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On August 23 2013 14:54 GreenGringo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 05:55 Darkwhite wrote:On August 23 2013 03:15 GreenGringo wrote:On August 23 2013 01:58 Darkwhite wrote:
I bear the burden of proof, and you are not going to bother reading up on whatever proof I might present. A single graph can be brushed aside as insignificant, while real reading is off the table as something you can't be expected to do. Not much to say other than that your reading comprehension sucks or you're lying. The "proof" I was referring to was the proof of your claim that climate scientists arrive at their models by playing with free variables. A claim which you still have failed to corroborate. The burden is on YOU to prove that -- not on me to chase up the paper trail stemming from your fourth-hand source. A 14-year-old could come in here, disagree with climate scientists and say "Climate scientists are using random equations -- here is a body of literature that proves I'm right". The null hypothesis is he's bullshitting and unless he gives compelling scholarly arguments or a very detailed reference (citation together with quotations or page number -- not a paper trail), then proving him wrong is almost certainly not going to be worth the time investment. They are not using random equations. They are basing their equations on data, which is what every sensible science must do. However, the observations made prior to the model being published is both being used explicitly, to determine empirical constants, and implicitly, to discard models with poor match. For this reason, backwards matching is at best very tenuous proof of the models' validity. Logic isn't your forte, as we see once again. I used the random equations thing as an EXAMPLE of the kind of thing that is equivalent to what you did. Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 05:55 Darkwhite wrote:As an example, I have explained how I can fit any dataset to any level of accuracy by doing a simple Fourier expansion. This is, of course, the extreme end of using only free variables. I am not suggesting that climate scientists are literally doing this. What I am saying is some free variable selection bias will still sneak in, by the two mechanisms explained in the above paragraph, and the best way to gauge the model independent of this is to focus on its forwards predictive accuracy. And because no half-competent climate scientist in the world would even dream of calling on this method, your point would appear to be pretty much irrelevant. Unless of course you can prove that they're less than half-competent. Which you can't.
No climate scientist would dream of discarding models which don't match historical developments? No climate scientist would dream of using observations of CO2's significance in the past to estimate its heating effect? Congratulations on being flat out wrong.
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On August 23 2013 19:57 Darkwhite wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 14:54 GreenGringo wrote:On August 23 2013 05:55 Darkwhite wrote:On August 23 2013 03:15 GreenGringo wrote:On August 23 2013 01:58 Darkwhite wrote:
I bear the burden of proof, and you are not going to bother reading up on whatever proof I might present. A single graph can be brushed aside as insignificant, while real reading is off the table as something you can't be expected to do. Not much to say other than that your reading comprehension sucks or you're lying. The "proof" I was referring to was the proof of your claim that climate scientists arrive at their models by playing with free variables. A claim which you still have failed to corroborate. The burden is on YOU to prove that -- not on me to chase up the paper trail stemming from your fourth-hand source. A 14-year-old could come in here, disagree with climate scientists and say "Climate scientists are using random equations -- here is a body of literature that proves I'm right". The null hypothesis is he's bullshitting and unless he gives compelling scholarly arguments or a very detailed reference (citation together with quotations or page number -- not a paper trail), then proving him wrong is almost certainly not going to be worth the time investment. They are not using random equations. They are basing their equations on data, which is what every sensible science must do. However, the observations made prior to the model being published is both being used explicitly, to determine empirical constants, and implicitly, to discard models with poor match. For this reason, backwards matching is at best very tenuous proof of the models' validity. Logic isn't your forte, as we see once again. I used the random equations thing as an EXAMPLE of the kind of thing that is equivalent to what you did. On August 23 2013 05:55 Darkwhite wrote:As an example, I have explained how I can fit any dataset to any level of accuracy by doing a simple Fourier expansion. This is, of course, the extreme end of using only free variables. I am not suggesting that climate scientists are literally doing this. What I am saying is some free variable selection bias will still sneak in, by the two mechanisms explained in the above paragraph, and the best way to gauge the model independent of this is to focus on its forwards predictive accuracy. And because no half-competent climate scientist in the world would even dream of calling on this method, your point would appear to be pretty much irrelevant. Unless of course you can prove that they're less than half-competent. Which you can't. No climate scientist would dream of discarding models which don't match historical developments? No climate scientist would dream of using observations of CO2's significance in the past to estimate its heating effect? Congratulations on being flat out wrong. Are you sure you have a master's degree in science? Almost every single post of yours speaks to the intellectual standards of a not-too-bright high school student. You persistently fail in your reading comprehension, twist my words in the most shameless fashion, and you seem to be incapable of coherently following the thread of a debate for even a couple of posts.
My point, manifestly, was that climate scientists wouldn't dream of "doing a simple Fourier expansion" to retrospectively "fit any dataset". Rather they start with physically realistic assumptions and boundary conditions that fit the known values. When boundary conditions are unknown they use techniques from statistical mechanics. They solve differential equations and then get the plot and compare it with the actual plot of change in global mean temperature with time. My point should have been perfectly clear in the context of this debate in which I am taking you to task for your insinuation that climate scientists might have done nothing but tinker with "free variables".
That was bullshit and I'm calling you on it. I'm saying that there's not a snowball's chance in hell that such an obviously bogus procedure (arriving at a model by designing an artificial curve to retrospectively fit a dataset) would have passed the peer review process. If you have proof of the contrary, let's see it. Support your insinuations about scientific standards in that discipline (in which there's many high-profile physicists working), or otherwise don't make them.
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On August 23 2013 05:54 dabbeljuh wrote:Hey Tallmax, Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 04:33 TallMax wrote:
Hey there, I've got a few questions for the climate scientists in the thread. My background is chemistry and optics, so please excuse me if this comes off as dumb, but, when you develop the climate models, do you really just solve N-dimensional systems of equations? One of Darkwhite's problems seems to be that, if you take the available data, assume it is a function of N-variables, fit the variables over a given time period and, if it's not accurate enough, do it for N+1, you'll eventually be able to fit the previously-observed trends. But, is this how the models are actually developed? Or, do you model the Earth simply as a rotating sphere(oid) with specific thermodynamic assumptions (energy input from the sun, dissipation across the earth, different absorption properties in different areas, etc.) and let the model run starting at time=150+ years ago? Then, if it doesn't match observations, add the effects of volcanoes, ocean currents, etc. It seems that in the former, Darkwhite's concerns certainly are legitimate, but in the latter, you cannot really argue against adding MORE information into a simulation. I don't mean to make it sound like Darkwhite is arguing against adding more information into a simulation, his comments seem more directed to solving arbitrary N-dimensional systems.
. It is more similar to your second variant: the models people usually call climate models are a coupled system of two global fluid solvers: atmosphere and ocean. Those are - in a very simple way - just equations of motion of air and water. Coupled into these systems are radiative transfer models, that simulate what sunshine does when it hits water, particles or ground. At the ocean atmosphere interface there are simulators, that activate when ice forms and that change in the following albedo, surface roughness and so on. In the end result, these system are just "started" from a steady state of atmosphere and ocean in rest. Given a rotatingn Earth and a resulting daily radiation forcing, the system starts to oscillate, move, behave chaotically. This is the so called preindustrial control, a steady state of an ever changing Earth. Already here, things like El Nino, the QBO, Moonsson, Tornados and stuff just start via emergence in the system. They are not "put into the model", they are exhibited by the model because it simulates the physical basis of the system. Then, starting from the 1850s, a forcing is put into the system, telling the atmosphere, how much CO2 , also from human emissions, from volcanoes et cetera has been there as far as we know. The system is run for 150 years and reacts to that forcing and in the result we see two lines: a more or less continous "control" and the socalled "historical" run. From 2000 on, we only subscribe solar and CO2 (and aerosol, and xxx )forcing, no volcanoes anymore because we cannot predict them. This is why the curves get smoother. So, in a way we let the model run, but we always have to feed it with boundary conditions. OVerall, we treat Earth as a stochastic partial differential euqation with time dependent boundary conditions, if this is of any help. Feel free to ask again if this is too technical / not technical enough  Best regards W
Thanks me buddy! That was a perfectly-balanced technical/non-technical summary (at least for me it was). It's nice to hear about which factors make it into the model. Very helpful!
Best,
-Tallmax
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On August 23 2013 20:58 GreenGringo wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 19:57 Darkwhite wrote:On August 23 2013 14:54 GreenGringo wrote:On August 23 2013 05:55 Darkwhite wrote:On August 23 2013 03:15 GreenGringo wrote:On August 23 2013 01:58 Darkwhite wrote:
I bear the burden of proof, and you are not going to bother reading up on whatever proof I might present. A single graph can be brushed aside as insignificant, while real reading is off the table as something you can't be expected to do. Not much to say other than that your reading comprehension sucks or you're lying. The "proof" I was referring to was the proof of your claim that climate scientists arrive at their models by playing with free variables. A claim which you still have failed to corroborate. The burden is on YOU to prove that -- not on me to chase up the paper trail stemming from your fourth-hand source. A 14-year-old could come in here, disagree with climate scientists and say "Climate scientists are using random equations -- here is a body of literature that proves I'm right". The null hypothesis is he's bullshitting and unless he gives compelling scholarly arguments or a very detailed reference (citation together with quotations or page number -- not a paper trail), then proving him wrong is almost certainly not going to be worth the time investment. They are not using random equations. They are basing their equations on data, which is what every sensible science must do. However, the observations made prior to the model being published is both being used explicitly, to determine empirical constants, and implicitly, to discard models with poor match. For this reason, backwards matching is at best very tenuous proof of the models' validity. Logic isn't your forte, as we see once again. I used the random equations thing as an EXAMPLE of the kind of thing that is equivalent to what you did. On August 23 2013 05:55 Darkwhite wrote:As an example, I have explained how I can fit any dataset to any level of accuracy by doing a simple Fourier expansion. This is, of course, the extreme end of using only free variables. I am not suggesting that climate scientists are literally doing this. What I am saying is some free variable selection bias will still sneak in, by the two mechanisms explained in the above paragraph, and the best way to gauge the model independent of this is to focus on its forwards predictive accuracy. And because no half-competent climate scientist in the world would even dream of calling on this method, your point would appear to be pretty much irrelevant. Unless of course you can prove that they're less than half-competent. Which you can't. No climate scientist would dream of discarding models which don't match historical developments? No climate scientist would dream of using observations of CO2's significance in the past to estimate its heating effect? Congratulations on being flat out wrong. Are you sure you have a master's degree in science? Almost every single post of yours speaks to the intellectual standards of a not-too-bright high school student. You persistently fail in your reading comprehension, twist my words in the most shameless fashion, and you seem to be incapable of coherently following the thread of a debate for even a couple of posts. My point, manifestly, was that climate scientists wouldn't dream of "doing a simple Fourier expansion" to retrospectively "fit any dataset". Rather they start with physically realistic assumptions and boundary conditions that fit the known values. When boundary conditions are unknown they use techniques from statistical mechanics. They solve differential equations and then get the plot and compare it with the actual plot of change in global mean temperature with time. My point should have been perfectly clear in the context of this debate in which I am taking you to task for your insinuation that climate scientists might have done nothing but tinker with "free variables". That was bullshit and I'm calling you on it. I'm saying that there's not a snowball's chance in hell that such an obviously bogus procedure (arriving at a model by designing an artificial curve to retrospectively fit a dataset) would have passed the peer review process. If you have proof of the contrary, let's see it. Support your insinuations about scientific standards in that discipline (in which there's many high-profile physicists working), or otherwise don't make them.
So, the this method in your post referred specifically to what I did not suggest climate scientists were doing, and not the two mechanisms I suggested do affect their models? That's very counter intuitive.
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On August 23 2013 01:11 dabbeljuh wrote:Dear Legor, Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 00:17 legor wrote:
Nobody knows if the net effects would be good or bad, and probably nobody can know. We are talking, after all, about effects across the world over a century. How accurately could somebody in 1900 have predicted what would matter to human life in 2000? What reason do we have to think we can do better?
Should we, for instance, assume that Bangladesh will still be a poor country a century hence, or that it will by then have followed the path blazed by South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong—and so be in a position to dike its coast, as Holland did several centuries ago, or move housing some miles further inland, at a cost that can be paid out of petty change? Should we assume that population increase makes agricultural land more valuable and the expansion of the area over which crops can be grown more important, or that improvements in crop yield make it less? While there may be people who believe that they know the answer to such questions, the numbers required to justify such belief are at best educated guesses, in most cases closer to pure invention. Someone who wants to prove that global warming is bad can make high estimates for the costs, low estimates for the benefits, and so prove his case to his own satisfaction. Someone with the opposite agenda can reverse the process and prove his case equally well.
If we cannot calculate in any detail what the actual consequences of global warming and associated costs and benefits will be, an alternative is to ask whether we have any reason to expect, a priori, that costs will be larger than benefits. There are, I think, two answers.
The first is that any change, whether warming or cooling, is presumptively bad, because current human activity is optimized against current conditions. Farmers grow crops suited to the climate where they are growing them; a change in climate will require a costly change in what they grow and how they grow it. Houses are designed for the climate they are built in and located in places not expected, under current circumstances, to flood. Putting it in economic terms, we have born sunk costs based on the current environment, and a change in that environment will eliminate some of the quasi-rents that we expected as the return for those costs.
This is a real argument against rapid change. But the global warming controversy involves changes over not a year or a decade but a century. Over a century, most farmers will change the crop they find it most profitable to grow multiple times; if average temperatures are trending up, those changes will include a shift towards crops better suited to slightly warmer weather. Over a century, most houses will be torn down and replaced; if sea level is rising, houses currently built on low lying coastal ground will be rebuilt a little farther inland—not much farther if we are talking, as the IPCC estimates suggest we should be, about a rise of a foot or two. Hence the presumption that change is bad is a very weak one for changes as slow as those we have good reason to expect from global warming.
It is hard to see any other reason to expect gobal warming to make us, on net, worse off. The earth and its climate were not, after all, designed for our convenience, so there is no good reason to believe that their current state is optimal for us. It is true that our species evolved to survive under then existing climatic conditions but, over the period for which humans have existed, climate has varied by considerably more than the changes being predicted for global warming. And, for the past many thousands of years, humans have lived and prospered over a range of climates much larger than the range that we expect the climate at any particular location to change by.
If we have no good reason to believe that humans will be substantially worse off after global warming than before, we have no good reason to believe that it is worth bearing sizable costs to prevent global warming.
This is a considerate post, and I think it is much more rational to discuss policy options and reasons for them than to attack the underlying science. Just a few quick comments (most of them personally, because I dont have much professional experience with climat eimpact studies): I personally agree that agriculture will be fine. There is enough money behind it, people will find plants that grow. Additionally, the time scale of changes is slow wrt agriculture. But, see last point. I personally dont agree about sea level rise: wrt to migration of up to billions, the time scales are slow but still significant. It is technically feasible, sure, but it will involve gigantic political and economic costs to move or protect century old cities (this will btw not e necessary in 2100 by any means, this is more a even longer term thing). Last point: besides direct temperature and precipitation influence, the result of climate change that will most likely be massively detrimental to us, already in this century, will be changes or increases in weather extrems, like monsoons, dry periods, cold winters, hot summers, and so on. In summary: if we believe that a "business as usual" policy will strengthen local economy and adaptation potential, it might be a viable political strategy to say, lets ignore CO2 right now and hope that we will be able to deal with it later. There are economists who say that this is probably not beneficial to the global GDP, but who know sif this is the relevant metric, after all.It is however, a policy not on the side of caution and restraint wrt to our following fellow humans, so I personally would not follow said policy. It will also blame most of the burdens of todays and yesterdays emissions on developing countries in asia and Africa, which again is okay for a realistic policy, but nothing I would argue for. But that is one of the aforementioned value decisions, not a scientific one. Best regards, W
And that's the problem. So, we know that the impact of greenhouse gas emissions is going to happen very slowly. Most of the impact would happen after 50 years, maybe 100 years. And the problem is that if the discount rate is a large number--it's even 3 or 4%, then any benefit that we are going to get by reducing emissions today is just not going to be worth very much if that benefit happens 100 years from now.
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On August 24 2013 05:13 legor wrote:Show nested quote +On August 23 2013 01:11 dabbeljuh wrote:Dear Legor, On August 23 2013 00:17 legor wrote:
Nobody knows if the net effects would be good or bad, and probably nobody can know. We are talking, after all, about effects across the world over a century. How accurately could somebody in 1900 have predicted what would matter to human life in 2000? What reason do we have to think we can do better?
Should we, for instance, assume that Bangladesh will still be a poor country a century hence, or that it will by then have followed the path blazed by South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong—and so be in a position to dike its coast, as Holland did several centuries ago, or move housing some miles further inland, at a cost that can be paid out of petty change? Should we assume that population increase makes agricultural land more valuable and the expansion of the area over which crops can be grown more important, or that improvements in crop yield make it less? While there may be people who believe that they know the answer to such questions, the numbers required to justify such belief are at best educated guesses, in most cases closer to pure invention. Someone who wants to prove that global warming is bad can make high estimates for the costs, low estimates for the benefits, and so prove his case to his own satisfaction. Someone with the opposite agenda can reverse the process and prove his case equally well.
If we cannot calculate in any detail what the actual consequences of global warming and associated costs and benefits will be, an alternative is to ask whether we have any reason to expect, a priori, that costs will be larger than benefits. There are, I think, two answers.
The first is that any change, whether warming or cooling, is presumptively bad, because current human activity is optimized against current conditions. Farmers grow crops suited to the climate where they are growing them; a change in climate will require a costly change in what they grow and how they grow it. Houses are designed for the climate they are built in and located in places not expected, under current circumstances, to flood. Putting it in economic terms, we have born sunk costs based on the current environment, and a change in that environment will eliminate some of the quasi-rents that we expected as the return for those costs.
This is a real argument against rapid change. But the global warming controversy involves changes over not a year or a decade but a century. Over a century, most farmers will change the crop they find it most profitable to grow multiple times; if average temperatures are trending up, those changes will include a shift towards crops better suited to slightly warmer weather. Over a century, most houses will be torn down and replaced; if sea level is rising, houses currently built on low lying coastal ground will be rebuilt a little farther inland—not much farther if we are talking, as the IPCC estimates suggest we should be, about a rise of a foot or two. Hence the presumption that change is bad is a very weak one for changes as slow as those we have good reason to expect from global warming.
It is hard to see any other reason to expect gobal warming to make us, on net, worse off. The earth and its climate were not, after all, designed for our convenience, so there is no good reason to believe that their current state is optimal for us. It is true that our species evolved to survive under then existing climatic conditions but, over the period for which humans have existed, climate has varied by considerably more than the changes being predicted for global warming. And, for the past many thousands of years, humans have lived and prospered over a range of climates much larger than the range that we expect the climate at any particular location to change by.
If we have no good reason to believe that humans will be substantially worse off after global warming than before, we have no good reason to believe that it is worth bearing sizable costs to prevent global warming.
This is a considerate post, and I think it is much more rational to discuss policy options and reasons for them than to attack the underlying science. Just a few quick comments (most of them personally, because I dont have much professional experience with climat eimpact studies): I personally agree that agriculture will be fine. There is enough money behind it, people will find plants that grow. Additionally, the time scale of changes is slow wrt agriculture. But, see last point. I personally dont agree about sea level rise: wrt to migration of up to billions, the time scales are slow but still significant. It is technically feasible, sure, but it will involve gigantic political and economic costs to move or protect century old cities (this will btw not e necessary in 2100 by any means, this is more a even longer term thing). Last point: besides direct temperature and precipitation influence, the result of climate change that will most likely be massively detrimental to us, already in this century, will be changes or increases in weather extrems, like monsoons, dry periods, cold winters, hot summers, and so on. In summary: if we believe that a "business as usual" policy will strengthen local economy and adaptation potential, it might be a viable political strategy to say, lets ignore CO2 right now and hope that we will be able to deal with it later. There are economists who say that this is probably not beneficial to the global GDP, but who know sif this is the relevant metric, after all.It is however, a policy not on the side of caution and restraint wrt to our following fellow humans, so I personally would not follow said policy. It will also blame most of the burdens of todays and yesterdays emissions on developing countries in asia and Africa, which again is okay for a realistic policy, but nothing I would argue for. But that is one of the aforementioned value decisions, not a scientific one. Best regards, W And that's the problem. So, we know that the impact of greenhouse gas emissions is going to happen very slowly. Most of the impact would happen after 50 years, maybe 100 years. And the problem is that if the discount rate is a large number--it's even 3 or 4%, then any benefit that we are going to get by reducing emissions today is just not going to be worth very much if that benefit happens 100 years from now.
It's possible that people 100 years from now would think it was worth it though right?
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I f we have a realistic discount rate of 3%, 100$ that we would spend today will be worth ~2000$ in 2113. Considering we would need to spend billions to have any effect, it seems hard to believe that it will be worth it in 100 years. Especially because we have no idea what technology we will have available in 100 years and they will have our saved capital available.
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Considering that the USA spends 600 billion annually on defense, I'm not strongly convinced that "considering we would need to spend billions to have any effect, it seems hard to believe that it will be worth it in 100 years," is a good reason against putting billions into something like reducing the human contribution to rising CO2 levels. Spending billions isn't the problem if there is value in it. It boils down to whether or not you think making sacrifices now for the sake of those living years from now is worth it.
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On August 24 2013 06:39 FallDownMarigold wrote:
Considering that the USA spends 600 billion annually on defense, I'm not strongly convinced that "considering we would need to spend billions to have any effect, it seems hard to believe that it will be worth it in 100 years," is a good reason against putting billions into something like reducing the human contribution to rising CO2 levels. Spending billions isn't the problem if there is value in it. It boils down to whether or not you think making sacrifices now for the sake of those living years from now is worth it.
If we spend a billion now. That is 20 billion in 100 years. We do not only make sacrifices for us right now, but also for the future. So yes, spending billions is a problem.
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On August 24 2013 06:52 legor wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2013 06:39 FallDownMarigold wrote:
Considering that the USA spends 600 billion annually on defense, I'm not strongly convinced that "considering we would need to spend billions to have any effect, it seems hard to believe that it will be worth it in 100 years," is a good reason against putting billions into something like reducing the human contribution to rising CO2 levels. Spending billions isn't the problem if there is value in it. It boils down to whether or not you think making sacrifices now for the sake of those living years from now is worth it. If we spend a billion now. That is 20 billion in 100 years. We do not only make sacrifices for us right now, but also for the future. So yes, spending billions is a problem.
It's clearly not a problem. Hundreds upon hundreds of billions are spent each year. Deciding where the values lie is the problem.
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I am afraid you still do not understand the magnitude of the issue.
We have two choices:
1. We spend 1 billion to reduce the temperature by x%
2. we do not spend 1 billion to reduce the temperature by x%, but rather invest it
the consequences in 100 years are:
1. the temperature is reduced by x%
2. the people have 20 billion which they can either invest in new technologies to reduce the temperature or use the money to adjust to the temperature increase.
You do not give any arguments why the value of x% temperature decrease is more than the value we could get in 100 years with improved technology and 20 times the amount of money available. Which is in fact not possible, think back to 1913 no one had any idea how the world would look in today. It is simply not imaginable how much more advanced we will be in the future.
(it is completly irrelevant that we spend x billion today on this cause you disagree with, or this other cause you disagree with)
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On August 24 2013 18:26 legor wrote:
I am afraid you still do not understand the magnitude of the issue.
We have two choices:
1. We spend 1 billion to reduce the temperature by x%
2. we do not spend 1 billion to reduce the temperature by x%, but rather invest it
the consequences in 100 years are:
1. the temperature is reduced by x%
2. the people have 20 billion which they can either invest in new technologies to reduce the temperature or use the money to adjust to the temperature increase.
You do not give any arguments why the value of x% temperature decrease is more than the value we could get in 100 years with improved technology and 20 times the amount of money available. Which is in fact not possible, think back to 1913 no one had any idea how the world would look in today. It is simply not imaginable how much more advanced we will be in the future.
(it is completly irrelevant that we spend x billion today on this cause you disagree with, or this other cause you disagree with)
Yes, investing monney is the secret and magical way to create wealth out of absolutely nothing.
Invest 1b today and have 20b worth of wealth created in 100 years. Unfortunatly it does not work like this.
Not all investments are this succesfull in adding wealth to the economy and not every way in wich monney is spend is an investment, A huge part of monney spend goes into consuming, either directly or via investments aimed at increasing production of consumer goods.
You can also argue from a different direction. Every 1b dollar now is only worth 50m dollar in 100 years, so when looking back from the future every billion spend only realy was 50m spend. This way it becomes realy cheap to make thoose investments now
Just lend/create 600b at 0.1% interest to spend on reducing co2, we will have to pay back 600b in 100 years from now but then that 600b will be the equivalent of 30b today. It will be peanuts for our children to pay off that debt.
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We talk about money/capital. The economic growth from 1950-2000 was 3,5%. That means if there is 1b more money in 1950 in the economy you will have 6 billion more in the economy in 2000.
Your "arguing" from the different direction is wrong. Every 1b now is only worth 50m in 100 years. That means 1b we invest today are the equivalent of 50m invested in 100y. That means instead of spending 1b today we can equivalently spend 50m in the future. What is more efficient?
Your lend/create example is very confused.
1. You cannot simply "create/lend" money with no impact on the economy. It is money/capital that is taken away form productive activiy.
2. if you put that small problem aside and lets just say you could do that 600b borrowed money spend today will be a debt of 660b in 100 years (not peanuts).
3. Sure you will get some benefits, but how do you know those benefits are bigger than the normal return of 600b invested in the normal economy? You don't. just as you don't know that the benefits today are bigger than future benefits (think of technology, more knowledge).
The only way to get a perspective on this is our history. Very often it there was said to be some shortage (e.g. food:Malthus, Oil: Club of Rome) but every time those predictions turned out wrong because technology is not static. To make a strong case for spending billions now you must make your case why it is different this time around.
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DEar legor,
On August 24 2013 19:54 legor wrote:
Your "arguing" from the different direction is wrong. Every 1b now is only worth 50m in 100 years. That means 1b we invest today are the equivalent of 50m invested in 100y. That means instead of spending 1b today we can equivalently spend 50m in the future. What is more efficient?
ACtually discount rate works the other way round, a billion invested now is worth a lot of money in 100 years,but say a billion damages in 100 years is discounted to be euivalent to a damage of 50m today.
Otherwise, i agree with your discussion on this page: the point is, the choice of the discount rate is a value decision, you cannot just take average growth over the last 50 years. What the discount rate really means (besides inflation adjustment), is that we discount the damages in the cost function that optimises GDP development. And depending on how high you choose the discount rate, the resulting "optimal" economic policy will be heavy mitigation or heavy adaptation. (see for example the Stern report for an example of low discount rate and many other reports that propagate adaptation for high discount rates).
In the end, all I want to say is: there is no "science" behind choosing the discount rate, it is the much discussed value decision our generation has to take. Some calculations show that climate damages will amount up to several percet of global GDP in the future, and that a much smaller investment today might change that. I am not completely sure what is the optimal strategy, but in life usually not one extreme (either adaptation or mitigation) is the best solution but a healthy compromise.
Just a mathematical tidbit: we only scientifically "need" the discount rate because the cost functions are otherwise non integrable which would mess up all the econmic math =)
The only way to get a perspective on this is our history. Very often it there was said to be some shortage (e.g. food:Malthus, Oil: Club of Rome) but every time those predictions turned out wrong because technology is not static. To make a strong case for spending billions now you must make your case why it is different this time around.
Valid point concerning resources, but the climate "problem" is more a pollution than a resource problem. And we have never in the history of industrial civilation found a way to deal with a "commons" problem like that in a rational way, because people can always profit from pollution, but the costs are global. so lets hope in your point of view, that we will find a solution in time (even while I would argue for a healthy combination of efficient mitigation of CO2 emissions + investment to increase adaptaion capabilities in vulnerable regions. we will not "prevent" climate change anyway, we can just slow it down=)
Best regards
W
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On August 24 2013 19:54 legor wrote:
We talk about money/capital. The economic growth from 1950-2000 was 3,5%. That means if there is 1b more money in 1950 in the economy you will have 6 billion more in the economy in 2000.
Your "arguing" from the different direction is wrong. Every 1b now is only worth 50m in 100 years. That means 1b we invest today are the equivalent of 50m invested in 100y. That means instead of spending 1b today we can equivalently spend 50m in the future. What is more efficient?
Your lend/create example is very confused.
1. You cannot simply "create/lend" money with no impact on the economy. It is money/capital that is taken away form productive activiy.
2. if you put that small problem aside and lets just say you could do that 600b borrowed money spend today will be a debt of 660b in 100 years (not peanuts).
3. Sure you will get some benefits, but how do you know those benefits are bigger than the normal return of 600b invested in the normal economy? You don't. just as you don't know that the benefits today are bigger than future benefits (think of technology, more knowledge).
The only way to get a perspective on this is our history. Very often it there was said to be some shortage (e.g. food:Malthus, Oil: Club of Rome) but every time those predictions turned out wrong because technology is not static. To make a strong case for spending billions now you must make your case why it is different this time around.
The economic growth from 1950-2000 was 3,5%. That means if there is 1b more money in 1950 in the economy you will have 6 billion more in the economy in 2000.
Real economic growth is not a function of monney though, and who is to say that investing in renewable energy would have yield worse results then investing in car production?
You can double the amount of monney but then all prices will just double ,there wont be more real economic growth just because there is more monney.
Real economic growth only depends on population growth and technological developments wich increase labour productivity. Not every dollar spend in 1950 was spend on research and improving the economic output on a long time scale, alot of the resources where spend on consuming and investments wich support consuming, and wich add virtually nothing to the wealth of society in the long run.
For example:every dollar spend on develloping new cars in the 50,s now is kinda useless. They barely contributed to important technological advances and none of the cars made in the 50,s still runs today.The massive amount of monney/resources wich goes into develloping new cars wich are only verry slightly better then the previous model is mostly a waste for the economy in the verry long run.If that monney and resources were spend on develloping renewable energy resources instead we might have had a way bigger return on those dollars/resources.
Annyway i do agree with your closing statement and i do think technology will solve all our problems but technology does not come from out of nowhere, we have to throw monney and resources at it. And because the goal is beyond the direct needs of the average individual consumer we have to do this by some other means then simply let the consumer decide with their wallet where the monney goes to.
For example: you have 1 human and 100 monkeys on an island, if you then let the monkeys decide where to spend the monney on, they will all buy bananas. While the human would invest some of the monney in a banana tree.
Best for the long run would be to spend everything on banana trees and buy just enough bananas to survive till the first time you can harvest the trees, but that wont ever happen if you let the monkeys vote with their wallets.
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On August 22 2013 17:00 dabbeljuh wrote:HI Hundisilm, Show nested quote +On August 22 2013 06:46 Hundisilm wrote:
These statements seem a bit weird at first glance - how does a model's ability to predict seasonal changes in any way validates it's ability to predict changes caused by changes in the composition of the atmosphere? They are caused by entirely different thingies. I don't see how being able to predict one parameter's short term influence on the system correctly means you can predict some other parameters influence correctly - or am I misreading the argument at the moment?
I haven't bothered to read the AR explanations (a tad lazy), but I'm assuming the arguments for their validity are somewhat more complex - I'd dare to guess that these statements in their simplified forma are factually incorrect.
I also get a bit irritated at the first argument when it comes up - it's somewhat disconcerting that it is deemed necessary to state that climate models are based on physics (what else would they be based on - pirate activity?) okay, I was perhaps to fast when typing these reasons out. While you are right that seasonal changes are caused by different forcing than global warming, it is still - in a simplified way- a change in radiative forcing, one time due to geometry, one time due to greenhouse gases. And if your full system behaves realistically towards a forcing change that you can measure (seasons), you can be quit epositive that it will not goe bollocks when confronted with a different chang ein radiation (the actual radiative effect of greenhouse gases is very simple to calculate and not under debate. The question is if the followup feedback mechanisms react correctly). and, @ the physics argument: this is mostly against critics that believe that what they see in projections are statistical models that are just tuned to data (as in economics or most sciences where you do not have underlying primary equations). While climate models can be quite wrong in many aspects, the core of what they simulate is physically reasonable, this was all I wanted to make in that point. I hope this clarifies it a little (and again, I am typing things here quite rapidly, I dont think they are factually wrong, but sometimes maybe a little unprecise) Best W
I don't understand how you can make such a statement - how is being able to model seasonal variations (which is relatively easy I would assume) validate that we are able to model variations caused by other parameters? You seem to be implying that it is more difficult to model seasonal variations than long term effects caused by composition of the atmosphere - I don't understand how this can be true (perhaps you can explain a bit why you think it works that way)?
I understand the critics problem a bit, but I think it's bad to use in some of the contexts it is being used now and then (current one included). It's ok to use it as a direct response to something that would imply the contrary, but to list it separately seems a bit excessive (it feels like saying "We are using real maths - honestly." - which is weird).
I should probably point out just in case that I think it is incorrect to state that the correct behaviour of the model in the long term can be inferred from correct seasonal behaviour by default - it is possible that this is true though depending on how the model works. So I probably would be ok with a statement that says: "The models correct behaviour in the long term can be inferred from correct seasonal behaviour because...". Or just say that it's possible to show that we can trust the long term predictions based on short term accuracy and provide some links when asked for.
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On August 24 2013 18:26 legor wrote:
I am afraid you still do not understand the magnitude of the issue.
We have two choices:
1. We spend 1 billion to reduce the temperature by x%
2. we do not spend 1 billion to reduce the temperature by x%, but rather invest it
the consequences in 100 years are:
1. the temperature is reduced by x%
2. the people have 20 billion which they can either invest in new technologies to reduce the temperature or use the money to adjust to the temperature increase.
You do not give any arguments why the value of x% temperature decrease is more than the value we could get in 100 years with improved technology and 20 times the amount of money available. Which is in fact not possible, think back to 1913 no one had any idea how the world would look in today. It is simply not imaginable how much more advanced we will be in the future.
(it is completly irrelevant that we spend x billion today on this cause you disagree with, or this other cause you disagree with)
This is somewhat of a faulty argument in that the 3% you spoke of roughly depends on the growth rate of global economy and the rate is applied to other "savings" as well (gazillions of billions). If the increased temperatures would slow the growth rate down and the 3% becomes 2%, then we would actually effectively loose a lot more "moneys". This is actually a lot more complicated though and there are other theoretical things to consider. For example - considering that the standard of living has generally improved over 100 years, then slowing down the climate change a bit might mean that people in the future can only afford one hovercar instead of four - which might ofcourse seem terrible for a future person - but the evil question would be if it is ok to murder some babies next year so future people would have sweeter non-wheels in the future.
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@Rassy
1. When economists talk about economic growth they mean what you define as "real" economic growth (inflation adjusted GDP growth).
2. technological growth increases capital productivity, not labour productivity.
3. Improving economic output doesn't mean improving the output of what you find useful. It simply means producing more stuff. The limiting factor are people willing to buy this stuff.
While I am glad you understand my last point, I have difficulty with your last point. You take as granted some for everyone perfect way to spend money, which only some superhumans can know. Some very simple contradictions:
1. You think that all people share some principle by which you can align every individual to the great goal of society. In fact, neither does this great goal nor the common principles of humans exist.
2. Humans are fallible. But apparently there exist some creatures who do know to decide what is best for everyone. Those creatures must be either infallible or not human.
3. Even if we take a certain amount of infallible humans for granted and lets say they walk on this earth. How do we find them and how do we make sure we do not get one of the fallible ones?
4. The guy who decides how to find the infallible humans, how do we find him? What if he is fallible?
@dabbeljuh
I mostly agree with what you wrote. I only have some clarifications.
[quote]but say a billion damages in 100 years is discounted to be euivalent to a damage of 50m today./quote]
Yes. But as we discussed earlier we spend money now (which is the damage) and get the benefit later. The question is if the compunding effect of an economic investment is bigger or smaller than the compounding effect (I think feedback is what you people call it) of temperature reduction.
[quote]In the end, all I want to say is: there is no "science" behind choosing the discount rate, it is the much discussed value decision our generation has to take.[/quote]
I am not sure what you mean by "science" but if there is no science behind selecting a discount rate (or rather a possible range of discount rates) how can there be any "science" in anything that relies on data from the past (e.g. climate science)?
[quote]Valid point concerning resources, but the climate "problem" is more a pollution than a resource problem. And we have never in the history of industrial civilation found a way to deal with a "commons" problem like that in a rational way, because people can always profit from pollution, but the costs are global. so lets hope in your point of view, that we will find a solution in time (even while I would argue for a healthy combination of efficient mitigation of CO2 emissions + investment to increase adaptaion capabilities in vulnerable regions. we will not "prevent" climate change anyway, we can just slow it down=)
[/quote]
The problem is not the pollution problem (which has be dealt with numerous times e.g. CFC ban, river pollution, nuclear waste...). The real problem is to differentiate damages caused by climate change and damages caused by "natural" developments. I read the current scientific literature a bit and at the moment it seems to me that we don't know enough to argue for any policy discussions with certainity. Nevertheless it might be a chance to get rid of very distorting economic policies and replace them with less distorting ones that benefit the enviroment. But implemented examples like the EU emission tradinge turned out terrible.
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Plants use CO2, if the levels rise, plants will grow more rapidly and reduce them again. Plants are so successful, that they pretty much starved the planet of CO2 (0,03% from what was much larger in the beginning). Also there's no rise in temperature in the last 10 years... But ofc there's a lot of money in claiming that and you need to control the sheep somehow
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On August 24 2013 21:19 Hundisilm wrote:Show nested quote +On August 24 2013 18:26 legor wrote:
I am afraid you still do not understand the magnitude of the issue.
We have two choices:
1. We spend 1 billion to reduce the temperature by x%
2. we do not spend 1 billion to reduce the temperature by x%, but rather invest it
the consequences in 100 years are:
1. the temperature is reduced by x%
2. the people have 20 billion which they can either invest in new technologies to reduce the temperature or use the money to adjust to the temperature increase.
You do not give any arguments why the value of x% temperature decrease is more than the value we could get in 100 years with improved technology and 20 times the amount of money available. Which is in fact not possible, think back to 1913 no one had any idea how the world would look in today. It is simply not imaginable how much more advanced we will be in the future.
(it is completly irrelevant that we spend x billion today on this cause you disagree with, or this other cause you disagree with) This is somewhat of a faulty argument in that the 3% you spoke of roughly depends on the growth rate of global economy and the rate is applied to other "savings" as well (gazillions of billions). If the increased temperatures would slow the growth rate down and the 3% becomes 2%, then we would actually effectively loose a lot more "moneys". This is actually a lot more complicated though and there are other theoretical things to consider.
You are right. But while we have a long history of economic growth, while we don't have any history of reduced economic growth because of climate change. We could take a look at the impact of natural disasters on economic growth and find only a small negative effect in the very short runs.
For example - considering that the standard of living has generally improved over 100 years, then slowing down the climate change a bit might mean that people in the future can only afford one hovercar instead of four - which might ofcourse seem terrible for a future person - but the evil question would be if it is ok to murder some babies next year so future people would have sweeter non-wheels in the future.
This is just wrong. You cannot seperate the future world in one part which only has to do with income, wealth, economics and another part which has to do with humans. There is only one world and if we waste capital today it will have not only effects on the quality of life but also to the amoung of life in 100 years.
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EPT
