numbers which strongly indicate that in the forecast being adduced the warmest scenario (A1F1) also yields the most favourable economic indicators at least until 2100.
Indur has a respectable number of publications to his credit that make this case in rigorous fashion. His prescriptions in view of the foregoing analysis are oriented in favour of ‘improving the adaptive capacity’ of the most vulnerable regions in the world since by so doing existing problems that are merely exacerbated, rather than created, in the forecasted scenarios will also be addressed.
According to him the full mitigation strategy suggested by Stern-type analyses (such as the Fast-Track Assessment) lead to reduced adaptive capacity in the poorest countries for the reason that it lowers overall global growth. He takes particular issue with the notion of poorer present-day generations underwriting risks for the benefit of richer future generations. In his view this is both philosophically and economically untenable.
Of course this line of reasoning is controversial, and other speakers had their own ideas, but it is also intellectually provoking. I am a bad ventriloquist, so those genuinely interested should check out Indur’s own writings.
In a closely-related development, I endured the agony of sitting through some tired-sounding presentations about the use of ‘market’ instruments to address the climate change crisis, to wit: emissions trading.
My conviction is hardening that emissions trading is probably not market-based at all. I understand its proponents claim for it political market status, since the underlying exchange mechanism is created by governments. O well. Maybe we can solve tobacco ‘addiction’ by auctioning off ‘rights to smoke’ as well. I am just a wee bit skeptical. A market, in my admittedly old-fashioned view, should have some underlying asset-utility loop based upon which voluntary exchange (and even speculation) revolves around the eventual maximization of inter-party welfare. Government-created negative-obligations seem like a very weird sort of asset-class.
I know. I know. You are probably whispering ‘mortgage-backed derivatives’ or some such delight. But perhaps that’s my point exactly.
Well, whatever. Just random musings from the Lützowufer.
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Kevin Long Says
If "A kind of public-discourse consensus now exists that Climate Change is a bad thing" - why are so many people still ignoring it?
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