I would like to read a well reasoned rebuttal of the arguments in the original paper, but I guess I’ll have to settle for some minimal comic relief value from Mr. Bahner’s posts.

When it comes to “Pseudoscience” it appears that you are simply resorting to wishful ignorance.

Second, as a matter of policy, the refusal to take adequate steps in light of potentially significant adverse consequences, is the height of imprudence and the polar opposite of conservatism.

Face this fact: we are not talking about curtailing quality of life or standard of living in any real sense. We are merely talking about changing the base of our energy infrastructure from fossil fuels to nuclear fission, wind, solar, etc., and increasing the efficiency of various goods and services. All of these steps will increase rather than decrease economic activity, so the position based on economic impact is specious at best. Would anyone like to step up to the microphone here and argue in favor of squanderousness and recklessness? I thought not.

And yet the “do-nothing” and “head in clouds” schools of economics are doing precisely that by default. Imprudent, anticonservative, squanderous, and downright shameful in light of what is at stake.

You also stated that there will be clothing that will “cool the body” in the future. I am assuming, you mean that even if there is global warming, we will just put on a special clothes and they will cool our bodies down?

Hmm… Well you know, if the summers get much warmer, the crops won’t grow…and if the crops don’t grow…we don’t eat.

So, Mr. Bahner, will there also be special clothing the crops can wear so they can cool down as well???????

I guess my left-wing brain doesn’t understand all this technology you speak of…

1) Total number of atoms in the universe estimated at 10^70 (10 to the 70th power).

2) Assuming total wealth of 100 x 10^15 in the year 2100, and total wealth increasing by a factor of a million each subsequent century…

3) …total wealth equals number of atoms in the universe in about 8 centuries. (Surprisingly quickly!)

But I think people will stop counting even by 2100.

Assuming a worldwide population (of hydrocarbon-based humans) of 10 billion in 2100, a per-capita GDP of $10 million (in year 2000 dollars) would produce a total world GDP of 100 quadrillion dollars (i.e. 100 x 10^15).

Given the fact that there are 6.022 x 10^23 hydrogen atoms in ***1 gram*** of hydrogen, one should be able to see quite easily that the number of dollars in the world isn’t going to exceed the number of elementary particles in the universe anytime within the projection periods of the IPCC.

“Mark, the odd thing is that I too am an optimist by disposition.”

I am NOT an optimist. My projection of a world per-capita GDP of $10,000,000 (in year 2000 dollars) in the year 2100 is neither “optimistic” nor “pessimistic”. I’m not relying on “optimism,” I’m relying on the ***sciences*** of economics and technological trends analysis.

When I predict that Robert E. Lucas Jr. and virutually the entire economics profession (with exceptions like Arnold Kling and Robin Hanson) dramatically underpredict economic growth in the 21st century, it’s not because I’m “optimistic” and they are “pessimistic;” it’s because I don’t think they accurately foresee the effects on economic growth of computers that equal and then exceed the human brain in computing capability.

http://econlog.econlib.org/archives/2004/10/nonlinear_think.html

Regarding the second comment, it became obvious very quickly that it was another post from Bahner. Extrapolating his calculation of personal wealth in 2100, approximately in what year will aggregate wealth expressed in dollars exceed the number of elementary particles in the universe? Mark, the odd thing is that I too am an optimist by disposition. It’s just that history has been a bit of a bumpy ride. That’s been true even when looking at the extreme short-term constituted by recorded history. One can easily imagine your particular brand of optimism being shared by all sorts of folks who were living in materially plush times just before the axe fell. I’m no expert on this stuff, but I think it’s an important mental exercise to try to place yourself in the position of, e.g., the Easter Islanders as they cut down the last of their forests and try to imagine how they rationalized doing so even after the consequences had become obvious. As you know, Roger and others have argued at great length that a variety of steps (e.g., greater energy efficiency) that would ameliorate global warming are entirely justifiable within their own immediate terms. Yet, progress is very hard. We see General Motors, a very large organization run by some very smart people, in deep trouble right now due to some extreme short-term thinking. You have to ask yourself what it is about human beings that makes this kind of irrationality possible.

Just a couple of absurdities in the article:

1) The final sentence of the Conclusions states: “While our children or grandchildren may not face the end of the world, they could well face the end of the world, at least as we have known it.”

Ho, ho, ho! What would people living in the year 1905 say about the year 2000? Would they say the world as they knew it in 1905 was pretty much the same? In 1905, they had no airplanes, no automobiles (except for a few wacky and rich individuals), no television, no air conditioning or mechanical refrigeration, no Internet, no Walmart, etc. etc. etc. So the world as people knew it in 1905 had “ended” by 2000? Can any person reasonably say that the world in 1905 was a better place than in 2000?

Well, the progress in the 21st century, in terms of economic, technical, and human health development is likely to dwarf that of the 20th century. I’m predicting a factor of 1000 growth in per-capita GDP. That is, I’m predicting a world per-capita GDP (in year 2000 dollars) in 2100 of over $10,000,000. In other words, no one on earth in the year 2100 will be less than a multi-millionaire by today’s standards.

But even if per-capita economic growth in the 21st century only equals that of the 20th century, it will still mean that the per-capita world GDP in 2100 will be over $50,000. In other words, the average person in the world in 2100 will still be wealthier than the average person in the richest country in the world in 2000.

And that does not even count the technical and human health progress that can be expected in the 21st century (e.g. mitigation/control of hurricanes so that they don’t become powerful, complete eradication of malaria, clothing that cools the body, etc.).

So how in the world can anyone reasonably claim that the warming that might occur in the 21st century will cause “the end of the world as we have known it?”

2) “It is noteworthy that the indicated range of temperature rise obtained for the year 2100 in the present exercise (i.e. 1.6 to 6.6 deg/C) is similar to – although at a somewhat higher level than – that arising from the results of the many GCM runs that are summarized in the IPCC report published in 2001 (i.e. 1.4 -5.8 deg/C; see IPCC 2001b:13).13 This is not surprising since, to reiterate, the computer models must be attuned to the same basic information.”

No, what it essentially means is that two stopped clocks both produce the correct time twice a day. The IPCC’s upper temperature projection of 5.8 degrees Celsius is based on blatant nonsense regarding projected atmospheric methane concentrations, CO2 emissions, and CO2 atmospheric concentrations. This paper’s projection of 6.6 degrees Celsius is based on even more blatant nonsense…fitting a polynomial curve through temperature data that—completely arbitrarily!—started during a time of ***cooling***. (So of course a polynomial curve fitted through that data is going to produce dramatic increases when extrapolated to the future.)

The IPCC’s upper value of 5.8 degrees Celsius is pseudoscientific rubbish. This paper’s upper value of 6.6 degrees Celsius is even more blatant pseudoscientic rubbish. THAT is the similarity they share; it has absolutely nothing to do with “computer models…attuned to the same basic information.”

3) “Doubtless there will be gains in energy use efficiency, shifts towards less carbon intensive fuels, and greater use of renewable energy sources (e.g. solar, wind and tidal power). But except for a massive shift towards nuclear – which has many serious problems attached, and would in any case take decades to bring about – there are limits to what such changes could possibly achieve in terms of CO2 reduction.”

This is nonsense. It is indeed true that there are limits on how quickly the world can move towards photovoltaics. But there is absolutely no technical barrier to humans attaining 100% of their energy needs from photovoltaics. And the author completely neglects nuclear fusion. (This is much like people in 1905 who might have completely ignored the possibility that humans could ever fly across oceans or continents.)

4) “But in many respects the ensuing ‘Kyoto process’ can itself be seen as
one chiefly concerned with ways of avoiding making reductions in CO2 emissions. Examples of this tendency include the discussion of ‘carbon sequestration’ i.e. the planting of trees and other vegetation to help ‘neutralize’ CO2 emissions.

This completely ignores the idea of ocean surface removal of CO2 (e.g. with iron fertilization).

5) “Another approach with a strong element of avoidance – one that has occupied armies of negotiators, lawyers, economists, consultants, etc, the very stuff of Weberian bureaucratization (Prins 2003) – is the construction of ‘carbon markets’. The theory is that by enabling ‘emissions trading’ such markets will allow some countries (usually richer ones, with high emissions)
to pay others (usually poorer ones, with low emissions) – essentially as a way of reducing the need to make any reductions at all.12”

Perhaps the emissions trading concepts currently under discussion/implementation are flawed. But this appears to dismiss “carbon markets” in principle. That is complete nonsense. (It’s absolutely shocking that any *economist* would do such a thing. Talk about left-wing!) U.S. “trading” of SO2 and NOx emissions has been a resounding success…producing far larger emission reductions at far less cost than was originally thought possible.