Fixing climate change shouldn't cost the Earth

Bjorn Lomborg
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What especially bugs my critics is the idea that cutting carbon would cost far more than the problem it is meant to solve.

"How can that be true?" they ask. "We are talking about the end of the world. What could be worse or more costly than that?"

They have a point. If we actually face, as Al Gore recently put it, "an unimaginable calamity requiring large-scale preventative measures to protect human civilisation as we know it", then no price would be too high to stop global warming. But are the stakes really that high?

The answer is no. .... For example, a sea-level rise of 5m - more than eight times what the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change expects, and more than twice what is probably physically possible - would not deluge all or even most of mankind.

Of course, such a rise would not be a trivial problem. It would affect about 400 million people, force the relocation of 15 million, and imply costly protection of the rest. But it would certainly not mean the end of the world. Estimates show the cost in terms of adaptation would be less than 1 per cent of global GDP. The price of unchecked global warming may be high, but it is not infinite.

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Traffic accidents claim an estimated 1.2 million lives every year. We have the ability to solve this problem, eliminating half a trillion dollars in damages and sparing untold anguish. All we have to do is lower the speed limit everywhere to 5km/h.

Obviously, we will not do this. The benefits of driving moderately fast vastly outweigh the costs. ...

Consider, too, homeland security. On the one hand, the more we spend on anti-terrorism measures (and the more inconvenience we are willing to tolerate), the safer we feel. On the other, even though everyone agrees that a successful terrorist attack is unacceptable, there is a limit to how much we are willing to spend to keep ourselves safe.

Why are we willing to calculate costs and benefits when it comes to traffic safety and terrorism, but not when devising policies to deal with global warming? Perhaps it is because we experience the downside of excessive traffic regulation or security measures every day, while the downside of bad climate policy is more of an abstraction. ...
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If we panic and make the wrong choices in response to global warming, we risk leaving the world's most vulnerable people even worse off. If we are to have a constructive dialogue about the smartest policy responses to global warming, we need to replace our fixation on far-fetched Armageddon scenarios with realism about the true costs of this challenge.

Bjorn Lomborg is director of the Copenhagen Consensus Center.


From: The Australian March 15, 2010 12:00AM

http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/opinion/fixing-climate-change-shouldnt-cost-the-earth/story-e6frg6zo-1225840644967

Crazy to think human activity impacts climate

Excerpts from Fred Singers Interview with DNA:

To what extent is human activity responsible for changing climate?

....Carbon dioxide (CO2) has increased by 35% over the last 150 years. However, it’s (contribution) is only minute compared to natural causes. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is 90-99% sure that the cause of 20th century warming is human activity. Many, including me, disagree. We believe causes are natural.

Who can we say is right?

Look at the evidence. Data does not support IPCC. Water vapour is a greenhouse gas (GHG) and is much stronger than CO2. But IPCC dose not consider water vapour explicitly. We believe water vapour decreases the effect of CO2.....

Why then is CO2 portrayed as the chief culprit of climate change?

...For political reasons, people talk only about CO2 as it’s emitted due to industrial factors, while CH4 is due to grazing.

How much of a bearing does the sun have on climate?

In 1700, sun spots disappeared and temperature on earth became low, ice formed. In EU, there were cold summers, very cold winters, and no vegetation, leading to famine. Several people died from diseases. 1,000 years ago, there was medieval warming, leading to crops forming at the southern tip of Greenland. The sun caused it....

There is strong apprehension that sea levels would increase tremendously.

An 18 cm rise in the sea level per century has been the norm for over 3,000 years and this will continue, no matter what.

There is also apprehension that small islands would drown due to climate change?

Many small islands are made out of coral which keeps up with the sea level. If the sea rises, coral grows and it never gets buried by the sea.

So what is Copenhagen all about then?

Oh it’s a political event. ... Schemes to control CO2 will make energy expensive. Emission cuts make energy very expensive, which only the rich can afford. You know, total emissions of CO2 have gone up in US, EU. In 1997, during the Kyoto Protocol, they promised to reduce emission by 5%. But emission is only going up. They have no intention of reducing it.

Copenhagen is a very bad idea....

So should the common man worry about climate?

No need for any worry. Climate is not a problem. It’s crazy to think that human activity can impact global climate....