Tom, you quoted me: “The main reason for the “pathetic results” is that the social costs are simply not that high.”

…and replied, “I would say that this rather tautological and has little explanatory power.”

No, it’s not tautological, and it does have explanatory power.

The “social costs” (damages) from global warming are simply not that high. In fact, a very good case could be made that the costs have been in net NEGATIVE from 1880 to 2006. That is, the benefits resulting from CO2 fertilization of plants, milder winters, and longer growing seasons have actually outweighed the harms from CO2-induced global warming to date.

People simply aren’t going to put a lot of money and effort into stopping something that causes little harm…in fact, may even be beneficial (at least so far).

You continue, “My point is that the common-property, open-access nature of the atmosphere and the susceptibility of individual nations to rent-seeking by domestic constituencies means that it can be exceptionally difficult to reach meaningful agreements.”

Yes, that is a problem, in addition to the “problem” that the “problem” is small…and may not even exist (at least so far).

“Coordination/prisoners dilemma problems are rife in open-access resources. That’s why global fish stock are crashing, and why all nations can’t agree together to put an end to destructive bottom-trawling. The same is true for controlling AGW.”

No, those problems are orders of magnitude greater for AGW than for crashing fish stocks.

Thanks,
Mark

Thanks for your comments. It looks like a couple of mine have been caught in filter.

You say: “The main reason for the “pathetic results” is that the social costs are simply not that high.” I would say that this rather tautological and has little explanatory power. You are saying that the world won’t act effectively unless the costs of inaction are significantly high – this begs the question of why a high threshold of costs is needed.

My point is that the common-property, open-access nature of the atmosphere and the susceptibility of individual nations to rent-seeking by domestic constituencies means that it can be exceptionally difficult to reach meaningful agreements. The proclity of the Bush administration to act as free rider/spoiler instead of working to build mutual trust has pushed the threshold for action even higher.

Coordination/prisoners dilemma problems are rife in open-access resources. That’s why global fish stock are crashing, and why all nations can’t agree together to put an end to destructive bottom-trawling. The same is true for controlling AGW.

You write, “Mark, yes, your technical analysis about corals IS missing something, and a rather important something at that – an institutional framework. Who is going to pay for what you suggest? Will a Kyoto-lite. just for reefs, be required?”

No, if my techical analysis about corals is missing something, it’s not that. Like virtually everyone else in the world, Tom, you simply don’t have any concept of the mind-boggling growth in wealth that will almost certainly happen in the 21st century.

My analysis calculated the cost of protecting all the reefs of the world with calcium carbonate to be $200 billion. Let’s figure out how easy/difficult it would be for the Forbes 400 Richest Americans to handle that. It turns out Forbes has been publishing the Forbes 400 since 1982. See this site for the history:

http://www.forbes.com/2002/09/13/rich400land.html

I’ve taken the wealth of the entire list for 1982, 1992, 2002, and 2006, and converted them into year 2002 dollars, per the consumer price index. Here are the wealth values (in year 2002 dollars):

1982 = $321 billion
1992 = $482 billion
2002 = $885 billion
2006 = $1.14 trillion

The respective annual growth rates are 4.1% (1982 to 1992), 6.2% (1992 to 2002) and 6.6% (2002 to 2006).

I’ve done what I (perhaps immodestly ) consider will be seen as exceptionally accurate predictions of the rate of world economic growth in the 21st century. According to my analysis, it will accelerate dramatically:

http://markbahner.typepad.com/random_thoughts/2004/10/3rd_thoughts_on.html

But let’s ignore that, and simply assume that the wealth of the Forbes 400 will continue to grow by 6.2 percent per year (the value from 1992 to 2002). If so, the values (in year 2002 dollars) will be:

2010 = $ 1.43 trillion
2020 = $ 2.61 trillion
2030 = $ 4.75 trillion
2040 = $ 8.65 trillion
2050 = $ 15.7 trillion
2060 = $ 28.6 trillion
2070 = $ 52.1 trillion

…should I go on, or are you getting the picture?

In 2006, with the Forbes 400 at $1.14 trillion, Richard Branson committed to giving $3 billion to alternative energy. In 2050, the Forbes 400 will be *at least* 15 times as large (probably more like 100 times as large, but that’s another story).

In 2050 *a single person* of wealth comparable to Richard Branson could give the $200 billion necessary to provide complete protection for all the coral reefs in the world from acid attack…***if*** that is even a problem.

Mark

thanks for your response to my comment above (posted at November 29, 2006 06:11 PM).

It is always a dicey business to comment without full knowledge of the facts of the case, which I did in that post.

I had heard of the “holocaust denier” analogy but not of the Nuremberg reference.

Nonetheless, as I now understand it, the reference was to trials somewhat akin to the Nuremberg trials. As best as I have been able to establish, the only explicit reference to execution is yours. If this is not the case I would be happy to stand corrected.

Given that the original comment was indeed over the top, I believe it is your responsibility not to up the ante, and I would regard your translation of Nuremberg (where many were acquitted or sentenced to prison) to “suggesting…executions” as just such an upping.

A picky point on my part? Perhaps. But if you can’t make your point with the actual language you intend to criticize then I would suggest that you try again.

best regards,

Steve

I think that it is clear that we are not acting effectively internationally because of free rider issues that adversely affect the willingness of all to incur costs, and that the domestic decision has been held up by rent seeking. This is true not erely for mitigation. but also for adaptation, third world development and other problems such as fisheries.

The kind of experiment we are now conducting with our lifeboat is hardly responsible. Shall we all just cross out fingers?

I view the “pathetic results” as not merely due to the problems you list. In fact, I don’t even view the “pathetic results” as due chiefly to the problems you list.

The main reason for the “pathetic results” is that the social costs are simply not that high. In fact, a case could easily be made that the benefits of CO2 emissions (fertilization of plants, and a warmer average world temperature…with the warming occurring mainly in the coldest areas of the globe) *exceed* the social costs up to this time. That is, the world at 380 ppm CO2 and ~15 degrees Celsius on average is BETTER than the world of 280 ppm and 14 degrees Celsius that existed prior to 1900.

Further I maintain that this situation will likely continue to exist for decades to come.

P.S. If not *forever.* I maintain that there is a greater than 50/50 chance that the warming will never exceed 2 degrees Celsius higher than in 1990. This will occur because natural technological evolution will cause CO2 emissions to peak before mid-century, and decline to a point where emissions are balanced by natural sinks before the century ends.

Thanks again for your response. Allow me to sum up:

It sounds like we agree that:

1. The net social costs of GHG emissions are a pure externality to the economic actors who produce them. As there are no property rights to the global atmosphere, in the absence of regulation using the atmosphere as a GHG dump is free, with social costs shifted to all and to the future.

2. For as long as net social costs of GHG emissions are a pure externality to the economic actors who produce them, even if the social costs of GHG emissions were to exceed by orders of magnitude the private gains from activities that emit GHGs, private use would continue – although private use would continue to be affected by costs, convenience, and technological change.

3. If the social costs are indeed high and perceived to be as such, then people, communities, nations etc, will band together to ensure that their use is reduced. We see this dynamic in operation at present, but with rather pathetic results. I view the pathetic results as a testament to the difficulties inherent in the prisoners’ dilemma confronted by a multitude of nations with differing intersts (facing a welter of economic actors) and the Westphalian problems presented by the lack of an institutional framework relating to an open-access commons. You, on the other hand, prefer to ignore the difficulties with coordination and to focus on whether the social cost estimates are robust and arrived at through a thorough and systematic review.

4. As there are no private gains to be captured in reducing external costs, there are no private incentives to develop technologies that are expressly targeted at reducing GHG emissions – though decarbonization continues for other reasons, such as convenience, serendipitous cleanliness of low carbon fuels, the costs imposed by air pollution regulations and economizing on fuels generally.

5. Given 1 and 2, it seems that you acknowledge that setting an emissions target for CO2/GHGs at zero does not necessarily imply zero benefits to society today from any activities that produce GHGs.

6. Mugging old ladies and emitting GHGs might both, on net, be a bad thing – even as one involves a pure theft while the other a private economic activity that has some externalities.

Your tweaks appreciated.

It’s now been ~20 years since my last course in Water Chemistry…and it was probably my worst subject, to boot. (What does an air pollution engineer need with such things, anyway? ).

So to do the actual calculations to verify this would take longer than I care to spend…and I’d probably get it wrong anyway. But let’s spitball some really gross numbers and possibilities:

1) Let’s say the earth contains 20,000 linear kilometers of ocean reefs. (My guess is that might be high…)

2) Let’s say that for every linear kilometer of ocean reef, humans dumped 1000 metric tons (1 Gg) of crushed limestone on the seaward side. That’s 1 metric ton per linear meter…or a pile about 0.7 meters high, by 1 meter wide. Thus, when the tide came in, it would go over the pile of limestone and then onto the reef.

3) The total mass worldwide would be 1000 metric tons per kilometer, times 20,000 kilometers, or 20 million metric tons.

4) Let’s further say that humans did this every year, for 50 years straight. That would leave 50 metric tons of crushed limestone per linear meter…minus the amount that dissolved each year. Assuming the pile ended up 10 meters wide, it would be about 5 meters high. (That’s a lot of limestone!)

5) The total limestone usage would be 20 million metric tons per year, times 50 years, or 1 billion metric tons of crushed limestone.

6) The current price of crushed limestone is about $50 per cubic meter:

http://www.soilbuildingsystems.com/RockData.php#

7) Let’s say it costs $300 per cubic meter to deliver the limestone to the reefs. Using a density of 1500 kg/cubic meter, that means that a metric ton (1000 kg) of limestone delivered to a reef would cost about $200 per metric ton.
So the total cost for a billion metric tons would be $200 billion…over 50 years, that’s $4 billion per year. That’s a trivial amount even to the U.S. now…let alone the world in 50+ years.

9) When people like Ken Caldeira write things like “…if we expect future generations to live in a world with corals…” I wonder if they have ever even bothered to do a straightforward analysis like this?

Or am I missing something? (Like I wrote, Water Chemistry was probably my worst subject…)