One major problem with most invocations of the precautionary principle is that people tend to apply it to whatever danger they want to prevent, but largely ignore it in considering the potential dangers created by the policies they advocate. For example, Dick Cheney applied a version of the principle to the threat of terrorism, arguing that even a small chance of a catastrophic terrorist attack justified taking sweeping measures to eliminate it. At the same time, he tended to ignore the potential dangers of the anti-terrorist measures themselves. Similarly, environmentalists apply the precautionary principle to global warming, but not to the risks created by policies intended to alleviate global warming.
If we have to take seriously the dangers of a global warming catastrophe, we should give equally serious consideration to the risks on the other side. For example, it’s possible that cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 80%, as some environmentalists advocate, would devastate the global economy, impoverishing millions and causing widespread suffering and death. Moreover, enforcing a worldwide cap and trade regime strong enough to compel obedience by China, India, Russia, and other potentially recalcitrant states might require a global authority with massive powers; even if these states formally agree to a cap and trade system, they might not enforce it aggressively against their own industries, unless compelled. The vast powers necessary to impose compliance could easily be abused in a variety of ways. In the most extreme scenario, the enforcement authority could eventually become an oppressive or even totalitarian world government from which there is no hope of escape. These two scenarios are admittedly unlikely (though the first is improbable largely because an 80% emissions cut is likely to be politically infeasible for the foreseeable future), but they can’t be completely ruled out. If, as Thomas Friedman says, the precautionary principle requires us to “buy insurance” against “a[ny] problem that has even a 1 percent probability of occurring and is ‘irreversible’ and potentially ‘catastrophic,’” these extreme scenarios have to be considered and strong precautions taken to forestall them before any large-scale anti-global warming initiative can be adopted.
Less extreme, but still major catastrophes, are also possible – and far more likely than the worst-case scenarios noted above. For example, as co-blogger Jonathan Adler explains, a cap and trade program could create a bonanaza for interest group rent-seekers who will use it to exploit the general public, while simultaneously falling far short of achieving the level of emission reductions that would be necessary to have a serious impact on global warming. Such large-scale inefficiency might well reduce economic growth. And even small (but persistent) reductions in annual world economic growth would consign millions of people to poverty or an early death, because of the enormous impact of compound growth over time. For example, if India had abandoned its flawed economic policies just a few years earlier than it did in the 1980s and 90s, millions of children who died young might have survived to adulthood. Similar devastating cumulative results could occur if anti-global warming measures slow down Indian or other Third World growth rates today.
Perhaps these dangers could be avoided or minimized if we had a perfectly functioning political system or something close to it; then we could count on policymakers to use their new powers to promote only those emissions-cutting policies that create benefits that outweigh their costs. In reality, government decision-making suffers from systematic flaws caused by widespread voter ignorance, interest group power, and information problems among policymakers. These dangers are exacerbated if the policy in question is complex (and therefore difficult for rationally ignorant voters to monitor), and if decisions are made in a crisis atmosphere. Global warming policy is, of course, both highly complicated and conducted amidst dire warnings that we will have a major crisis on our hands if we don’t act quickly.
None of this proves that global warming isn’t a real danger (even in the wake of Climategate, I think it probably is), or that we shouldn’t take any steps to reduce it. Like Jonathan Adler and James Hansen, I am sympathetic to the idea of using a revenue-neutral carbon tax to counter warming, though I fear that such a plan might not be politically feasible, and also qualify my support by my admitted ignorance of much of the relevant science. These considerations do, however, undercut simplistic arguments claiming that the precautionary principle unequivocally justifies taking immediate drastic measures to prevent global warming.
When there are major potential risks on both sides, the precautionary principle leads to paralysis. Whatever we do (including doing nothing), there is at least a small chance of catastrophe; thus, the principle would lead us to reject all the available options, which isn’t exactly helpful. For that reason, I agree with Cass Sunstein’s view that it is ultimately a poor guide to policy. But those who do believe in it have to be consistent in considering its implications for the possible dangers created by their preferred policies, as well as for the risks those policies are supposed to mitigate.
Meanwhile, those of us who reject the precautionary principle should still take to heart the lesson that we must give serious consideration to the possible dangers policies intended to forestall potential “catastrophic” risks. This is especially the case with policies that would create massive new concentrations of government power. The last century showed all too clearly that concentrated state power has been a major cause of many of our greatest catastrophes.
Ricardo says:
The problem with this argument is that cutting emissions by 80% is not a policy, it is a target. To evaluate the risks of a given policy, we have to actually know what concrete policy we are talking about, not some abstract goal. Governments are constantly setting targets for various things that they never reach — that’s the much greater risk rather than suffering and/or world government.
December 9, 2009, 11:11 pmIlya Somin says:
The problem with this argument is that cutting emissions by 80% is not a policy, it is a target. To evaluate the risks of a given policy, we have to actually know what concrete policy we are talking about, not some abstract goal. Governments are constantly setting targets for various things that they never reach — that’s the much greater risk rather than suffering and/or world government.
Even if the target is never reached, policies adopted for the purpose of achieving it could still cause great suffering and (in the extreme case) lead to world government. Moreover, I don’t see any way to cut emissions by 80% in the foreseeable future that wouldn’t create at least some of the serious dangers I outlined in the post. If you – or anyone – does have a way to do that, I’m all ears.
December 9, 2009, 11:18 pmRicardo says:
My point is that we need to know exactly what policy we are talking about in order to even talk sensibly about the risks of climate change policy. How can anyone evaluate risk at that level of abstraction?
It’s like me asking you to evaluate the risk of a policy that aims to cut rape by 50% in the U.S. It’s a laudable goal, but how would you even begin to answer the question without asking what the policy actually entails whether it is harsher sentencing, indefinite imprisonment of sex offenders in “treatment hospitals,” more police patrols in problem neighborhoods, public campaigns against rape, changing the rules of evidence to make it easier to convict someone, etc. It’s impossible. Does that mean any anti-rape or anti-crime initiative is inherently suspect? I’m arguing it depends on the actual details of the initiative, not the worst-case scenario straw-man that an opponent can construct.
Moreover, I’m not sure why the only two choices we should consider are an 80% cut in emissions or the status quo.
December 9, 2009, 11:33 pmLarryA says:
For most climate change radicals that’s a feature, not a bug.
December 9, 2009, 11:42 pmTRE says:
What is to be done?
December 10, 2009, 12:49 amSteven Den Beste says:
For example, it’s possible that cutting carbon dioxide emissions by 80%, as some environmentalists advocate, would devastate the global economy, impoverishing millions and causing widespread suffering and death.
For those people, that’s not a bug, that’s a feature. The people behind this think that the human race is a plague on the planet, and things can never be right until there are a lot fewer of us.
Moreover, enforcing a worldwide cap and trade regime strong enough to compel obedience by China, India, Russia, and other potentially recalcitrant states might require a global authority with massive powers
That’s also not a bug. It’s the real purpose, because that new global government will be socialist (they imagine) and Marx’s utopia will finally come into existence.
December 10, 2009, 12:54 amDavid Schwartz says:
To the extent I thought I understood the precautionary principle (and FWIW, Wikipedia agrees) it’s a doctrine of restraint in the use of power. That is, the burden of proof is on the person who would seek to wield coercive power. These supposed uses of the precautionary principle seem to flip its logic on its head.
December 10, 2009, 1:09 amGuy says:
Shush! Your sober reasoning is getting in the way of juicy fearmongering and irresistible strawmen.
December 10, 2009, 3:18 amrhhardin says:
It’s not a philosophical problem with the precautionary principle but rather a miscalculation of odds. The disaster odds are wildly lower than 1 percent.
One percent would be if the earth hadn’t managed to get along by itself forever, but was a newly constructed planet with a strange new ecosystem.
You have to ask if there isn’t a very very strange thing going on, namely that a system that seems to be stable left on its own under all sorts of perturbations suddenly needs warnings of collapse at exactly the point in time that computers are first widely available to build models warning of collapse; and whether that isn’t a pretty natural thing, namely that models will always grow in the direction of funding.
I haven’t seen any Baysean analysis of this, but it would drop the odds many orders of magnitude below one percent.
That’s the stability to look at first. What does money do to predictions.
December 10, 2009, 3:36 amTwirlip says:
Excellent post.
December 10, 2009, 3:40 amTweets that mention The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Applying the Precautionary Principle Consistently -- Topsy.com says:
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December 10, 2009, 3:44 amDavid Schwartz says:
rhhardin: Precisely. An unstable situation can actually be long-term stable for a number of reasons, primarily due to corrective mechanisms that are not well-understood because they are not doing very much.
There are any number of trends you can find an an economy that are clearly not long-term stable. But that doesn’t mean economies are not long-term stable. They simple have corrective forces as trends reach their limits — and those corrective forces are not visible until they correct.
The astonishing long-term sustainability of Moore’s Law is another example. Just as it looked like it was about to run out, another breakthrough occurred — right on schedule.
In just the last few years, the Earth seems to have pulled some unexpected short-term cooling out of nowhere — right after some unusual short-term heating.
In the (paraphrased) words of the Catholic Church on the various sex scandals, “this must just be another one of those isolated incidents that keeps on happening”.
December 10, 2009, 4:18 amlucklucky says:
Well Dick Cheney didn’t followed his principle for sure, i am sure Pakistan is still there full of islamic fanatics.
Comparable precaucionary principle from Thomas Friedman: lets’s kill radical muslims everywhere (CO2) to an acceptable level (less then XXX ppm) while killing people all over world and stopping scientific evolution for years…
December 10, 2009, 5:05 amzuch says:
Prof. Somin:
Global climate change (perhaps catastrophic) will happen because of the laws of physics. Totalitarianism will happen because of the laws of man (or lack or deficiency thereof). When we’re talking policy, we get to choose what laws and policies will be used, including totalitarianism, democracy, or enlightened “Ommmmmm” sessions, as the case may be. You really can’t compare the two ‘risks’ here in such a manner, and certainly not the “probability” of such.
Cheers,
December 10, 2009, 7:29 amzuch says:
Prof. Somin:
Oh. Like the Wall Street RipOffAThon … — ummm, sorry, “bailout”. I’d point out that it’s the hard-core capitalists and free marketers whose concerns are being assuaged by the use of such quasi-free-market schemes as “cap and trade”. If we didn’t have to deal with such people, we wouldn’t have to invent such roundabout schemes which allow for people to make money on the side.
Cheers,
December 10, 2009, 7:34 amlgm says:
You tie yourself in knots talking about what is possible rather than what is likely. Giving two possible outcomes does not make them equally likely. Scientists believe global warming is a near certainty. Independent economists do not believe reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% would devastate the economy. In fact, cost/benefit studies tend to show that the cost of cutting greenhouse gas emissions is far less in the long run than the cost of not doing so.
December 10, 2009, 8:19 amwm13 says:
That is just an out-and-out misstatement. I am not aware of a single libertarian/free-market economist or policy analyst who wouldn’t prefer a revenue-neutral carbon tax to a cap and trade mechanism. Cap and trade is a compromise designed to satisfy (i) left/liberal ideologues, who prefer command and control systems (hence the “cap” part), (ii) fuzzy neoliberal types, who like synthetic markets, and (iii) perhaps most important, existing industry participants, who want their existing activities grandfathered to shut out new entrants.
December 10, 2009, 9:00 amRichard Nieporent says:
David Schwartz, thanks for the link to the Precautionary Principle.
lack of full scientific certainty shall not be used as a reason for postponing cost-effective measures to prevent environmental degradation.”
“When an activity raises threats of harm to human health or the environment, precautionary measures should be taken even if some cause and effect relationships are not fully established scientifically.”
“The precautionary principle applies where scientific evidence is insufficient, inconclusive or uncertain
Lack of scientific certainty due to insufficient relevant scientific information . . . shall not prevent
When you read each of these formulations of the Precautionary Principle it is obvious that the Precautionary Principle is anti-science. It allows a group of zealots to force their policies on the populace without having a scientific justification for their actions. Thus, they can prevent the introduction of genetically modified foods or prevent the use of fossil fuels in spite of the fact that there is no scientific proof that these policies are valid.
December 10, 2009, 9:07 ammk says:
lgm,
I agree with your premise that “Giving two possible outcomes does not make them equally likely.”
But would you care to name the “independent economists” who don’t believe that “reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 80% would devastate the economy”?
December 10, 2009, 9:08 amJohnny Longtorso says:
Another problem with “even if there’s a 1% chance…” is that I can come up w/ all sorts of horrifying possibilities that you can’t prove, to my personal satisfaction, have a 0.000000000% chance of occurring. Its a blank check.
December 10, 2009, 9:48 amArrowSmith says:
Wait a minute. So because Dick Cheney is an asshole bastard lying warmonger, we have to apply the same principle to ruining our economy? Seriously is this the leftist mode of operation now?
December 10, 2009, 10:07 amArrowSmith says:
Huh what? Show me what these so-called independent economists say that? I call bullshit.
December 10, 2009, 10:09 amMark Buehner says:
Of course not- any that believe that by definition aren’t independent. They use electricity, hence they are shills of Big Energy.
Making all kinds of best case assumptions. The idea that cutting our emissions by 80% will save us money goes way beyond treating us like idiots. You’d have to be a drooling vegetable to believe that. Let me get this straight- we are going to massively raise taxes to make cheap dirty energy expensive, in order to make expensive green energy competitive, and that isn’t going to cost us a dime. That premise isn’t even internally consistent. This is about equivalent to the idea that burning a virgin will make it rain.
December 10, 2009, 10:39 amShelbyC says:
I’m not sure I follow. Isn’t the post just making a generalized statement about the risks associated with climate change, and using that to discuss the application of the precautionary principle, as opposed to engaging in a substantive discussion of such risks?
December 10, 2009, 10:47 amXanthippas says:
This is an overall reasonable post, but for this:
I think if you’re trying to write about the measured application of the precautionary principle, you should either avoid, or at least not start with, the most outlandish and improbable dangers. No world government is possible at this time, nor even foreseeable in the near or distant future.
Good policy is made when you craft reasonable precautions against the most likely of negative consequences by balancing the possibility of the outcome with the cost of the precautionary measure (overall, and its cost to the achievement of your larger goal.) But you can’t craft a measure for every possibility, especially those that are extremely unlikely.
December 10, 2009, 10:48 amMark Buehner says:
December 10, 2009, 10:55 amBeacon Hill Institute at Suffolk Univ
PubliusFL says:
Well, maybe the particulates in the smoke will seed rain clouds?
December 10, 2009, 10:57 aman indian says:
That paper has been doing the rounds recently, and is one of the worst pieces of tripe I’ve read. It is amateur analysis isht that should not pass muster in a first year econ course, forget as a “paper” by a Cato “scholar”.
There are many good arguments for opening up the Indian economy, and the “cost of socialism” is probably worth a study. However, simply moving things forward by a decade is truly ridiculous given that there were huge changes in world dynamics, as well as technology underpinnings, and that infrastructure did improve in the mysteriously vanished decade, which helped to support the growth in future decades.
December 10, 2009, 11:17 amfishbane says:
For rhetorical convenience, I propose we collapse the various inconsistently and generally weak applied arguments (precautionary principle, “I know it when I see it”, the Ick Factor, etc.) into a single referent. We can call it the Feeling of Correctness argument.
December 10, 2009, 11:42 amDuracomm says:
We already know that policies designed to decrease carbon emissions did the exact opposite (increased carbon emissions)and caused massive amounts of environmental destruction.
Our experience to date means proper application of the precautionary principle to AGW would be to do nothing. The risk of making things worse is too great.
This risk is increased by the proven fact that policy selection is going to be driven by rent seeking entities and their policy preferences are driven by profit potential.
There is a serious need to be very, very, careful with government policies designed to reduce carbon emissions.
Governments have a massive amounts of resources available to them and when these resources are applied to well meaning but ultimately destructive policies the results can and will be devastating to the environment.
Palm oil: the biofuel of the future driving an ecological disaster now
Much of this destruction was a direct result of environmental policies enacted to reduce carbon emissions.
December 10, 2009, 11:55 amHarryD says:
I don’t agree that the precautionary or any “principle” guides any policy. The 1% doctrine seems like an extremely contrived “principle” to rationalize a particular government action. As noted in your blog entry the 1% doctrine is applied inconsistently: when the 1% doctrine doesn’t justify a particular government than another “principle” will be invoked. Nobody seriously holds any political actor to the precautionary principle or to any principle. A principle applied inconsistently is no principle at all. Definition of principle: A fixed or predetermined policy or mode of action. Why debate a empty concept?
As for concentrated state power, I’ll play devil’s advocate here and argue that concentrated state power has done some good. Take, Lenin’s Law against Anti-Semitism, for an example, or the Civil Rights Act, for that matter. Or consider how the Soviet Regime transformed Russia from a feudal society to an industrial one. Yes, I am aware of the crimes committed by the Soviet Union but that doesn’t mean it didn’t do some good as well. Moreover, I don’t think the use of state power equates to the abuse of state power.
And consider when state power was used to promote free market policies in Chile even ol’ Milton Friedman was in support. So I think the more useful debate is over the use of state power.
December 10, 2009, 12:23 pmAk Mike says:
HarryD – on a tangent, actually the best example of the value of concentrated state power may be the Soviet Union’s use of incredibly brutal tactics to beat the Nazis and win World War II. Lenin’s Law against Anti-Semitism did not accomplish much, particularly in view of Stalin’s actions (e.g., establishing a Jewish “homeland” in Siberia).
And the Soviet Regime beyond a doubt slowed Russia’s industrial transformation. Russia’s economy in the first decade and a half of the 20th century was growing at a far greater pace than the U.S. economy. After Communism, it slowed down. Without Communism, Russia might well be the world’s leading industrial power now.
In sum, the best historical examples of the value of concentrated state power seem to be in the destructive acts of war.
December 10, 2009, 1:28 pmlgm says:
Without accepting that this is true, think about what it says. If car fuel efficiency doubles between now and 2045, this would not increase the cost of driving. The present Prius has twice the fuel efficiency of the fleet average. Better public transportation infrastructure may reduce driving to the point that even with the same fuel efficiency, average transportation costs will stay what they are now. Then there are “externalities”. In this case, the cost to the world in global warming of burning that gallon of gas.
I’m not an economist. But Paul Krugman is. His word should carry more weight than the unknown Beacon Hill Institute (right wing think tank?). He says that the 80% reduction will not devastate the economy. He’s read reports by experts and studied numbers in detail. In general, right wing think tank reports rarely survive the give and take of the actual marketplace of ideas.
December 10, 2009, 2:06 pmTruePath says:
The problem with the precautionary principle is that it’s either totally trivial and everyone, especially cost-benefit analysis types, already accept the principle or that it’s simply incoherent and contradictory.
Ultimately I think the real challenge here is to give a precisce enough statement of the precautionary principle that the reader has a grip on how he would go about implementing it in his deciscions but doesn’t require the user to accept contradictory or false beliefs.
I mean stated informally the precautionary principle seems obvious enough. It’s saying that your reasoning might very well have an error in it so moderate your actions according. In other words even if you mathematically prove that you can step off the cliff and float precaution is the better strategy. The problem is if the precautionary principle is nothing but a reminder that we should never fully trust even the most solid seeming argument then it’s about as controversial as saying ‘drive safely’ and makes the same amount of difference. Indeed, every single one of us applies it implicitly every day and it’s no harder to model using formal methods tha anything else.
On the other hand if you want the precautionary principle to go beyond this it threatens to no longer make sense. I mean it’s perfectly fine to remind ourselves not to forget to take into account some effect when judging our probabilities of future events but this principple now says that you apply the precautionary principle to your conclusions even after you’ve accounted for all the concerns raised by the precautionary principle. You can’t both believe that your current overall deciscion making process is a good way to reach deciscions and also believe you would be better off taking on some precautionary principle to the end of that.
In other words you can either explain the precautionary rule as a very boring and universally accepted heuristic for helping us avoid stupid errors in our probability estimations (the proof could be wrong). Or it’s a meta-rule that tells you to take whatever you believe to be the best way of reaching a deciscion and do something else.
December 10, 2009, 2:09 pmRich Rostrom says:
One problem with the phrasing of the Precautionary Principle is the casual use of “1%”. Many of the risks we think about are actually much smaller than that.
Let’s take the risk of being killed in an automobile accident. This is certainly a catastrophic outcome. Wearing a seat harness to reduce this risk is certainly justified.
But nothing, other than never riding in a car, can reduce that risk to zero. And even reckless driving without a seat belt does not pose a 1% chance of being killed each time.
What can be taken from this? Some “catastrophic risks” are inherent in ordinary life. All we can do is minimize them at reasonable cost.
The sort of risk Cheney was talking about was things like a terrorist atomic bomb attack. This is something that would be of extraordinary origin. It would also be something that we can foresee, in the sense that we can describe what would actually occur in physical detail. Furthermore, it is something for which the physical mechanism is well understood, and the operational mechanism not exactly vague.
“Global warming” is very different. The event, the effects, and the supposed causative mechanisms are all very diffuse. The costs of the proposed remedies are enormous. These remedies are often justified on the grounds that they would be good ideas anyway. (You all know those reasons.)
I’ll make an analogy here. To insure that there will be no terrorist atomic-bomb attack, the United States should, on the “precautionary principle”, conquer and govern the entire Middle East – from Pakistan to Libya to Somalia. It would be expensive, but far less expensive than a 100 kiloton bomb going off in a U.S. city.
And, as with “global remedies”, there are all sorts of other “good reasons” to do it. It would end the enormous waste of money on military expenditures in this region. It would end the brutal oppression of many populations in the region by criminal governments. It would end the looting of the people of the region by corrupt rulers. It would allow the oil wealth of the region to be distributed to all its people, rather than a handful of rulers and their cronies. It would eliminate the lavish financial support now enjoyed by extremist forms of Islam. It would end the exploitation of “guest workers” in the Gulf States, where many are treated as no better than slaves. It would end outright slavery in some areas. It would end the appalling mistreatment of women in this region (no more honor murders or clitoridectomies). It would stop the flood of toxic propaganda from malignant regimes and factions there: the incitements to terrorism, the conspiracy fantasies, the venomous anti-semitism.
What’s not to like? Surely, under the Precautionary Principle, we should do this, and, like the proposed “anti-carbon” regime, there are so many other good reasons.
Does anyone agree with this? Anyone? Bueller…?
December 10, 2009, 3:47 pmRyan Waxx says:
Yes, it DOES look like that, doesn’t it?
Because that empty concept is used as a rhetorical device to avoid debate over what level of “solution” is acceptable.
Much like the remote chance of burning forever in hell may convince some to worship a deity “just in case”, throwing away rational discussion of the chances of such a thing in the face of “wouldn’t it suck to be wrong?”, so too does the precautionary principle serve to sacrifice discussion of the probabilities of a thing in the face of the terrible consequences should the most dire predictions become true.
Discrediting such a worthless mode of argument is a good in and of itself.
December 10, 2009, 4:55 pmInstapundit » Blog Archive » ILYA SOMIN: Applying the Precautionary Principle consistently. “One major problem with most invoca… says:
[...] SOMIN: Applying the Precautionary Principle consistently. “One major problem with most invocations of the precautionary principle is that people tend [...]
December 10, 2009, 5:25 pmRobert Arvanitis says:
We face a portfolio of risks, and must deal with the aggregate.
Buying insurance “creates the potential risk of insurer failure.”
Yes, but so what? We get rid of the risk of the loss event, and take back the far smaller risk of the counterpary.
If we dither about killing the enemy because their offspring might harbor thoughts of revenge, then we lose. Period.
December 10, 2009, 5:58 pmJamie says:
First Ricardo, then Guy:
Wha? Who’s fearmongering? Possibly the side of the debate shrieking, “Remake the global economy NOW or the human race will become EXTINCT!!”? (Which is also why the question is “an 80% cut in emissions or the status quo”: either it’s a giant global environmental emergency, or it ain’t. Which is it, warming-alarmists?)
Furthermore, any scientist who doesn’t think the earth is warming or will warm is either utterly uninterested in the subject or not a scientist: if the earth isn’t shattered into a bazillion pieces by a huge asteroid, it’ll warm (or is warming). Question is, how fast?
December 10, 2009, 6:01 pmBrianMacker says:
No one dies merely from climate change. People do die from the weather if they can’t heat or cool their homes. If we reduce fossil fuel carbon emissions by 100% then over five billion will die. I think it is clear where the risks are.
December 10, 2009, 6:28 pmBrianMacker says:
Oh, and the environmentalists are just giving us Pascal’s Wager in a different form.
December 10, 2009, 6:31 pmMark Buehner says:
See- he’s the only economist on earth. How did his work at Enron showcase his unique insights?
Bingo. Anybody that disagrees with Paul Krugman is by definition unknown and bought and paid for. Its wonderful when you can just declare that you can only be an expert if you agree with me, and only agree to listen to other experts.
If so, he is a complete and utter idiot (or more likely a liar). Please tell me how double the cost of electricity saves us money? How far in the tank can we possibly be to buy into this crap? It doesn’t even make sense on its face! MAKING THINGS MORE EXPENSIVE DOESN’T MAKE THEM CHEAPER.
December 10, 2009, 6:32 pmBrian S says:
“Similarly, environmentalists apply the precautionary principle to global warming, but not to the risks created by policies intended to alleviate global warming.”
Except the “precautionary principle” isn’t the issue. In fact, accepting it is accepting the moral principle that the subjugation of humanity is valid.
Even if AGW isn’t occurring, we KNOW there will be climate changes in the future. They have naturally occurred throughout the history of the planet. And they will continue to occur regardless of the activities of man. Thus the question here is: how will we RESPOND to those inevitable changes? Will we enslave mankind to the dictatorial judgments of those who claim they know what is best for everyone in the face of any change? Or will we leave individuals free to exercise their OWN judgment on how they will respond to wetter climates or drier climates or warmer climates or colder climates?
In other words, the question here is the same as has been put forth throughout human history. Will man be subjugated or will he be left free? Is man a slave or is he sovereign? We KNOW the environmentalist answer. They have put forth all the same ancient excuses used to justify every other demand to subjugate humanity. The only thing which has changed – the only thing that EVER changes with such mentalities – is the rationale they offer as justification for their dictatorial urges.
What remains the SAME throughout is the totalitarian mindset which desperately latches on to any rationalization in an attempt to justify their murderous desires.
It is time to stop these would-be dictators. It is time to stand up and present the MORAL defense of liberty and rights against these ancient monsters who now try to cloak themselves behind a facade of science.
Mountains WILL rise and fall. Seas WILL grow and shrink. Ice WILL expand and decline. Climate WILL change. It is INEVITABLE.
It is NOT, however, a justification to subjugate mankind. To accept the “precautionary principle” is to accept that the enslavement of humanity is valid. And to accept that is to give up everyting.
December 10, 2009, 6:33 pmMark Buehner says:
I’ve got a plan. We outlaw X(cheap, proven commodity). We then rely on Y(unproven, expensive commidity). Hence, via the economy of scale, ‘green jobs’, Keynes, conservation, and that warm feeling in our hearts, Y becomes cheaper than X. And I guarantee it. But we need to do it instantly (recession be damned), but I promise you that in 50 years we will be fine, and in fact recoup the trillions of dollars in transition costs. Now I can’t tell you what the CBOE will look like in 3 months, but I CAN promise you that. While we’re at it, lets bust out a bunch of windows and make ourselves rich selling each other replacements.
Does that not sound INSANE to anybody else?
December 10, 2009, 6:40 pmRyan Waxx says:
What cracks me up is how the same people who accept his word as gospel then turn around and complain the moment anyone brings up a cite that has Fox News anywhere in it.
December 10, 2009, 6:43 pmCharlie says:
The very fact that carbon dioxide acts very efficiently as a greenhouse gas prevents it from causing any further heating. Heat, technically speaking, is photons at specific frequencies within the infrared spectrum.
CO2 rapidly captures photons within three distinct but narrow bandwidths. This is well-understood real science. Satellite measurement of atmospheric gases shows that all photons in the relevant ranges are more than 99% absent before they have traveled 100 meters from the earth’s surface. (This also owes to similar action by water vapor, a more broad-acting greenhouse gas that substantially overlaps CO2′s active range.)
This means that CO2 could be doubled or even increased tenfold in the atmosphere without any additional greenhouse effect. Indeed, that is what the chart in Gore’s movie actually showed: CO2 concentration increases as the planet warms, not the other way around. That is because, as any bartender can tell you, as liquids warm, in this case the oceans, they release their fizz.
All the hoohaw so far has been over fudged charts and nudged data. But presented here is the mechanism of heat-trapping by greenhouse gases in its stark simplicity. When someone can explain how increasing carbon dioxide can trap heat that is no longer there to be trapped, I’ll write my congressman to demand more nuclear.
December 10, 2009, 7:14 pmBohemond says:
It’s not analagous at all to a 50% cut in rape, since everyone agrees rape is bad and reducing it an unalloyed good. In this case the target itself will have profound adverse repercussions if achieved no matter what the specific policies: it would require Americans to make do with the same energy usage per person as our ancestors did in 1875. In other words, grinding poverty for all. Not to my mind a good tradeoff for averting the possibly-maybe climate doom the Goracle predicts.
December 10, 2009, 8:19 pmAnil Petra says:
The failure to embrace nuclear is enough to call “BS” on the global warmongers.
December 10, 2009, 8:26 pmNobody at All says:
Not really. I actually “embrace” nuclear, but pay attention to market realities.
The levelized cost of nuclear is low, but the initial capital burdens are enormous. (Excluding, for the moment, the 100-500MW reactors being proposed for licensing.) It is simply difficult to assemble such large chunks of financing. Even with a streamlined regulatory structure (which I also support), there are fundamental supply constraints, cost of capital constraints, labor risks, delay risks, etc. As the industry re-emerges, these should decrease. Nonetheless, for the foreseeable future, nuclear power will remain the province of large, regulated utilities with balance sheets supported by the ratepayers within their service monopoly.
It is highly unlikely that the independent power producers will begin constructing nuclear. (See, for example, IPP construction of natural gas vs. coal plants, to get an overall flavor of access to financing influences the choice of plant.)
Moreover, even some of the largest of the utilities will have difficulty financing on the scale called for. Ex/
http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20091206-702996.html
The scale contemplated will likely necessitate a large amount of state involvement.
December 10, 2009, 9:53 pmAri Tai says:
Man-made and natural disasters are guaranteed. Where the policy question is “how do we best insure the survival of (the least of) us? History implies that those who survive the largest of disasters are relatively wealthy (and even more interestingly have the greatest amount of energy under their personal control, from truly personal transportation to the ability to command the earth to move) compared to those who do not, both at a given time and over millenniums.
So the precautionary question here resembles the difficulty of valuing basic research. We know funding basic research has been a great good, but sometimes has a negative result – and there is no way of prejudging. However we do know from history that holding social change to a minimum (valuing the evolutionary status quo no matter how backwards it may seem) and sublimating all of our creative efforts into free enterprise with a free people competing for each other’s favor results in the greatest improvement in living conditions, quality of life, health etc., especially for the least of us.
My sense is everyone of these potential and discovered catastrophes should cause us to redouble our efforts to advance our own welfare (as individuals, families, tribes and towns first, states, federal, world government last) just as fast as possible. Where “pre”caution should argue for fewer restraints, less regulation, not more, on intellects, and more intellects (born and invited) to put their able shoulders to the wheel. Where the greatest common denominator of wealth has always been the applied able, willing, rewarded and free intellect.
A pity progressives have lost the essential meaning of progress. This has killed many, and will kill more. And all with the best of intentions. A tragedy in every meaning of the classic term. Aka the human condition. Where the more we try to use force – government to perfect (various forms of so-called “social” (in)justice), the more we kill.
Consider natural catastrophes: Mitochondrial Eve – something almost killed us all off a few hundred thousand years ago.. Yellowstone cooking off every ~500K years, we’re overdue for the eastern half of the U.S. to be covered with a few (10s of) feet of ash..(where’s my earth mover?). Glacial periods that have swept the earth (we can deal with heat with less energy than cold), to say nothing of the stray rock or occasional coast-moving typhoon. And 1000s more. Focusing on climate change as a reason to do anything less than run faster, and, yes, consume more faster, so we get to a better place where we just don’t care about a whole new class of disasters certainly looks foolish (esp. after the next catastrophe).
Note that most U.S. cities are completely rebuilt (for largely personal comfort reasons) every 100 years or less. They won’t be rebuilt in the same place if the sea rises – or falls. Yes, rising temps might actually lead to the sea falling if warmer air brings snow to the currently barren Antarctica mile high plateau that’s never above -15c (but has glacier scaring indicating mile high snowpack ages ago). Beachfront being what it is.. people will move (even if we eliminate the perverse insurance incentives to build in flood plains). If we maximize progress, people will be eventually be rich enough that they won’t care if they have to rebuild every few decades if the result is a beautiful view, better quality of life.
December 10, 2009, 9:58 pmRicardo says:
Jamie, the problem is that you are projecting your own partisan commitments on others. I’m open-minded on the question of policy. Even as stated, an 80% cut is an incomplete target: 80% by when? 2012? 2112? I believe the idea comes from the fact that CO2 levels will eventually revert to around 300 ppm (from a current level of 385 ppm) in a reasonable period of time. Depending on what we think is an acceptable level of risk, there is a whole continuum of choices.
December 10, 2009, 10:00 pmRicardo says:
Non-sequitur. Whether “everyone” agrees that a certain target is a worthy goal has nothing to do with an objective assessment of the risks associated with any policy that works toward that goal. Otherwise, your argument is that as long as there is someone who doesn’t agree with a certain policy goal on normative grounds, he has a kind of heckler’s veto to raise all kinds of straw-man policies and use those hypothetical policies to argue against doing anything. That would be convenient to some people if it were true but it is not.
ShelbyC, I think of the precautionary principle as a general statement about identifying and trying to minimize long-tail risks. We can make some sense of this when we talk about the physical world of climate, tectonic plate movements or asteroids. Ilya is trying to knock this principle down by extending it to the policy world and saying that if there is a category of policies to achieve a certain objective and at least one of those policies would have extremely bad consequences, we shouldn’t try to work toward achieving the objective (under the precautionary principle) because of the “risk” of a certain straw-man policy. This is not a defensible application of any kind of general philosophy or principle of risk aversion.
December 10, 2009, 10:13 pmMikee says:
On a smaller scale than climate change, ancient and modern physicians took an oath that I paraphrase in part as, “First, do no harm.” When the massive changes proposes by the environmentalists are shown to do no harm, they will have more power to persuade us toward implementation. Until then, I recognize a blivet when I see one being handed to me.
A blivet is ten pounds of manure in a five pound bag.
December 10, 2009, 10:39 pmSamA says:
Students of Control System Engineering learn that an unstable system (“plant”) can be stablized with a properly designed feedback control device. Those devices are themselves often unstable in isolation, but the combination of plant+controller is stable, even robust.
Those unstable controllers are hard to test in manufacturing, though.
Perhaps “two wrongs don’t make a right”, but two unstable systems can combine to make one stable system. Perhaps Mother Gaia knows that trick.
December 10, 2009, 10:51 pmHarryD says:
The 1% doctrine is totally absurd. First of all, there is no way of determining the percentage of the risk of terrorist attack. Second, even if it were possible, it is outrageous to devastate another country on the basis of a such a slight risk. It would be like burning down a neighbor’s house because you got into your head that the neighbor posed a 1% risk of killing you. The 1% doctrine totally contradicts the principle that war is a means of last resort. It makes war a means of first resort. In war as a last resort, you would wait until the very last moment; you would wait to see if war isn’t unnecessary. the 1% doctrine says that even though it is much more probable than not that the threat will never materialize (1 to 100), war is necessary, regardless the cost to anyone else. So, war should be pursued before the risk reaches 2% for after all by that time the danger is upon us. In a world governed by the 1% doctrine war would be ever-present. Of course, Cheney isn’t suggesting universalizing this doctrine. Only the U.S is important enough to have such a wide margin of error.
And no I wouldn’t apply the 1% doctrine in an environmental context. But it is plain to any thinking person that the risks are much greater than 1%. The evidence suggests that if immediate action is not taken, human life on earth may be doomed. Unlike the threat of a terrorist attack, the harm carbon emissions are causing can be measured. Whatever the risks, it is a dead certainty that if the level of carbon emissions continue to increase or are not abated, disaster will ensue. It is not as if the threat isn’t visibly growing or that it might just pass us by.
Am I suggesting that we create a dictatorship to immediately eliminate all industrial production or at least that which creates carbon emissions. Of course not, but we should start reducing carbon emissions and the government will probably need to create incentives. This either destroy the economy or do nothing is a straw argument.
December 10, 2009, 11:24 pmBrian S says:
“The evidence suggests that if immediate action is not taken, human life on earth may be doomed.”
The evidence suggests absolutely no such thing. This is just fear mongering in an attempt to justify the subjugation of one’s fellow man.
“This either destroy the economy or do nothing is a straw argument.”
Actually, IF that were the argument, it would be a “false alternative” not a straw man. But of course that is NOT the argument. The argument is whether the individual is properly left FREE to decide for himself how best to deal with any changes in climate – or whether he must be SUBJUGATED to the will of others who force him, at the point of a (govt) gun, to abandon his own mind on the matter and act in accord with their dictates instead.
You make very clear your choice – and it is NOT freedom.
December 11, 2009, 2:41 amMark Buehner says:
This may be true but relative to the level of government involved in any other carbon scheme, this is minuscule.
People have all sort of reasons for why going nuclear is too expensive and complicated to do- but they can’t seem to explain how we built all the reactors we still have today between 1950 and 1980. In other words, by the logic proposed 20% of our energy infrastructure can’t possibly exist.
Other than politics, I can think of no reason we can’t vamp up our nuke infrastructure on the same level as we did in the 60s and 70s, and all the better with modern technology.
December 11, 2009, 3:25 pmBohemond says:
Sorry, I was sloppy in casually using the “everybody agrees” locution, which sent the discussion off-track. Let’s rephrase: Reducing rape is an unadulterated good. There is no downside to it whatsoever. Whereas an 80% decrease in carbon output is not by any means an unadulterated good: it means a huge (if not 80%) decrease in energy consumption, in effect reducing us to a pre-industrial standard of living. Yet we are supposed to do this on the basis of some very, very dodgy and unsettled science, or what purports to be science.
December 11, 2009, 3:35 pmBrian 2 says:
Quite possibly. But for liberals, that’s not a problem at all. If I believed that AGW was likely to have catastrophic results, and also that government can and should play a large role in the economy, then a crash program to build hundreds of nuclear plants would be my top priority.
December 11, 2009, 5:07 pmSteve Darden says:
That’s a well-informed comment by Nobody at All. Here’s a few further thoughts. Absent a carbon price that captures the externalities of coal and gas generation, the capital costs per MWh of baseload generation of new Gen-3 nuclear power plants are larger than dirty coal, and about the same as coal with CCS (we don’t really know because a clean coal CCS plant has never been built at utility scale).The very large 1.2 to 1.5GW nuclear plants currently planned for the US are that large because the new construction has been entirely planned by big utilities – and economies of scale do apply to these types of reactors. Similarly, coal plants have ranged over about 0.5 to 1.0GW size – again economies of scale. A few points to consider:
(1) Absent the current large subsidies, the cost per unit of nameplate capacity of wind/solar is higher than nuclear, but can be erected in smaller investment chunks. But the real challenge of financing new zero-carbon generation is that we need $10.5 trillion additional investment between now and 2030 to put the world’s energy system on a lower-carbon path (source International Energy Agency).
(2) That nuclear is both cheaper to build and cheaper to operate is a plus. But forgetting cost, we need a technology path that can actually be implemented. It is going to be really tough to convert the existing fleet of dirty generation plus build all the new capacity required to reach a zero-carbon 2050. Prof. Barry Brook, has thoroughly persuaded me that new Gen3 + Gen4 nuclear is the only way we are going to get there.
(3) All of the above is based upon the old way of doing nuclear – where each plant is semi-custom, involving large amounts of highly-skilled onsite labor. Consider a more rational future, where nuclear power is mass-manufactured in standard modules, shipped to the reactor park using standard intermodal-container sized packages, hooked up and turned on.
December 12, 2009, 9:57 pm(4) Consider how much of the current $4000/kW cost of the big nuclear plants is in the uncertainties over the elapsed time from project start to turn-on. And what certification of mass-manufactured units plus sensible regulation would do that risk.
The Volokh Conspiracy » Blog Archive » Do We Need Global Governance To Combat Global Warming? says:
[...] want to foreclose the possibility of such a decision. The costs of greatly reducing emissions are substantial, potentially even catastrophic. Even to those who, like me, believe that global warming is a genuine danger, it’s not obvious [...]
December 21, 2009, 10:57 pm