Your journey into intergenerationality is out of the context of our discussion. Beside even in this case we have no simple answer whether we should adapt or mitigate. We could bequeath a sufficient capital stock to facilitate adaptation in the future. Beside the problem of intergenerationality is more than a problem of transaction costs. Moreover it is about unknown preferences and about the fairness of redistribution between people with different income levels. All economic models assume a richer future. In this case it is even possible that future generations should compensate poor people in our generation.

What on Earth makes you guys think you can adequately discuss the finer points of adaptation vs. mitigation when you have no idea what it will take to adapt? Remember convection? Hot air rises? If you think convection is adequately represented in models you are living in lala land. Leveraging local convection against the effects on Hadley cell circulation via parameterization and thinking you have some semblance of reality is ludicrous.

But hey, just go view the censored opinions at RC and you’ll keep thinking you know what’s going on. Sorry, but you’re putting the cart before the horse.

Actually, that’s not Coase at all. It’s Calabrese’s justification for expanding tort liability to all dangerous products, not only those cases where there is clear negligence (see G. Calabrese, “The Cost of Accidents,” (Yale, 1970)). For a good criticism of Calabrese’s new doctrine of torts, see Peter Huber, “Liability: The Legal Revolution and its Consequences,” (Basic Books, 1990)).

Coase would turn like a pinwheel in his grave if he heard you saying that we should apply strict liabilty tort law to the problem of pollution! Coase clearly states in “The Problem of Social Cost” that all that is required is to provide clear and enforceable property rights (i.e., old-fashioned 19th century contract & tort law) and that it matters not to whom those rights are initially assigned: “I propose to show that the allocation of resources will be the same [under injured party pays] as it was when the damaging business was liable for the damage caused” [Coase, "The Firm, the Market, and the Law," (Chicago, 1988) p. 102]. Coase clearly states that the initial distribution of property rights and responsibilities is irrelevant to the final distribution because in either case, the market will trade rights until an optimal distribution is achieved.

I do assert that the cost of climate change is borne most by poorer countries. Every long-term economic analysis I’ve seen agrees on this. Can you point me toward a peer-reviewed analysis that says otherwise? I’d be very interested to see an opposing point of view on this.

Two other major failings of Coase: First, negotiation between polluters who live today and those affected, who mostly will live 100 years or more in the future, is impossible. The intertemporal obstacle to negotiations raises transaction costs through the roof.

Second, it’s important to note that Coase ranks outcomes purely by total societal wealth, not fairness of distribution, so he falls victim to all the criticisms that have been lodged at Kaldor and Hicks. I take a more Rawlsian ethical position on this (but see my “Ethics in Geological Time” (http://sitemason.vanderbilt.edu/files/htw0q4/Ethics%20in%20Geological%20Time.pdf) for discussion of why Rawls falls short too and we need a more spiritual and communitarian ethics regarding obligations to distant future generations)

I’m not sure why you think Pielke and I disagree about whether adaptation and mitigation are compatible from a CBA perspective. We agree and this dispute arose when I thought that he was saying they were not compatible.

Mitigation does not require huge bargaining costs. You just impose a Pigovian carbon tax at the coal mine, oil well, etc., and apply the proceeds toward adaptation. This allows the markets to allocate resources efficiently between mitigation and adaptation.

My problem with your application of Coase to resolving disputes between the desperately poor in Africa vs. McMansion owners in the US is that there’s a slippery slope from the Coase’s firebug train to outright extortion.

A witty lawyer, Paul Gowder, once explained Coase thus (http://lessig.org/blog/2004/12/is_there_another_nobel_prize_b.html):

The Coase Theorem in a Nutshell:
I have a mortar.
You have a house.
It is costless for us to negotiate.
It is UTTERLY MEANINGLESS whether I have the legal duty to not use the mortar to blow up your house, or the legal right to do so at my will.
Assume I get $50 of pleasure from using the mortar to blow up your house.
Assume you get $2000 of displeasure from my using the mortar to blow up your house.
It is perfectly efficient for the legal system to assign me the house-up-blowing right, and for you to pay me anything between $51 and $1999 not to blow up your house.
My name? Corleone. Vito Corleone. Pleased to meet you. I have great respect for Mr. Coase.

This is how I see Coasean solutions that would tell us in the U.S. to continue enjoying 4000 square foot houses, plasma TVs, and long commutes, all powered by fossil fuels, unless the poor people of the world pay us to stop (or pay to adapt to the consequences of our effluents).

Can you point to anywhere where I have advocated “Roger Pielke, Jr. and others saying we should give up on mitigation and focus on adaptation”? You can’t because I haven’t, and I don’t think anyone else has either.

I have argued that mitigation policies should be properly justified. The characterization of my views that you point to is simply not accurate.

Please do not mischaracterize my views.

You might read my post today on why I believe that mitigation and adaptation are perfectly compatible:

http://sciencepolicy.colorado.edu/prometheus/archives/climate_change/001372la_times_on_adaptati.html

Thanks much,

Roger

First, it’s counterproductive to undermine the mitigation legislation currently in process in Congress by saying that another, less politically feasible approach, is superior. Voltaire’s quip about the best being the enemy of the good and whatnot.

Second, setting the two approaches in opposition to each other is wrong because just from a cost-benefit approach we need both and in fact we need a lot more of each than is currently on the books. Further, the argument for adaptation instead of mitigation only looks so favorable because it neglects some important costs and benefits, because it does not take adequate account of the low-probability/high-consequence end of the distribution of possible AGW consequences (See Martin Weitzmann’s review of the Stern Review, to which I link in my original post) and because it assumes an idealized implementation of adaptation policies, not an extension of existing adaptation policies (NFIP and Colorado River Compact, and so forth)

Third, I’m expanding the problem domain: even if you think it’s better to dump mitigation and buy adaptation, then it’s better still to dump farm subsidies and buy both mitigation and adaptation, so Pielke’s arguing from a false premise of necessary tradeoffs between only those two policies.

Thanks again for your comments and criticism.