Ignore the Fake Climate Debate, or Is The Wall Street Journal Following GHS?

Ignore the Fake Climate Debate

The deniers and alarmists may make headlines, but behind the scenes, an expert consensus is taking shape on how to respond to global warming.

By Ted Nordhaus Jan. 23, 2020 11:10 am ET  wsj.com

Beyond the headlines and social media, where Greta Thunberg, Donald Trump and the online armies of climate “alarmists” and “deniers” do battle, there is a real climate debate bubbling along in scientific journals, conferences and, occasionally, even in the halls of Congress. It gets a lot less attention than the boisterous and fake debate that dominates our public discourse, but it is much more relevant to how the world might actually address the problem.

In the real climate debate, no one denies the relationship between human emissions of greenhouse gases and a warming climate. Instead, the disagreement comes down to different views of climate risk in the face of multiple, cascading uncertainties.

On one side of the debate are optimists, who believe that, with improving technology and greater affluence, our societies will prove quite adaptable to a changing climate. On the other side are pessimists, who are more concerned about the risks associated with rapid, large-scale and poorly understood transformations of the climate system.

But most pessimists do not believe that runaway climate change or a hothouse earth are plausible scenarios, much less that human extinction is imminent. And most optimists recognize a need for policies to address climate change, even if they don’t support the radical measures that Ms. Thunberg and others have demanded.

In the fake climate debate, both sides agree that economic growth and reduced emissions vary inversely; it’s a zero-sum game. In the real debate, the relationship is much more complicated. Long-term economic growth is associated with both rising per capita energy consumption and slower population growth. For this reason, as the world continues to get richer, higher per capita energy consumption is likely to be offset by a lower population.

A richer world will also likely be more technologically advanced, which means that energy consumption should be less carbon-intensive than it would be in a poorer, less technologically advanced future. In fact, a number of the high-emissions scenarios produced by the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change involve futures in which the world is relatively poor and populous and less technologically advanced.

Affluent, developed societies are also much better equipped to respond to climate extremes and natural disasters. That’s why natural disasters kill and displace many more people in poor societies than in rich ones. It’s not just seawalls and flood channels that make us resilient; it’s air conditioning and refrigeration, modern transportation and communications networks, early warning systems, first responders and public health bureaucracies.

New research published in the journal Global Environmental Change finds that global economic growth over the last decade has reduced climate mortality by a factor of five, with the greatest benefits documented in the poorest nations. In low-lying Bangladesh, 300,000 people died in Cyclone Bhola in 1970, when 80% of the population lived in extreme poverty. In 2019, with less than 20% of the population living in extreme poverty, Cyclone Fani killed just five people.

Poor nations are most vulnerable to a changing climate. The fastest way to reduce that vulnerability is through economic development.

So while it is true that poor nations are most vulnerable to a changing climate, it is also true that the fastest way to reduce that vulnerability is through economic development, which requires infrastructure and industrialization. Those activities, in turn, require cement, steel, process heat and chemical inputs, all of which are impossible to produce today without fossil fuels.

For this and other reasons, the world is unlikely to cut emissions fast enough to stabilize global temperatures at less than 2 degrees above pre-industrial levels, the long-standing international target, much less 1.5 degrees, as many activists now demand. But recent forecasts also suggest that many of the worst-case climate scenarios produced in the last decade, which assumed unbounded economic growth and fossil-fuel development, are also very unlikely.

There is still substantial uncertainty about how sensitive global temperatures will be to higher emissions over the long-term. But the best estimates now suggest that the world is on track for 3 degrees of warming by the end of this century, not 4 or 5 degrees as was once feared. That is due in part to slower economic growth in the wake of the global financial crisis, but also to decades of technology policy and energy-modernization efforts.

We have better and cleaner technologies available today because policy-makers in the U.S. and elsewhere set out to develop those technologies.

The energy intensity of the global economy continues to fall. Lower-carbon natural gas has displaced coal as the primary source of new fossil energy. The falling cost of wind and solar energy has begun to have an effect on the growth of fossil fuels. Even nuclear energy has made a modest comeback in Asia.

All of this suggests that continuing political, economic and technological modernization, not a radical remaking of society, is the key to both slowing climate change and adapting to it. And while the progress we’ve made has mostly not been due to climate policies that would cap, regulate or tax emissions, it has required government action.

We have better and cleaner technologies available today because policy-makers in the U.S. and elsewhere set out to develop those technologies, from hydraulic fracturing to solar panels to electric vehicles. Adaptive capacities around the world have also improved dramatically because policy-makers have invested in infrastructure, technology and economic development. And a decades-long commitment to expanded global trade and international development institutions has brought greater economic opportunities to many regions of the world that historically have been left behind.

Acknowledging that we have made progress should not deter continued investment in clean technology and climate adaptation. Rather, it should encourage us to redouble those efforts, especially because uncertainty still looms large in any assessment of climate risk. At the high end of current estimates of climate sensitivity, the world could still experience 4 or 5 degrees of warming in this century, even with significantly lower emissions.

Moreover, even if climate change does not threaten social or economic collapse, anyone who has lived through the California wildfires of recent years, or the bushfires that are currently encircling Sydney, Australia, can tell you that this is not a future most people would desire. And even if human societies end up adapting well to climate change, the planet’s biodiversity almost certainly will not.

Such conclusions are unlikely to satisfy the noisy participants in the fake climate debate. But the utopian dreams of those who wish to radically reorganize the world to stop climate change are not a plausible global future. Nor will denying the relationship between carbon emissions and global warming make the real risks of climate change go away. The world will tackle this problem the way that it tackles most other problems, partially and incrementally, by taking up the challenges that are right in front of us—adaptation, economic development, energy modernization, public health—and finding practical ways to address them.

—Mr. Nordhaus is the founder and executive director of the Breakthrough Institute and a co-author of “An Ecomodernist Manifesto.”

 

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Jay, I disagree.  I think drilling will decrease but not stop (I follow permits daily).  All the operators that are in a position to ride out those 6 months, or longer, will get by.  They have done it before.  Henry Hub (and Perryville) basis prices will be close to break even for them by the time withdrawal season is done.  Then we will see what the weather forecast is for the injection season.  An average summer AC season should put them all back in the black just not enough to brag about.

If a democrat is elected president this year fracking will be banned and you won't have to worry  about gas prices in the Haynesville.

Won't happen.  Insufficient support from Congress.  The old saying should be held in mind, "you campaign in poetry but govern in prose".  I don't see a wall paid for by Mexico.  Do you?

And you see both of us paying for that wall. A campaign promise that any rational person would have known was not possible but it galvanized bigots and garnered their votes.  Claiming to ban fracking is the exact same kind of political talking point aimed at certain members of the voting public who are too dumb or blind to the economic damaged that would be done by a fracking ban.

I see a wall being built and Mexico is halting illegal immigration on their southern border.

Resorting to name calling like bigot, dumb and blind is just a sophomoric attempt to squelch debate.

Dog whistles tend to call dogs.  And those that lie with dogs tend to get fleas.

I find the subject of the article to be not just appropriate but one that all mineral owners should be aware of and follow even if they do not care to post and opinion.  Actually all mineral owners, including my clients and GHS members, should have an interest in a reasoned and "middle of the road" approach to any policies, regulations, incentives, subsidies and business trends that involve reactions to climate change.  Yes, it is political but it is also about an existential threat to every living thing and has broad economic implications as well.  It is an issue that will not go away and is being addressed globally by many countries and companies.

As to name calling, I apologize to those in opposition to fracking that I called bigots.

This is a very interesting article.  Well reasoned, well written.

My view is that it is right on point for this blog - not overtly political or partisan.  very factual.

Now, can we all absorb the article, perhaps agree or disagree with certain points he makes, and stop sniping?  

Steve, I thought so too.  That's why I posted it. I'm glad you agree.  I hope other members will not feel intimidated to weigh in and join the discussion.

Yes, I have an agenda but it is not political unless you consider promoting a middle of the road approach falls into a particular political camp.  My fear is that there is no political camp for what some would call "half measures" and others would call climate hysteria but is actually a means to address a warming planet while not cancelling the O&G business over night, causing a spike in energy costs for consumers and business or continuing to pump GHG unabated.  There are choices to be made and putting them off just means that we will have fewer down the road.  The discussion and public debate, here and writ large, is long over due.

And, just for the record, I’m 70 years old, and I’ve voted for every Republican presidential candidate since my first vote for Richard Nixon.  Not wealthy, but contributed thousands of $$ to Republican candidates for President, US Senator, Congress, Governors and state representatives and senators over the years.  I’m “invested” in our government, and I don’t ask for much in return.

Ten years ago, I would have been considered a climate skeptic.  My problem was that I didn’t trust the politicians and scientists who were, what I called, climate alarmists.  Their positions fit too neatly into their political beliefs.  Actually, I still consider many of them climate alarmists.  However, putting personalities and agendas aside (and how hard is that these days), the hard facts started to convince me that the earth has a problem.  My biggest concern now is that China and India are going in the wrong direction on climate.  The current administration is also, but the US is not.  

I firmly believe that NG needs to play a big role in the future.  As the article by Mr. Nordhaus points out, improving economies, while they may use more energy, in the long run are important to dealing with climate change.  NG will play a role in that, around the world.

On this site, we will never convince a single person on anything by bickering, sniping, and throwing insults.  If I want that, I’ll go to Facebook.

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