Smackdown: climate science vs. climate economics and impact on Internet

[Here is an excellent article that puts in stark perspective the challenges we face with future global warming.
The insouciance of politicians and the public to this imminent threat is startling to mind, especially in countries like The Netherlands and Australia which will likely to be the first countries to suffer the disastrous consequences of climate change in the next few years (not decades, but years).
We have been lulled into a false sense of security that climate change will be a gradual process of slightly warmer summers and milder winters. More importantly economists assure us that minor impositions such as carbon taxes or cap and trade and some token attempts at energy efficiency are all we need to address this problem. Nobody is paying heed to the non-zero possibility of the black swan where we face a rapid series of global catastrophic tipping points. As I have blogged in the past the probability of these threats may be small, but they are real. In every aspect of society we need to start to plan on how to survive global warming and do some minimum analysis on the worst possible outcomes. The Internet may be the critical information medium for communication and survival in this coming age of climate uncertainty. Designing networks to survive climate change is a first step http://goo.gl/srJGy-- BSA]
http://www.grist.org/article/2011-02-09-smackdown-climate-science-vs-climate-economics
“Climate scientists are becoming increasingly panicked as new evidence rolls in and just about every bit is worse than the last. The impacts of climate change are coming faster and harder than most models predicted, and there's a real -- if maddeningly difficult to quantify -- risk of civilization-threatening scenarios that sound like bad sci-fi movies.
The standard line among climate hawks is that science recommends "80 percent reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by 2050." (That's for developed world countries; globally, the target is 50 percent by 2050.) But that recommendation is based on the last IPCC report, which is by all accounts woefully conservative, especially given that the science since then has been uniformly grim. There's good reason to think these official consensus forums underestimate the severity of the problem.
To get back below the more ambitious target of 350 ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere (which we're already well above), the U.S. and other rich countries will probably have to get close to zero carbon by 2050, with the developing world not far behind.

Few people understand how brain-explodingly ambitious that is. Certainly no one in the U.S. political establishment. Whether you think it's necessary and affordable in the grand scheme of things (I do), there's no denying it's a huge honking lift. (Watch the video of super-nerd Saul Griffith over on the right for a taste. It will change your life.)

[…]
From what economists tell us, it looks like the worst thing policymakers risk on climate change is somewhat slower economic growth. One way or another, we're getting wealthier.
This represents what is perhaps the foundational faith of modern economics: a faith in human adaptability and ingenuity. Especially via the distributed decision making represented by open markets, humans can master almost any circumstances given time. (For a recent example of this optimism on Grist, see economist Matthew Kahn.)
Nowhere in these models will you find any hint of Diamond- or Lovelock-style apocalypse. Instead, future people will be much wealthier and, because of that, better able to cope with the problem.
[…]
Is climate change truly an existential threat -- an immediate danger and a small but growing risk of substantial societal collapse? Or is it a creeping change to which humanity needs to make a carefully calibrated, economically optimized response as it continues to flourish? How do we fit these two visions in our heads? And more importantly, what, given these different visions, should we do?
And the winner is ...
Of course, economists would tell you that they have reconciled those stories -- that's what the models do. The damages of climate change are built right in. The results don't look like catastrophe because, dammit, Man Will Overcome.
Anyway, that's what the models will tell you. But if you talk to the economists themselves, they're not quite as gung ho. For one thing, they will admit that their models aren't very good at incorporating large short-term shocks. The "long tail" possibilities in climate science -- the low-probability, high-impact stuff like ice shelves collapsing or thermohaline circulation shutting down -- completely borks the models. You start seeing wild, arbitrary swings in model projections based on small adjustments in input assumptions. The models start saying, in essence, "hell if I know!"
[..]
Unfortunately, that leaves the field to economists like William Nordhaus, whose model tells a soothing story of slowly rising costs, smoothly offset by a slowly rising carbon tax. The message: don't panic. That message is all too welcome in the halls of power.


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Green Internet Consultant. Practical solutions to reducing GHG emissions such as free broadband and electric highways. http://green-broadband.blogspot.com/
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