Imagine a group of 100 fisherman faced with declining stocks and worried about the sustainability of their resource and their livelihoods. One of them works out that the total sustainable catch is about 20% of what everyone is catching now (with some uncertainty of course) but that if current trends of increasing catches (about 2% a year) continue the resource would be depleted in short order. Faced with that prospect, the fishermen gather to decide what to do. The problem is made more complicated because some groups of fishermen are much more efficient than the others. The top 5 catchers, catch 20% of the fish, and the top 20 catch almost 75% of the fish. Meanwhile the least efficient 50 catch only 10% of the fish and barely subsist. Clearly, fairness demands that the top catchers lead the way in moving towards a more sustainable future.
The top 5 do start discussing how to manage the transition. They realise that the continued growth in catches – driven by improved technology and increasing effort – is not sustainable, and make a plan to reduce their catch by 80% over a number of years. But there is opposition – manufacturers of fishing boats, tackle and fish processing plants are worried that this would imply less sales for them in the short term. Strangely, they don’t seem worried that a complete collapse of the fishery would mean no sales at all – preferring to think that the science can’t possibly be correct and that everything will be fine. These manufacturers set up a number of organisations to advocate against any decreases in catch sizes – with catchy names like the Fisherfolk for Sound Science, and Friends of Fish. They then hire people who own an Excel spreadsheet program do “science” for them – and why not? They live after all in a free society.
After spending much energy and money on trying to undermine the science – with claims that the pond is much deeper than it looks, that the fish are just hiding, that the records of fish catches were contaminated by being done near a supermarket – the continued declining stocks and smaller and smaller fish make it harder and harder to sound convincing. So, in a switch of tactics so fast it would impress Najinsky, the manufacturers’ lobby suddenly decides to accept all that science and declares that the ‘fish are hiding’ crowd are just fringe elements. No, they said, we want to help with this transition, but …. we need to be sure that the plans will make sense. So they ask their spreadsheet-wielding “advocacy scientists” to calculate exactly what would happen if the top 5 (and only the top 5) did cut their catches by 80%, but meanwhile everyone else kept increasing their catch at the current (unsustainable rate). Well, the answers were shocking – the total catch would be initially still be 84% of what it is now and would soon catch up with current levels. In fact, the exact same techniques that were used to project the fishery collapse imply that this would only delay the collapse by a few years! and what would be the point of that?
The fact that the other top fishermen are discussing very similar cuts and that the fisherfolk council was trying to coordinate these actions to minimise the problems that might emerge, are of course ignored and the cry goes out that nothing can be done. In reality of course, the correct lesson to draw is that everything must be done.
In case you think that no-one would be so stupid as to think this kind of analysis has any validity, I would ask that you look up the history of the Newfoundland cod fishery. It is indeed a tragedy.
And the connection to climate? Here.
I’ll finish with a quotation attributed to Edmund Burke, one the founders of the original conservative movement:
“Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little.”
See here for a much better picture of what coordinated action could achieve.
SecularAnimist says
You know, the reason that poor people suffer so much is that no one owns them. If someone owned poor people, the owners would have an incentive to take care of them so as to protect the value of their property. Thus, the solution to the problem of poverty is to reinstitute chattel slavery.
dhogaza says
Slave owners in the South actually used a variant this argument during the great antebellum debate on slavery in the US.
SecularAnimist says
Chip Knappenberger wrote: “… the role that the U.S. has to play in mitigating projected climate change is through innovation, not through its own reductions …”
The ONLY way to mitigate projected climate change is by reducing emissions, period.
The ONLY “innovations” that are relevant are innovations that reduce emissions.
Those “innovations” — clean renewable energy technologies and energy efficiency technologies — already exist, and are already being deployed on a large scale. They are already helping to reduce the growth in emissions, by displacing fossil fuels that would otherwise be burned to provide new energy. For example, the new wind energy capacity added worldwide in 2008 alone is the equivalent of around 27 new coal-fired power plants.
What is urgently needed right now is measures to accelerate the deployment of existing renewable energy and efficiency technologies, so they can quickly reach the point where they not only account for 100 percent of all new energy sources, but start to replace existing fossil fuel use.
Putting a price on carbon pollution, whether through a carbon tax or cap-and-trade, so that the market reflects the true cost of carbon pollution, is an important measure to accelerate the deployment of alternatives.
You keep using the word “innovation” but you have yet to say exactly what you mean by it.
Based on the context, it appears that you are using it as a euphemism for “continue burning fossil fuels at business-as-usual, accelerating rates, no matter what”.
Chip Knappenberger says
Why is it that several of you think that it is perfectly OK, to use a certain set of tools—in this case climate models run under a set of potential emissions scenarios—to tell you what the future climate may be like and conclude that we need to do something to alter those emissions scenarios, but then are beside yourself and full of indignation that I would use the same set of tools to examine what the impact of future climate would be if you actually did those things to reduce emissions? Wigley did this analysis for Kyoto. I did this analysis for Waxman-Markey. Waxman-Markey only applies to U.S. emissions. What else did you want me to do? A global analysis of Waxman-Markey? I did that, too!
Conclude from it what you want. Clearly, the folks here conclude something different than folks elsewhere. But, at least the numbers are out on the table for all to see and make their own conclusions. Prior to this, the results weren’t being so well advertised.
-Chip
Alastair McDonald says
Ike,
“The Tragedy of the Commons” in not about common land, it is about all shared resources. It is an essay that appeared in Science in 1968 by Garrett Hardin. It is true that over exploitation of common land was used as a reason for the “Enclosures” in England, but Gavin gave another example where lack of enclosure led to the destruction of the Newfoundland fishing grounds. So Hardin was asking “for a strict management of global common goods via increased government involvement or/and international regulation bodies.” See “Wikipedia.
This is of course anathema to many Americans such as Chip. They regard it as communism by the back door and most would rather be dead than red. I would not mind that, but for the fact that it would mean my death too! Now can you understand why I get very angry? Chip is quite happy to kill me, my family, and my friends all in the name of freedom. It is not freedom for me, and it is “selfish, greedy, and stupid” of him.
BTW with regard to “how the climate models don’t handle radiation correctly” the following paper has just been published in Quart. J. R. Met. Soc,:
An evaluation of the long-wave radiative transfer code used in the Met Office Unified Model; C. Goldblatt, T. M. Lenton, A. J. Watson; (p 619-633)Published Online: Apr 9 2009 8:32AM DOI: 10.1002/qj.403
The abstract contains the sentence “Errors for surface and top-of-atmosphere fluxes for CO2 are similar to those from the mean of the general circulation model (GCM) codes submitted to the inter comparison of radiation codes for IPCC AR4, implying that errors as found here may not be uncommon in [all] climate models.”
Jim Eager says
Rene asked @144: “Is there any rationale behind this attitude?”
Why, yes, there is, and SecularAnimist and dhogaza expressed it quite nicely in 151 & 152.
I’ll give another example: that of Bechtel in Bolivia, where even rainwater was privatised with a law that made it illegal for citizens to collect rainwater for domestic use.
Fortunately, your extreme market view is on the far fringe and in all likelihood is destined to remain so.
Wilmot McCutchen says
TGO’D #142 — I agree with you. Civility is a worthy goal. Ad hominem sniping, questioning motivation, does not add to the strength of a position. Feelings run high on an issue as important as saving the planet, so I hope you will indulge some occasional outbursts, which I find add some spice to the discussion.
Wilmot McCutchen says
Waxman-Markey, the giant cap-and-trade bill still stuck in subcommittee, is going through some disturbing changes in order to emerge. One is that over half of CO2 emissions will be excused by grandfathered pollution allowances. Polluters get a free pass, which would moot EPA enforcement of CO2 regulation. Cap-and-trade has not been successful at significantly reducing CO2 emissions in Europe.
Aaron Lewis says
Possibly the best analysis of the problem posted on RC.
However, it is almost impossible to “sell” a problem to the public and policy makers. It is much easier to sell a solution. Great fortunes have been made selling solutions to problems that were hardly noticed before the solution was marketed. No problem was ever solved by selling the problem. Problems are always solved by selling solutions.
We have a real problem. Global warming in its worst form will put a stop to science as a past-time. If you want the fun of doing science, you need to go out and sell the solutions to AGW.
Selling solutions may not feel like “science”, but it is what needs to happen to save science.
James says
Jim Eager Says (8 May 2009 at 12:47):
“True, base-load solar-thermal plants do have larger dedicated footprints, but by necessity they tend to be located where the sun shines most steadily, as in deserts where population density is very low and not at all suitable for agriculture and grazing.”
So that makes it OK to destroy that particular piece of environment? Could you please explain the difference between that and the attitude that sees the value of whales as only the money you get from the oil & meat?
Pat N says
Good timing on this, with the Minnesota fishing opener tomorrow, so I posted it for comments at the Chanhassen, MN blog:
http://www.chanvillager.com/news/schools/climate-change-open-discussion-minnetonka-101#comment-1921
Jim Bouldin says
Why is it that several of you think that it is perfectly OK, to use a certain set of tools—in this case climate models run under a set of potential emissions scenarios—to tell you what the future climate may be like and conclude that we need to do something to alter those emissions scenarios, but then are beside yourself and full of indignation that I would use the same set of tools to examine what the impact of future climate would be if you actually did those things to reduce emissions?
If we buy into the legitimacy of your analysis Chip, then the only logical conclusion is that we have to do a LOT more than Waxman and Markey are proposing, and that is sure to set MasterResource into a conniption. If your results are as significant as you say, then you need to submit them for publication. And please stop justifying what you’ve done just because Tom Wigley did something similar wrt Kyoto decisions, with a different model, over a decade ago. It’s irrelevant; you have to show that what YOU are saying is solid science. And you also have to know that your association with a group having a definite pro-economic agenda places the onus of demonstrating strict impartiality with regard to the science squarely on YOU. There are MANY questions that could be asked which you would have to explain
EL says
RE 139 Wilmot McCutchen – I have done everything but write a poem, and I still haven’t managed to get some of these people to see why these technologies will not work. None of these technologies are new, and there is reasons why they never made it into mainstream energy production. Krystal Goodwind invented wind power technology over one hundred years ago. The technology has been made more efficient over the last century; however, it still has the same fundamental problems.
I’m also fascinated by the pro Chinese arguments. Some people support the proposition that totalitarian governments care about global warming and its impact on mankind. China recently ordered some 250,000 people to begin smoking so that they could benefit the suffering tobacco companies. If the people refuse to smoke, they are fined.
[Response: This was a local govt and they backed down immediately in the face of protests. China is not a well governed state, and the central govt controls less than is commonly assumed but they aren’t completely helpless either. – gavin]
Actions betray lies. Recently, China said development will come before global warming concerns. China also calls on developed nations to divert 1 percent of their GDP to developing nations like china for a climate change effort.
People see what they want to see; indeed, there is so much disinformation coming from the fossil fuel industry and the renewable industry that people can easily find information to ‘believe in’. But the problem of global warming still remains. I just worry that we are creating new problems on top of it, Dangerous problems.
Mark says
“So that makes it OK to destroy that particular piece of environment? ”
Because we’d be killing them off with killer temperatures?
Just a wild stab in the dark.
Of course, it’s BETTER to not need so much energy. So go ahead and do it.
Mark says
“Ad hominem sniping, questioning motivation, does not add to the strength of a position. ”
Ad hom requires that you go “you are an idiot therefore your arguments are wrong”.
It is not “your arguments are idiotic and therefore you’re an idiot”.
By your works shall ye be known.
And some people really ARE idiots. But useful ones for people who want no change because in a new world they may have reserves no other has access to, but being at the top means they can only go down.
So ignore the evidence, ride the train as fast as you can and hope that some other sucker gets it in the shorts when you’ve left.
Sounds rather like most killer CEO’s, doesn’t it.
Lawrence Brown says
Another scarce resource,oil,is dealt with in an op-ed in the NY Times by Evar D. Nering some years ago, illustrating the false sense of security that discovery of new supplies would have under a growing rate of annual consumption:
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/06/04/opinion/the-mirage-of-a-growing-fuel-supply.html?scp=1&sq=Op-Ed,%20%22The%20Mirage%20of%20a%20Growing%20Fuel%20Supply%22%20by%20Evar%20D.%20Nering&st=cse
I worked up the numbers here:
http://www.livejournal.com/update.bml
The author rightly points out that reducing the growth rate would be far more effective than doubling the size of the reserve. Halfing the rate of consumption will double the life expectancy of the supply,whereas doubling the reserve will add at most 14 years to the live expectancy of the resource under the conditions he specifies.
Ray Ladbury says
Chip Knappenberger, I’m just curious, how would your results have been different if you had started with a serious CO2 reduction program–roughly equivalent to the one you assumed. That was before growth really took off in China and India. Russia’s economy was in the toilet. It probably would have been easier at that point to get them to go along. Instead, we argued about established physics for 10 years. That seems like a pretty interesting pair of scenarios–where we are now vs. where we could have been had we had a reality-based policy.
Timothy Chase says
From my inbox: an abuse of a different sort of commons which nevertheless may seem awefully familiar…
The plot thickens: More fake journals in the Elsevier/Merck story
Posted by ouroboros under Journals
May 7, 2009
http://oroboros.wordpress.com/..
Pardon me while I turn up my NIN…
Konstantin says
Re: #158
“Cap-and-trade has not been successful at significantly reducing CO2 emissions in Europe”
That is because the EU commission, pressured by some countries (mostly Germany -at the behest of its industrialists- and the new Eastern members who still run some very polluting Soviet-era factories) issued way too many CO2 permits with the result that their price dropped to practically zero, so there is no significant incentive to reduce emissions, you can buy all the permits you want for a pittance. Picking the right method is only good if you also implement it right.
James says
Mark Says (8 May 2009 at 17:05):
“Because we’d be killing them off with killer temperatures?”
You’d have an argument if those desert-destroying solar arrays were the only possible source of non-fossil-fuel energy, or perhaps even if they were significantly less expensive than the many possible alternatives. But they’re not: there are many better choices.
I guess it’s just another tragedy of the commons. Because that desert is “public land”, it can be used as a free dumping ground, just like the atmosphere is for CO2.
TokyoTom says
Property rights are not an end-all or be-all, but they are a linchpin in understanding the dynamics of the tragedy of the commons problem. Resources that are owned – formally or informally, in common or privately – are husbanded, at least much better that when they are not.
This is a key point to keep hammering home with “conservatives”, “skeptics” and ordinary people, whom can all recognize that market demands produce a tragedy of the commons whenever valuable resources are not owned (or cannot be protected) by those who use them.
When there is ownership, (1) users have incentives to invest in protecting what, after all, supports their own livelihoods and, even further, (2) those who also care about the resource have an ability to also protect the resource – by investing it themselves, or by making other private, market decisions, such as to boycott particular owners and to favor others.
When there is no ownership, there is very limited ability by anyone to protect the resource directly, and what we are left with is a battle of words.
Of course a corollary problem that requires attention is that when resources are “publicly” owned, such resources may in fact be treated as a commons, or something that politicians and bureaucrats dole out to whomever is in favor – witness the environmental destruction in communist states, the logging of “public” tropical forests, and our own continued mismanagement of public lands.
In that case of fisheries, this is so readily apparent that even the mainline environmental groups are now calling for giving fishermen property rights in the fish they catch in order to end the destructive race to catch them:
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/01/15/for-crashing-fisheries-coalition-of-mainline-us-enviro-groups-calls-for-property-rights.aspx
Meanwhile, concerned citizens continue to misunderstand the key dynamics of environmental problems, and to miss opportunities to rub the faces of “market” fundamentalists and “conservatives” in the obvious lack of property rights in the atmosphere (and a related inability of those adversely affected by using the atmosphere as a dumping ground to seek redress from those who profit from using it as one):
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/03/12/overlooked-by-those-warmed-by-climate-rhetoric-quot-alarmist-quot-or-quot-skeptic-quot-the-fact-that-our-most-important-commons-have-no-property-rights-rules.aspx
Doug Bostrom says
#170 James:
Ignoring for a moment the existence of an ample supply of desecrated desert suitable for PV arrays, we’ve structured our population size and consequent economy in a way that makes choosing between bad and ugly a mandatory requirement. Once the cuteness/gee-whiz factor of windfarms wears off I’m sure we’ll be thinking about something better, but in the meantime windfarms are better than the anachronisms we’re leaning on. Same deal with PV arrays; maybe we’ll end up hating them but they’re going to be part of a mix we’re forced to deal with.
We don’t have the luxury of waiting for perfection here.
Now, we –could– be discussing the ultimate AGW curative, namely more and better birth control, but that seems to be off the table. “Growth” is what allows slackers to make capital work for them, after all, so it seems the fix of simply letting our population shrink is not on.
Ike Solem says
No, Alastair, the tragedy of the commons is a piece of bogus 20th century economic handwaving aimed at justifying private ownership of everything under the sun, and the classic example of this is those pundits who claim that only “privatization of the atmosphere” will save us – because people only care about what they own, and by the very act of caring they can solve the problem… Idee fixe in action, aka “triumph of the will”.
Consider the Easter Island case – the locals eventually cut down all the trees which they had used to build their deep-sea canoes, critical for capturing larger ocean fish and mammals. They probably wanted the trees to come back, very much so – but all that demand for trees didn’t magically create new trees, did it? Their enclosures were only ‘enclosed’ by their sea-going canoes, and for canoes they were dependent on their local ecosystems.
The same goes for herders who exist on the edge where grasslands meet desert. If the desert expands after a few years of drought, there isn’t any commons to graze on, and the only choice is to leave the region or perish from thirst. Those are obvious ecological factors – but economists don’t believe they have to learn anything about ecology, or thermodynamics, or modern science – other than a little bit of semi-complex mathematics, which they can use to impress and intimidate their audiences – mummery.
[edit] Inhofe always says that he is opposed to “the false notion that man-made greenhouse gases threaten our very existence” – but that’s a straw man argument. No scientist says that, they just point to the predicted effects under business-as-usual – sea level rise, drought, etc. – but you certainly provide a nice example of that argument for Inhofe to point to, don’t you? You would agree that “our very existence” is threatened, you’ve said it multiple times… [edit]
Chip, your argument is just silly; everyone knows that global agreements are intended to be updated and improved every five years (or less) – first, you get everyone to sign on to an agreement aimed at replacing fossil fuels with renewables, then you work at it for five years, then you have a meeting and set new timetables.
Your argument is identical to the one that “Kyoto would do little to reduce emissions, so why bother?” It’s just a political tactic aimed at halting the first stage in the process, the global agreement. Blocking any U.S. climate legislation is thus a critical part of the agenda of the coal lobby, isn’t it?
That does seem to be the goal – because if the U.S. doesn’t agree to some level of legislation after China has already made large commitments to renewable energy generation, China will most likely not agree to any U.S. demands.
You can’t keep rolling out the same stupid pet tricks year after year and expect no one to notice.
http://www.martinot.info/china.htm#law
I hadn’t heard about that – had you? You can count on the trusty U.S. media to not report on anything related to international renewable energy development…
Stephen Berg says
Absolutely excellent article, Gavin! You have done a great service to the world in writing this piece of incredible common sense!
Thank you for all your hard work!
Hannah says
Enjoyed your perspective. Agreed with the comment above: we must sell a solution, not a plan. Here’s another good environmental site I stumbled upon: http://buildakinderearth.com
Jim Eager says
James (160), you will get very little sympathy from me if 1) you continue to act as if there is a proposal to cover the entire southwest of the United States with solar thermal power plants, and 2) you dig in your heals in the exact same way that the sceptics/deniers have done and stand in the way of working our way out of our current dilemma. The inconvenient fact is that solar works best where there is steady sunshine, wind works best where there is steady wind, hydro works best where water falls. Get over it or get out of the way, because business as usual is not an option.
Craig Allen says
Rene Cheront wrote: “With the odd exception, people do not knowingly or deliberately abuse their own property, since this is self-defeating. Do you knowingly or deliberately abuse your own property? Surely not.”
Happens quite often in the agricultural sector >> Activist raid finds pigs ‘eaten alive’ by maggots.
Peter T says
On the supposed Tragedy of the Commons, the original authors later actually looked at the history, and realised that is in, in fact, the tragedy of the unmanaged commons. Lots of commons have been managed for hundreds of years entirely sustainably – they keys are good management and, as Joachim Radkau observed, a high degree of local control (see his “Nature and Power”).
On The US debate, we have a similar one here in Australia. I find this amusing, coming from people who have spent much of the last three decades forecfully persuading the rest of the world to adopt US policies on trade, copyright and so on. I find it hard to believe that China, India and Latin America would be hard to convince given the right combinations of incentives and pressure – carbon tariffs anyone?
dhogaza says
No. It could be a tragedy of the conservative-appointee SCOTUS which might not enforce the various laws which would force intelligent siting of solar projects. But this commons is managed, and actually the laws are sufficient (if enforced).
Exactly. We haven’t exactly worshiped the desert we have.
Rene Cheront says
#144 Alexandre
Yes, as I said in #22, since tradeable rights in air are not feasible, a climate tragedy of the commons cannot be cured like a grazing one can. But, as JBL says in #28, tradable rights in CO2 emissions can substitute.
Rene Cheront says
#156 Jim Eager
>> Rene asked @144: Is there any rationale behind this attitude? (referring to fanatical opposition to privatisation, eg of whales)
> Why, yes, there is, and SecularAnimist and dhogaza expressed it quite nicely in 151 & 152.
That ‘rationale’ requires us to lump animals, grazing lands etc, together with humans.
> I’ll give another example: that of Bechtel in Bolivia, where even rainwater was privatised with a law that made it illegal for citizens to collect rainwater for domestic use.
Hardly comparable to privatising whales.
> Fortunately, your extreme market view is on the far fringe and in all likelihood is destined to remain so.
Yes, increasing totalitarianism is very much the political fashion of the time.
Jacob Mack says
I think that countries like China and India have equal stakes in this global issue. Certainly the US with such a high per capita output of emissions and money/technology to make changes has a legitimate responsibility, but to state that China’s larger population (and until recently its enormous exponential growth rate) does not make it more and in relation to the US responisble is just categorically false in my analysis. I do believe that the US has a great duty to lead the way and perpetuate chnages which great;y reduce emissions; to lead by example even…this cannot be solved by any one country, region or continent. I, of course am not assuming you were saying so, either, Gavin and others, however, China is responsible more so than one country’s state or province for exactly the reason of such an overwhelming population and adoption of western technology;still we have a responsibility to work with China, India, Japan, Korea etc… to make available more green technologies in a fashion that is affordable; the economics on this are enormous, this I know too.
CM says
Gavin, I’m impressed you did not fall for the temptation of titling your excellent parable “Fish and Chip.” I would have. The linked argument is so greasy, and so clearly meant to be wrapped up in right-wing tabloids, it naturally suggests itself.
[Response: I might have, if I’d thought of it…. ;) – gavin]
James Wine says
I am devoted reader of RC and there is no site like it for insight and debate and I want to take some time to respond to Gavin’s eloquent piece.
There is a remarkable centuries old custom concerning the commons in Sweden. It is called “allemansrätten” literally “everyone’s right.” It is not a law but protected by their Constitution. It gives to everyone, Swede and visitor alike, the right to access nature. You can walk almost anywhere, cross properties, fence lines, pick berries and mushrooms, and if out of earshot and eyesight, pitch a tent for the night. One rule: don’t disturb, don’t destroy. “No trespassing” signs are not allowed.
Imagine the level of cooperation and trust this tradition demands of a society. I can’t imagine it in my home state of Virginia.
Swedes grow up with it, it’s like mother’s milk. Allemansrätten is the Swedes’ “ubuntu.” As an outsider, the principle and practice of this right to access nature is clearly a fundamental experience that brings them closer to nature. They are more concerned because they have access to it. It seeds openness and transparency in their democracy. The right is intensely individual but with collective responsibilities. The whole country is a commons beneath the property lines.
And so it is no wonder Sweden has already surpassed its Kyoto obligations. Every house and business in Stockholm received a booklet on Earth day explaining how “we” will reduce emissions 10% in 2010, 25% by 2015 and be fossil fuel free latest 2050.
Another city, Örebro, is about to launch their effort, 30% by 2015. The town of Växjö is famous for its almost 40% reduction. And so on.
This not some sudden rush to act. Stockholm, then under Social Democratic leadership, began in 1995 – I guess they actually took the UN climate treaty seriously – and are already 25% below 1990 levels of emissions. The new aggressive targets are under a Conservative city council. It’s not a party thing.
The carbon tax has worked since the early 90’s. But their European Union Cap & Trade system is a disaster and this is a huge chunk of Swedish emissions. And they are well aware of their share of production outsourced to say, China. Now the Environmental minister is calling for an EU CO2 tax. A newcomer to the field, he caught on fast. Sweden’s Climate Science Panel (politicians incredibly listen to scientists and follow their recommendations) set the long term GHG target back in September 2007: 400 CO2e by 2100. Remarkably close to 350 CO2 by 2100. No hoopla, no fanfare, no alarm bells. No screaming headlines.
Finally, the Swedish development agency has shifted its focus and other than acute emergencies, all aid and investment will fund climate measures in developing countries – and as far as I know Sweden is the only country to allocate 1% of the nation’s budget to development.
And personally, my wife and I reside in a new part of town, Hammaby Sjöstad. Developed as a model of Swedish sustainable practices when they sought the 2004 Olympics, it is now a world leading urban design that almost met its goal of a 40% reduction in environmental impact – and now enters Phase II with a doubling of that goal. Our personal Earth footprint is one; our carbon per capita is equal to India.
You get my point. It ain’t a perfect country, it has its downsides like we all do, but on the whole Swedes are getting it done. They don’t shout and pout and go off on diatribes. They don’t wait for everyone else. They don’t wring their hands. They don’t brag (but maybe they should). They just do it. And for me, I see a clear connection between their individual right of access to nature as a blessed commons with collective responsibility and their common sense approach to tackling the greatest threat humanity has faced.
As luck would have it, Sweden takes over the EU Presidency July 1 and rides it into Copenhagen. This is their shot to make a difference. I am not sure their quiet consensus-building sense of the whole manner will do the trick in a world of self-interested nation-states. But if the world just took a closer look at their results, economic and ecologic, we might just believe that yes we can do it.
Jim Eaton says
Re: 171 Doug Bostrom Says:
“Ignoring for a moment the existence of an ample supply of desecrated desert suitable for PV arrays, we’ve structured our population size and consequent economy in a way that makes choosing between bad and ugly a mandatory requirement.”
Yesterday I received a fund appeal letter from Environment California which included the following paragraph:
“Placing concentrating solar power facilities, also known as solar thermal power, on just 9% of the land area of Nevada could produce enough electricity to power the entire United States.”
Somehow I don’t think the citizens of my next door state will think that they should sacrifice “just” nearly a tenth of their state to satisfy the energy needs of the other 49 states. And as a native Californian, I believe my state should not require that other states provide us will all our energy needs.
Nevertheless, there is no need to destroy sensitive parts of our deserts and mountains to site solar and wind energy projects. There are plenty of disturbed areas that could be converted to renewable energy projects, as well as countless rooftops that could have PVs added to soak up “the warm California sun.”
Eric Smith says
Mike Hulme professor of Climate Change at East Anglia University reckons we are heading up a “dead end” by putting climate change science at the top of the political agenda.
…
“It is rather hubristic to think we can actually control climate. Climate change is the new human condition we have to live with. Let’s accept this is the new reality.
“Don’t construct the problem in a way which means we cannot have a solution which is the way I think we have got it constructed at the moment.”
http://blogs.mirror.co.uk/science/2009/04/we-cant-solve-global-warming-s.html
kd says
Congratulations, what a nice piece of work. For your next step, please can I suggest that you find two people, firsly a jobbing philosopher and secondly a political “scientist” (eww) to help with fleshing out the arguments in this rather nice bit of writing.
Neal J. King says
I’m surprised that no one seems to have mentioned another true fish story that’s relevant to the discussion: The story of the Icelandic cod fishery.
Originally, this had the same “tragedy of the commons” problem as described in the original posting; as well as depredation from other countries. Eventually, the Icelanders kicked others out of their territorial waters, and imposed a system of enforceable and tradeable quotas on the fishermen. The less efficient fishermen sold their quotas to the more efficient, and the Icelandic fishery supports a sustainable industry to this date. Everybody made money; and this money was the starting point for Iceland’s economic rise.
(And then the “financial geniuses” went to work to turn this rise into a bank-pumping scheme, leading to the financial meltdown of Iceland – but that had nothing to do with the fishing industry.)
Enforceable, tradeable quotas: Sounds familiar, doesn’t it?
(I actually still like straight-forward carbon taxes better.)
Bruce Tabor says
Re: TGO’D at 142
“If the facts are as he states them and are presented without distortion…”
The issue is not Chip’s facts so much as his interpretation. Take this line from his conclusion to part II, “…the only truly effective course of action we have available to us in attempting to control the future course of global climate is to tell the rest of the world what to do and how to do it.”
Now change “…tell the rest of the world what to do…” to “…SHOW the rest of the world what to do and how to do it”, surely a much more appropriate conclusion. It could even be improved with “SHOW and HELP”. Another word would be “LEADERSHIP”.
(See: http://masterresource.org/?p=2367 for Chip’s original.)
It is not logic that leads from Chip’s “facts” to his conclusion, but his underlying “motivation and intentions”, and it is difficult to avoid questioning the underlying ethical basis under the circumstances.
“Ultimately the questions surrounding AGW and the appropriate response of individuals and societies must be resolved on the basis of incontrovertible science not moral outrage.”
Unfortunatley the incontrovertible science has been around for 10 years or more now and has made absolutely no difference, to the point where the effort required to control the problem is truly gargantuan, and the US is no longer in such a strong position to take that control (how convenient!). Genuine sceptics (& I was once one) who carefully evaluated the evidence would have been pursuaded long ago.
But those who can make a difference refuse to do so. Why? The only reason that makes sense is that they are in fact in denial. And denial requires a psychological explanation, a motivation, an addiction – something beyond a dispassionate evaluation of the evidence. What makes lifelong smokers refuse to quit, or company executives to continue to take bonuses as their companies fall into bankruptcy?
Barton Paul Levenson says
Rene Charont writes:
Are you familiar with the history of slavery, especially in the US and Brazil?
Barton Paul Levenson says
TGO’D posts:
Maybe you missed the rebuttal because it was so brief. Chip assumes the US does something and nobody else does anything. His analysis and conclusions are just fine if you accept that idiotic premise, but the premise is still idiotic.
Barton Paul Levenson says
EL writes:
How do you explain the fact that wind power electricity costs nine cents per kilowatt hour in California (not the eleven cents I had been assuming), while coal costs ten and nuclear fifteen?
Barton Paul Levenson says
Note, also, that China is undergoing explosive growth mainly for the same reason the Soviet Union did in the ’30s — because their previous economy was so grossly inefficient that practically any new capital investment will significantly increase production. As their economy modernizes, their growth rate will slow down.
TokyoTom says
Chip, the last time we chatted, you were going to look into why Rob Bradley had decided – in the middle of an exchange of comments with you on a previous post at his supposedly “free market” Master Resource blog – to block a libertarian like me from commenting, even taking that decision away from you:
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/03/11/rot-at-the-core-rob-bradley-at-quot-free-market-quot-masterresource-blog-shows-his-true-colors-as-a-rent-seeker-for-fossil-fuels.aspx
Do you fail to understand that the fact that Master Resource is a soapbox for the coal industry, which has up to know had the political establishment in its pocket (a small investment that has created great profits while shifting costs to the public and future generations)? Or that this affects the willingness of people to listen to you?
Your hope for a deus ex machina government investment program to somehow save us further illustrates your lack of understand how markets malfunction with respect to unowned resources.
Far better for the government to simply impose rebated carbon taxes, as both Exxon (which no longer funds Rob Bradley`s ventures, BTW; see link above) and Jim Hansen have called for, than to have government itself try to guess what technologies to invest in.
naught101 says
Heh. The tragedy of the commons isn’t actually a tragedy of the commons – it’s a tragedy of the free-for-all. There are any number of ways to overcome the tragedy of the commons – from Mutually Assured Destruction, to consensual co-operation – (and in many societies around the world, the latter has worked for centuries to millenia), but the free market ain’t one of them.
tamino says
Chip Knappenberger’s oily propaganda illustrates the danger of “free market capitalism.” When adopted as an ideology, it enables ludicrous rationalization justifying doing nothing when the fate of the world is literally in the balance.
Capitalism is a good thing, it’s one of the best strategies for progress ever devised! But when worshipped as an ideological absolute, elevated to the status of God-given right with no restrictions whatever, free market capitalism becomes, literally, the motive and justification for nightmares like child labor and slavery. We no longer tolerate those sins. We can no longer tolerate the sin of destroying the environment in the name of “free markets.”
Jim Eager says
Rene wrote @173: “referring to fanatical opposition to privatisation, eg of whales”
and
“Yes, increasing totalitarianism is very much the political fashion of the time.”
Being against the privatisation of whales is “fanatical”?
Rene, you amply demonstrate that your grip on reality is slim to nonexistant.
And those who recognise the all too real potential dangers of climate change are called “alarmists”?
Howard Silverman says
How might collaborative behavior arise? Here is Joseph Henrich from 2006, “Cooperation, Punishment, and the Evolution of Human Institutions.”
Here is how Gürerk et al. summarize their findings.
And here is Henrich’s conclusion.
Ike Solem says
I’m guessing Rene is an economist:
“Yes, as I said in #22, since tradeable rights in air are not feasible, a climate tragedy of the commons cannot be cured like a grazing one can.”
First of all, bad science. The CO2 we pump into the air equilibrates with the oceans and soils and the biosphere, which was the basic point behind the recent ‘carbon pie’ studies.
Second, you need to use science to assign realistic economic-ecological costs to the use of the global commons.
That’s an approach that Adam Smith would understand. He discusses raising cattle in the ‘unimproved wilds’, but he would not have a problem understanding that drought would reduce the grazing area of the commons, regardless of how it was parcelled up and ‘owned’ – and traditionally, this is how herd animal-based cultures survived. In dry years, herders pick up and head for wetter regions – which often led to conflict with settled agriculturalists.
Since we are talking about fish, see this recent story:
Shrimp tuned to ocean temperature, BBC, May 7 2009
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/summary/324/5928/733
How would an economist take this into account when predicting the future of the fishing industry? Would they break out the econometric models, analyze patterns of supply and demand, and conclude that people’s desire to eat fish would eventually lead to ‘novel technological approaches’ that would solve the problem?
In other words, why do academic economists believe that they can ignore science yet make useful economic predictions? Do they really believe that economic growth has nothing to do with ecological stability? That’s irrational.
Rod B says
Excuse: anyone know any reason why my Internet Explorer “cannot open” Welcome to the Fray?