I get it, you're appropriately going after the Climate COP. You may be understating their historical significance, but they seem to have become are impotent, frustrating gatherings, perhaps a collective narcissistic bubble. Yet, the tone here is dismissive of the challenges - and dismissive of both the science and the risk. Atypical of your work to be simplistic in this way (and I mean that both as constructive and as a complement).
First, the science. A: The statistic that island nations are adding land through filling, etc., is a strawman argument about climate change risk, and plus this risk is not limited to islands (see king tides, globally). B: Humanity is pushing planetary boundaries as recently experienced during the Holocene. And no doubt human ingenuity will buffer accelerated warming (fusion, geoengineering, etc.). And also no doubt we will adapt, even to rising seas. Yet I'm trained as a geochemist and follow the abundantly compelling evidence of paleoclimatology. The last time there was 415ppm C in the atmosphere (ca. 3.2mya), mean sea level was 22m higher and mean global temps were approx 3 degrees C warmer. That's where we are headed, sans management of complex atmospheric chemistry. Granted, as a leading Greenland glaciologist told me, 'It is going to melt, but it is going to take centuries.' But 1.5 degrees, albeit somewhat arbitrarily selected as a political posture, is not without consequence.
Second, on risk. I am also trained as an economist and accept that we need to optimize current investments (good pt on Gates). Obviously, our definition of the problem does depend on our time horizon and the net present value of the future. (That economics, as a fair reflection of short-termism, poorly values intergenerational justice is a complex and big topic.) Yet, your assessment of climate-related risk aligns quite poorly with conclusions arrived at and policies enacted by the multi-trillion-dollar reinsurance industry, which is, not incidentally, quite attentive to the science). It's a bit of a throwaway analysis to say, 'we are wealthier and our lands more densely populated, so of course it's more expensive.' That, again, is a strawman argument if the intent is to define climate-disaster risk profiles. Looking at a point in time is meaningless. Any useful analysis is tied to a longer horizon, such as that of the 30-year mortgage. The math has to include reasonable projections of conditions is 2056.
So, go after the Climate COP all day long, and I'm right with you. And while we are at it, let's also deflate many irrational arguments that have at times annoyingly governed the climate conversation. But in the end, despite all our ideas and cherished debates, we are unwise to ignore the laws of thermodynamics.
Hi Robert, thanks for your comment. I'd point out a couple of things.
First, a strawman argument is one that misrepresents a claim or position in order to more easily rebut it. That is not the case here. The origins of the 1.5C limit is exactly as I say. It was put forward by small island nations claiming that exceeding that limit would wipe them off the map. So the fact that these regions have been gaining land mass, not losing it as temperatures have approached 1.5C is not insignificant. Now, since the 1.5C limit was put forward, there have been a range of further claims about why it must be adhered to. I noted briefly in this oped what those claims are and why we should be skeptical of them. I write at much greater length on that question here - https://www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/why-i-stopped-being-a-climate-catastrophist - and here - https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/did-exxon-make-it-rain-today.
Planetary boundaries are just warmed over temperature targets. The notion that the Holocene was unusually stable, a "safe space," or the "goldilocks" climate for human civilization is post-hoc, precautionary, and mostly nonsense. At best, what made the Holocene unusual was not that it was particularly stable but that it was particularly warm in the history of anatomically modern humans, the first interglacial period that humans in any significant numbers and with a geographically dispersed population experienced. At worst, it is environmental determinism that really doesn't add up very well. Throughout the Pleistocene, there were plenty of places, in the tropics for instance, that were inhabited by humans and were well suited to agriculture. So the development of agriculture, sedentary populations, and ultimately civilization was also far more contingent than the goldilocks narrative suggests.
Finally, I'd bring a lot more skepticism to the claims of the reinsurance industry, which has profited handsomely by raising rates based on future climate damage estimates that are highly dubious. See, for instance, Roger Pielke's 3 part series on the reinsurance industry and climate risk - https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-climate-risk-industrial-complex - and Jessica Weinkle on how climate advocates and allies in the finance and investment communities have manipulated climate risk modeling to mutual benefit, exaggerating future risk/cost in ways that serve advocacy demands for the former and then financializing those inflated risks in ways the serve the financial interests of the latter - https://www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/performing-climate-risks-to-financial?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web.
Ted, thanks for the engagement. I take your point on the reinsurance industry profiting from climate alarmism - 'never let a crisis go to waste,' right? I had not thought of that. Makes sense. Not entirely sure that an industry conspiracy to harvest profits from an unsuspecting public explains the full dynamic, and will look into it. I'd share stories from major property owners (former clients) in Miami were they not under NDA. That's a little unfair to argue based on a secret, but still the point remains that rational and well-informed actors are pricing future sea level risk into current property markets. For the islands, I'm more empathetic. Conservative estimates put MSL change at perhaps half a meter in 75 years. That's the end of an atoll. (Fun fact: Have you ever driven across the Florida panhandle from the Atlantic to the Gulf and passed the sign: 'Continental Divide - 4 Feet.') Granted, it's clear I'm taking a long view (again: 3.2m years ago, 415ppm C, MSL 22m higher - this is now, without intervention, baked in). I'll admit centering on the long view risks the inherent perils of 'limits to growth' thinking - meaning, we can and will solve problems as they come. And it is a lousy reason to scream 'Fire!' or as a basis for industrial policy. Our species' advantage is novelty, and I bank on that. RE 1.5 degrees - those international accords seem to like setting stretch goals that even on the surface are not attainable (see SDGs, right?). But they are useful as they provoke an urgent response, which I suspect is the intent. On planetary boundaries I was unclear. Thinking Stockholm Institute. Not referring only to temperature but a suite of thresholds attendant to warming (e.g., coral reefs = acid + heat). I also unfairly made you work in my reference to Holocene stability. To your point, it was glacial maximums that facilitated, not impeded, global migrations of our ancestors. (I have to push back on the suggestion that it's logical to defang environmental determinism by arguing civilization could have but did not advance in the Tropics during the Pleistocene; there are other drivers, like innovations in culture and technology, that had not yet emerged.) Didn't mention goldilocks, which I think is a simplistic term. I refer to the complex mix of technological innovations that built a global civilization during a period of relatively stable climatic conditions that are now disrupted. We no longer live in that world. Ask the ski resort owners in the Northeast where I live. Again, we'll adapt.
Ted,
I get it, you're appropriately going after the Climate COP. You may be understating their historical significance, but they seem to have become are impotent, frustrating gatherings, perhaps a collective narcissistic bubble. Yet, the tone here is dismissive of the challenges - and dismissive of both the science and the risk. Atypical of your work to be simplistic in this way (and I mean that both as constructive and as a complement).
First, the science. A: The statistic that island nations are adding land through filling, etc., is a strawman argument about climate change risk, and plus this risk is not limited to islands (see king tides, globally). B: Humanity is pushing planetary boundaries as recently experienced during the Holocene. And no doubt human ingenuity will buffer accelerated warming (fusion, geoengineering, etc.). And also no doubt we will adapt, even to rising seas. Yet I'm trained as a geochemist and follow the abundantly compelling evidence of paleoclimatology. The last time there was 415ppm C in the atmosphere (ca. 3.2mya), mean sea level was 22m higher and mean global temps were approx 3 degrees C warmer. That's where we are headed, sans management of complex atmospheric chemistry. Granted, as a leading Greenland glaciologist told me, 'It is going to melt, but it is going to take centuries.' But 1.5 degrees, albeit somewhat arbitrarily selected as a political posture, is not without consequence.
Second, on risk. I am also trained as an economist and accept that we need to optimize current investments (good pt on Gates). Obviously, our definition of the problem does depend on our time horizon and the net present value of the future. (That economics, as a fair reflection of short-termism, poorly values intergenerational justice is a complex and big topic.) Yet, your assessment of climate-related risk aligns quite poorly with conclusions arrived at and policies enacted by the multi-trillion-dollar reinsurance industry, which is, not incidentally, quite attentive to the science). It's a bit of a throwaway analysis to say, 'we are wealthier and our lands more densely populated, so of course it's more expensive.' That, again, is a strawman argument if the intent is to define climate-disaster risk profiles. Looking at a point in time is meaningless. Any useful analysis is tied to a longer horizon, such as that of the 30-year mortgage. The math has to include reasonable projections of conditions is 2056.
So, go after the Climate COP all day long, and I'm right with you. And while we are at it, let's also deflate many irrational arguments that have at times annoyingly governed the climate conversation. But in the end, despite all our ideas and cherished debates, we are unwise to ignore the laws of thermodynamics.
Best, Robert Heinzman
Hi Robert, thanks for your comment. I'd point out a couple of things.
First, a strawman argument is one that misrepresents a claim or position in order to more easily rebut it. That is not the case here. The origins of the 1.5C limit is exactly as I say. It was put forward by small island nations claiming that exceeding that limit would wipe them off the map. So the fact that these regions have been gaining land mass, not losing it as temperatures have approached 1.5C is not insignificant. Now, since the 1.5C limit was put forward, there have been a range of further claims about why it must be adhered to. I noted briefly in this oped what those claims are and why we should be skeptical of them. I write at much greater length on that question here - https://www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/why-i-stopped-being-a-climate-catastrophist - and here - https://www.thenewatlantis.com/publications/did-exxon-make-it-rain-today.
Planetary boundaries are just warmed over temperature targets. The notion that the Holocene was unusually stable, a "safe space," or the "goldilocks" climate for human civilization is post-hoc, precautionary, and mostly nonsense. At best, what made the Holocene unusual was not that it was particularly stable but that it was particularly warm in the history of anatomically modern humans, the first interglacial period that humans in any significant numbers and with a geographically dispersed population experienced. At worst, it is environmental determinism that really doesn't add up very well. Throughout the Pleistocene, there were plenty of places, in the tropics for instance, that were inhabited by humans and were well suited to agriculture. So the development of agriculture, sedentary populations, and ultimately civilization was also far more contingent than the goldilocks narrative suggests.
Finally, I'd bring a lot more skepticism to the claims of the reinsurance industry, which has profited handsomely by raising rates based on future climate damage estimates that are highly dubious. See, for instance, Roger Pielke's 3 part series on the reinsurance industry and climate risk - https://rogerpielkejr.substack.com/p/the-climate-risk-industrial-complex - and Jessica Weinkle on how climate advocates and allies in the finance and investment communities have manipulated climate risk modeling to mutual benefit, exaggerating future risk/cost in ways that serve advocacy demands for the former and then financializing those inflated risks in ways the serve the financial interests of the latter - https://www.breakthroughjournal.org/p/performing-climate-risks-to-financial?utm_source=substack&utm_campaign=post_embed&utm_medium=web.
All the best,
Ted
Ted, thanks for the engagement. I take your point on the reinsurance industry profiting from climate alarmism - 'never let a crisis go to waste,' right? I had not thought of that. Makes sense. Not entirely sure that an industry conspiracy to harvest profits from an unsuspecting public explains the full dynamic, and will look into it. I'd share stories from major property owners (former clients) in Miami were they not under NDA. That's a little unfair to argue based on a secret, but still the point remains that rational and well-informed actors are pricing future sea level risk into current property markets. For the islands, I'm more empathetic. Conservative estimates put MSL change at perhaps half a meter in 75 years. That's the end of an atoll. (Fun fact: Have you ever driven across the Florida panhandle from the Atlantic to the Gulf and passed the sign: 'Continental Divide - 4 Feet.') Granted, it's clear I'm taking a long view (again: 3.2m years ago, 415ppm C, MSL 22m higher - this is now, without intervention, baked in). I'll admit centering on the long view risks the inherent perils of 'limits to growth' thinking - meaning, we can and will solve problems as they come. And it is a lousy reason to scream 'Fire!' or as a basis for industrial policy. Our species' advantage is novelty, and I bank on that. RE 1.5 degrees - those international accords seem to like setting stretch goals that even on the surface are not attainable (see SDGs, right?). But they are useful as they provoke an urgent response, which I suspect is the intent. On planetary boundaries I was unclear. Thinking Stockholm Institute. Not referring only to temperature but a suite of thresholds attendant to warming (e.g., coral reefs = acid + heat). I also unfairly made you work in my reference to Holocene stability. To your point, it was glacial maximums that facilitated, not impeded, global migrations of our ancestors. (I have to push back on the suggestion that it's logical to defang environmental determinism by arguing civilization could have but did not advance in the Tropics during the Pleistocene; there are other drivers, like innovations in culture and technology, that had not yet emerged.) Didn't mention goldilocks, which I think is a simplistic term. I refer to the complex mix of technological innovations that built a global civilization during a period of relatively stable climatic conditions that are now disrupted. We no longer live in that world. Ask the ski resort owners in the Northeast where I live. Again, we'll adapt.