The Climate Change Discussion Thread

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

Cause there's no negative consequences elsewhere and wheat and canola yields are all that matters?

Let's have a real and rational balancing of what the consequences might actually be, positive and negative, for Canada, and determine Canada's policy based on that.

The article esquire was referring to seemed to be focusing on agricultural issues (e.g. as in the Dust Bowl imagery implied by the flowery "hot, dry, fiery future" headline), which is why the same guy agreeing that in fact it will be a massive boon for the two major western Canadian crops is somewhat on point.

[SaskScraper]

^ Both research studies conclude an increase in Wheat yields and agricultural lands shifting north and boreal forest declining. There is predicted more precipitation but only in shoulder seasons and with higher evaporation it will likely become net drier on the Prairies with more natural disasters such as forest fires becoming more common. Winter temperatures have increase by a few degrees in the last 50 to 60 years the one study suggested.

Here's a quick look at Winter Averages for cities in Canada. The most interesting part to me is the amount of snow fall in different areas of the country.




Looks like this year again like last year, most of Southern Prairies is on razors edge of having two weeks from now a "White Christmas" (2 cms of snow on ground at 7am Christmas Day)


https://www.wunderground.com/maps/snow/snow-cover

[milomilo]

Originally Posted by Andy6

Let's have a real and rational balancing of what the consequences might actually be, positive and negative, for Canada, and determine Canada's policy based on that.

The article esquire was referring to seemed to be focusing on agricultural issues (e.g. as in the Dust Bowl imagery implied by the flowery "hot, dry, fiery future" headline), which is why the same guy agreeing that in fact it will be a massive boon for the two major western Canadian crops is somewhat on point.

What about all the money we'll have to spend rebuilding infrastructure for the new climate? Just because something might have a few specific benefits doesn't mean those small benefits outweigh all the other costs.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by milomilo

What about all the money we'll have to spend rebuilding infrastructure for the new climate? Just because something might have a few specific benefits doesn't mean those small benefits outweigh all the other costs.

Isn't that a completely obvious part of what Andy's saying about performing real analysis and costing things out? In this area I see a lot of superficial reasoning around how it would be Very Bad (if not for us then somewhere else that's usually not specified, such as the poor Saharan nations taking the brunt of climate change yet also posting much higher GDP growth than us) without a lot of details in what changes would be needed either way and why the mitigation strategies are a clear net win.

One example is sea level rise and those maps that show how every coastal city would be flooded if all ice on earth disappeared. Many cities are rationally coping with sea level rise at the local planning level and their mitigation strategies include approaches like building new waterfront buildings 1 m higher than the old base, which yields about 300 years of future-proofing at current rates of sea level rise. We may debate how much sea level rise is likely to happen but the point is that the mitigation measure is pretty modest compared to the anxiety about it.

I don't mind carbon taxes but I wonder if the numbers actually make sense. For example there are tree planting schemes to increase carbon sequestration and the federal government is planning to plant 2B trees for $3B. Is that lower or higher than the $170 per ton carbon tax rate? One paper out there suggests that 500B trees would soak up 2/3 of the carbon emitted by humans since the beginning of the industrial revolution. If the carbon tax scales up beyond the cost of offsetting the CO2 emissions then it's either badly designer or it's not just about CO2 emissions.

Finally from a political angle let's appreciate that these aggressive anti climate change measures kick in after the current government is gone, and don't seem to require disproportionate sacrifice from the wealthier people who form the elite class. I guess their actual carbon emissions from flying around are more than offset by them spreading the good word. If JT flies to Davos and has a good ski trip but also tells some billionaire how bad climate change is, that's got to be like emitting -1,000,000 tons of CO2. And we know that climate change will turn billions into Mad Max style roaming hordes, so maybe he deserves a Nobel Peace Prize too.

[jawagord]

Double post

[jawagord]

Originally Posted by milomilo

What about all the money we'll have to spend rebuilding infrastructure for the new climate? Just because something might have a few specific benefits doesn't mean those small benefits outweigh all the other costs.

Canada will see at net benefit from a warming climate, even the venerable old CBC has a tough time spinning this into a negative! We benefit from less cold winters requiring less heating, this savings in energy is the biggest benefit followed by longer growing season from early spring, later fall. This is true for most areas of the world that experience freezing winter weather.

......when all the changes to things like tourism demand, crop yields and the growing season are factored in, there's a slight net positive. Assuming a one-degree rise, Moody's forecasts a Canadian economy that's about the same in 2048 as it would otherwise be. If the impact is 1.9 degrees, the GDP impact inches up to 0.16 per cent. At 2.4 degrees, it's 0.1 per cent. And if the temperature rises by four degrees in the next three decades, Canada's economy is projected to be 0.3 per cent greater than it would otherwise have been.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/cli...dy-s-1.5199652

[someone123]

Note that usually when these economic forecasts are created the projected impact is negligible either way. Many countries are growing by 1-5%, compounding, every year. And the environmental impact assessments might show a total net impact in the single digit of GDP range decades in the future.

So either these major banks, the UN, etc. are all completely wrong in these reports or the impact is greatly exaggerated relative to other economic issues.

[jawagord]

Originally Posted by someone123

Note that usually when these economic forecasts are created the projected impact is negligible either way. Many countries are growing by 1-5%, compounding, every year. And the environmental impact assessments might show a total net impact in the single digit of GDP range decades in the future.

So either these major banks, the UN, etc. are all completely wrong in these reports or the impact is greatly exaggerated relative to other economic issues. For example in 2019 many politicians were saying climate change was our biggest threat, and now the economic impact of covid has far exceeded those climate change predictions.

Bjorn Lomberg has written the same many times, the people living in 2100 will be multiple times richer than today with or without climate change.



Here is the graph from model of Nobel Nordhaus, https://aeaweb.org/articles?id=10.1257/pol.20170046…

Today, global average income/person is about $15K

In 2100, because of growth, it will be $71,200, if there was no global warming
Because warming creates damages, the actual income will be $68,400 or 4% less

The annual reduction in growth rate is about 0.032 percent (so instead of 2% growth, we'll see 1.968% growth)

https://twitter.com/bjornlomborg/sta...246016?lang=en

[MolsonExport]

so much stock put into one article by one academic. so little stock put into the tens of thousands of research papers corroborating accelerating global warming.

[lio45]

Originally Posted by Andy6

Let's have a real and rational balancing of what the consequences might actually be, positive and negative, for Canada, and determine Canada's policy based on that.

The article esquire was referring to seemed to be focusing on agricultural issues (e.g. as in the Dust Bowl imagery implied by the flowery "hot, dry, fiery future" headline), which is why the same guy agreeing that in fact it will be a massive boon for the two major western Canadian crops is somewhat on point.

It would be a bit selfish to "determine Canada's policy" based strictly on whether or not global warming overall benefits us. If the calculations say it does, then what, our policy will be to make extra efforts to emit as much as we possibly can? That would turn us into a global pariah.

I was looking at energy consumption numbers for this winter so far which has been very mild, and that leaves quite a bit in my pockets. If Montreal switched to having Philadelphia winters overnight, it would be financially advantageous to me. (Obviously, I'm not selfish enough that I'd make it happen if I could, but we're all pretty powerless to do anything either way.)

[Andy6]

Originally Posted by Andy6

Let's have a real and rational balancing of what the consequences might actually be, positive and negative, for Canada, and determine Canada's policy based on that.

The article esquire was referring to seemed to be focusing on agricultural issues (e.g. as in the Dust Bowl imagery implied by the flowery "hot, dry, fiery future" headline), which is why the same guy agreeing that in fact it will be a massive boon for the two major western Canadian crops is somewhat on point.

Originally Posted by MolsonExport

so much stock put into one article by one academic. so little stock put into the tens of thousands of research papers corroborating accelerating global warming.

As far as I can tell, the one academic is a significant producer of such papers, and it wasn’t a paper of his own that he was referring to, but the scientific assessment of Agriculture Canada.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by lio45

It would be a bit selfish to "determine Canada's policy" based strictly on whether or not global warming overall benefits us. If the calculations say it does, then what, our policy will be to make extra efforts to emit as much as we possibly can? That would turn us into a global pariah.

I agree. I think Canada should be open to taking on a greater burden that is proportionate to its ability to contribute, even if other countries bare the brunt. If we get a net gain out of climate change while the rest of the world loses, we should be paying more.

However this is orthogonal to questions of cost-benefit globally (e.g. do we really believe that -4% of GDP figure, or is it -50% or +10%?) or questions of the price of carbon capture/offset which put an upper bound on how much we should be willing to force people to pay to increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations (which are somewhat unique in being locally benign but globally significant, unlike say NOx and SOx).

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by Andy6

Let's have a real and rational balancing of what the consequences might actually be, positive and negative, for Canada, and determine Canada's policy based on that.

We can have that discussion when you're interested in talking about all of Canada and all the various economic sectors and how the global geopolitical environment and its changes impact us. Corn yields in Saskatchewan are not all that determines national interest.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by someone123

I agree. I think Canada should be open to taking on a greater burden that is proportionate to its ability to contribute, even if other countries bare the brunt. If we get a net gain out of climate change while the rest of the world loses, we should be paying more.

However this is orthogonal to questions of cost-benefit globally (e.g. do we really believe that -4% of GDP figure, or is it -50% or +10%?) or questions of the price of carbon capture/offset which put an upper bound on how much we should be willing to force people to pay to increase atmospheric CO2 concentrations (which are somewhat unique in being locally benign but globally significant, unlike say NOx and SOx).

There's also the tail risk that we actually trigger runaway climate change. Higher crop yields in Saskatchewan will be weak compensation then. The precautionary principle applies here.

Also, so much of what is needed to combat global warming just makes for a cleaner and healthier environment anyway. Switching gas cars to electric will give us less smog, ozone and particulate pollution in our urban areas. Better public transit and increased density will reduce the growing expense of sprawl to taxpayers and ridiculous traffic congestion. Etc.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by lio45

It would be a bit selfish to "determine Canada's policy" based strictly on whether or not global warming overall benefits us. If the calculations say it does, then what, our policy will be to make extra efforts to emit as much as we possibly can? That would turn us into a global pariah.

And there's way fewer beneficiaries than losers on climate change which means we'd see some serious hostility as the negative effects become obvious. Imagine getting trade sanctions slapped on.

[biguc]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

And there's way fewer beneficiaries than losers on climate change which means we'd see some serious hostility as the negative effects become obvious. Imagine getting trade sanctions slapped on.

Trade sanctions are the least of the problem. Historically, droughts preceded civilization collapse. Obviously there's a big difference between Akkadia or Old Kingdom Egypt and present-day civilisations, but we all saw how destabilizing drought was in Syria, and still is in the Sahel.

Climate change is a lot more palpable in Europe than Canada. So are the knock-on effects. It's not a stretch to imagine widespread crop failure in Europe--or in China, or especially in India or Brazil--leading to collapsing institutions and even war. Canada's bumper crops would rot on the field with nobody to sell them to. Reducing the effects of climate change to the yield of a couple crops is stupid.

[acottawa]

Originally Posted by biguc

Trade sanctions are the least of the problem. Historically, droughts preceded civilization collapse. Obviously there's a big difference between Akkadia or Old Kingdom Egypt and present-day civilisations, but we all saw how destabilizing drought was in Syria, and still is in the Sahel.

Climate change is a lot more palpable in Europe than Canada. So are the knock-on effects. It's not a stretch to imagine widespread crop failure in Europe--or in China, or especially in India or Brazil--leading to collapsing institutions and even war. Canada's bumper crops would rot on the field with nobody to sell them to. Reducing the effects of climate change to the yield of a couple crops is stupid.

Countries experience crop failures all the time. It usually only leads to a major crisis in countries that are severely underdeveloped and/or with a totalitarian system of government and a closed economy (Baathist Syria, North Korea, Stalinist USSR, Maoist China, Marxist Ethiopia) or terrible government policies (the above examples Irish Famine). In reasonably open economies food is purchased on the international market to make up the difference. And even where a famine and a humanitarian crisis, regimes usually survive.

[Truenorth00]

Originally Posted by biguc

Trade sanctions are the least of the problem. Historically, droughts preceded civilization collapse. Obviously there's a big difference between Akkadia or Old Kingdom Egypt and present-day civilisations, but we all saw how destabilizing drought was in Syria, and still is in the Sahel.

Climate change is a lot more palpable in Europe than Canada. So are the knock-on effects. It's not a stretch to imagine widespread crop failure in Europe--or in China, or especially in India or Brazil--leading to collapsing institutions and even war. Canada's bumper crops would rot on the field with nobody to sell them to. Reducing the effects of climate change to the yield of a couple crops is stupid.

I said this in an earlier post. The geopolitical consequences are significant. And those focused on a handful of benefits are ignoring those. Drought in Syria contributed to a large refugee wave into Europe. I doubt the Europeans would look kindly on us ignoring climate change while they deal with wave after wave of refugees. I suspect, the US too will change its tune as the refugee crisis on its southern border ramps up.

[someone123]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

There's also the tail risk that we actually trigger runaway climate change.

There's always tail risk. This is another thing you build into the overall cost vs. benefit calculation to try to get at the expected value.

Also, so much of what is needed to combat global warming just makes for a cleaner and healthier environment anyway. Switching gas cars to electric will give us less smog, ozone and particulate pollution in our urban areas.

Perhaps, but it is much more economically expensive to switch to new technology before it has been affordably scaled up, and everything is a trade-off. If you push electric vehicles really hard then that comes at the expense of other things (including maybe other aspects of human wellbeing aside from whatever benefits are derived from avoiding CO2 emission). The current federal government isn't doing a great job of funding direct spending on useful and environmentally preferable infrastructure, which is closer to what I'd put into the "building a better world anyway" category. But a lot of people seem to cheer on any spending as long as it's in the environment category; after all with cartoon-level thinking it's all just building a better world, right? So who cares if we waste a few billion here or there on the way?

[biguc]

Originally Posted by Truenorth00

I said this in an earlier post. The geopolitical consequences are significant. And those focused on a handful of benefits are ignoring those. Drought in Syria contributed to a large refugee wave into Europe. I doubt the Europeans would look kindly on us ignoring climate change while they deal with wave after wave of refugees. I suspect, the US too will change its tune as the refugee crisis on its southern border ramps up.

Exactly. Syria was a huge, destabilizing mess for a lot of countries that had nothing directly to do with its drought or institutional failure. And that's one relatively small, relatively insignificant country that doesn't even directly border Europe. Could you imagine the shitshow a similar climactic event in Mexico might unleash in the US?

Originally Posted by acottawa

Countries experience crop failures all the time. It usually only leads to a major crisis in countries that are severely underdeveloped and/or with a totalitarian system of government and a closed economy (Baathist Syria, North Korea, Stalinist USSR, Maoist China, Marxist Ethiopia) or terrible government policies (the above examples Irish Famine). In reasonably open economies food is purchased on the international market to make up the difference. And even where a famine and a humanitarian crisis, regimes usually survive.

Famine isn't really the issue. Even in Syria, they didn't experience famine. What they did get was economic disaster, large-scale internal migration, and massive political unrest. It was enough to effectively cripple their government, leaving a power vacuum for ISIS (or whatever, you know the shitheads) to step into, triggering a civil war and refugee crisis in Turkey and Europe.

Looking beyond Syria's borders, it's arguable that without a few years of drought in Syria, we might have not seen the wave of xenophobia that turned Erdogan to Islamo-fascism and the Visegrads to proto-fascism. We might not even have had to put up with Trump as president.

You see how far-reaching the knock-on effects of drought can get.

Imagine the nightmare scenario that is India several years into an economy-destroying drought. A nuclear-armed country of over a billion, with a strongman leader, and on the brink of civil war--there's no way that stays contained.