COOL IT - CHAPTER TWO:
In chapter two of Bjorn Lomborg's book, he asks several interesting questions about properly measuring the effects of global warming:
1. What happens when temperatures increase?
2. What can we do about this?
3. What does it cost?
Lomborg observes that the rate at which people are adding CO2 to our atmosphere is increasing, and this increase is contributing to the rise in temperatures. Furthermore, as nations such as China and India continue to develop, even more CO2 will be added, increasing the man-made greenhouse effect. {Curiously, he makes no immediate mention here of the minuscule proportion that CO2 represents among all of the greenhouse gases, but presumably we will come back to that later}.
Drawing on the computer modeling used in the United Nations' IPCC report, Lomborg notes that the IPCC has predicted a global rise in temperatures of 4.7 degress F by the year 2100. He also points out, however, that this "average" will not be equally distributed around the globe. Land warms up faster than the ocean, cities create "heat islands," and "cold" temperatures are warmed up faster than "warm" temperatures (in other words, temperatures at night and in the winter are increased faster than temperatures in the day and in summer; similarly, temperature rises will be greater in temperate and polar regions, and lesser in the equatorial regions).
The thrust of this chapter is to bring to the reader's attention the fact that global warming may have a net favorable effect on the rate of human deaths because, even though there may be more deaths from the additional heat in the warmer months and locations, there will be far fewer deaths during cold weather. Lomborg also begins to make the point here that there are cost-efficient ways to combat many of these warming trends that are nowhere near as expensive and wasteful as the much-touted Kyoto protocols (which require severe limitations on CO2 emissions). For instance, cities can dramatically reduce the heat-island effect by planting more trees, or by simply painting black asphalt white.
There's much more to chapter two, but that will have to do for now.
Comments (3)
I think there's a lot of value in your post and in this chapter. However, a few comments:
1) Lomborg makes a really good point about how cold-weather deaths outnumber heat-related deaths (I'll take his word for it, at least, since I haven't seen all the statistics myself). I think he's right that we sometimes focus on smaller problems (like heat-related deaths) without recognizing bigger problems (like people freezing).
However, I do have to critique Lomborg for failing to address (at least in this chapter) the main concern scientists have about a changing climate. It is not the temperature change in and of itself, but the changes in weather patterns and the like. For instance, we know that El Nino is caused at least in part by weakening trade winds in the Pacific, and we know that a smaller temperature difference between the poles and the equator usually causes trade winds to weaken. Thus scientists predict (and have so far been correct) that El Nino will tend to become stronger and more frequent. This could cause untold amounts of economic damage, since whole economic systems all around the Pacific are built around current (non-El Nino) weather patterns. Could we adapt to this and other changes? Without doubt. But what will it cost, how long will it take, and how many people will die while we're trying to adapt?
2) You mentioned "the minuscule proportion that CO2 represents among all of the greenhouse gases". This is true; however, while a small-scale gas, CO2 can have dramatic effects. While there is much less of it that water vapor, its per-molecule greenhouse contribution is far greater than that of water vapor, and methane has an even greater effect (although there's even less of it). As you and I both probably learned in Sunday School, the earth has an amazing balance that allows it to preserve life. If these things were off by just a little bit, they could make life impossible. While I'm not saying that climate change will make life impossible, it is a similar issue in that small changes can cause huge results.
3) Last: Lomborg is surely right about the cost of Kyoto, as opposed to the many cheaper things we could be doing to save human life. However, I think this book risks falling into a false dilemma that I find maddening: namely, either (1) global warming isn't happening, or at least there's nothing we can (or should) do about it; or (2) global warming is the worst crisis on earth, and we should respond by ratifying Kyoto. But there are other options that should be discussed. For instance, rather than simply forcing emissions down within the unsustainable structure of our current economic system (as Kyoto does, at huge cost), we could create incentives that will begin transforming our lifestyle and economies altogether. It's like when we made the move from horses to cars, or from typewriters to the Internet: government and business, together, created ways to use these new inventions to completely transform the way we live and do business, rather than forcing us to begin using these inventions within the old way of doing things. Does that make sense?
I'm interested in your comments.
@upsidedownkingdom - I will try to reply in more detail a little later, but for now just let me say that I think Lomborg's approach is very, very close to what you propose. He falls into neither of the extremes that you identified, and calls for sensible measures that address the most serious problems first, with the most cost-effective measures first.
Well, that's good. I'll keep reading. looking forward to more discussion!