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December 29, 2004
Crichton on Climate.
Over at Adam Smith they have an extract from the back of Michael Crichton’s new book laying out his opinions on whether global warming is happening and if it is, what’s causing it. Pretty uncontroversial stuf if you ask me, yes, it probably is happening, partly human caused (most of that being land use changes) and partly a longer climate cycle. One bit that rather surprised me:
• I suspect the people of 2100 will be richer than we are, consume more energy, have smaller global population, and enjoy more wilderness than we have today. I don’t think we have to worry about them.
I agree that population will probably be smaller as I think the UN estimates, even their low ones, are way over the top (there are technical reasons for this way too long for here) but it is slightly shocking to see that even such a clever writer and researcher only suspects that people will be richer in 2100. It’s actually a foundation, the corner stone if you wish, of the whole of the IPCC report that this will be so. You have to delve back a little, not the Executive Summary, not the IPCC report, but the Special Report on Emissions Scenarios, (SRES), which is the set of economic assumptions that are fed into the various climate models.
It is assumed that in 2100 the average level of wealth in currently Third World countries will be about that of the US today. Unh hunh, the entire construct of global warming is based on the idea that mankind will, for the first time in history, abolish absolute poverty. In the process, use a great deal more energy than currently as well. The range of temperatures, the range of effects that are predicted, depend more on the technology used to reach this level of wealth and the number of people around to enjoy it, not on whether that level of wealth is reached. As an example, all solutions which restrict globalisation have higher temperatures than those that do not. Those with higher populations at a given technological level have higher emissions than those that have lower ones (well, duh!).
The suspicion that in 2100 people will be richer than us is not, in fact, a suspicion at all. If we are to accept the predictions of the IPCC it is actually a fact, a basic assumption made before anything is fed into the climate models. If people are not vastly richer than us in 96 years (and counting) time then there will not, in fact, be the global warming that the IPCC is predicting.
Isn’t that an interesting fact to use on your idiotarian hysterics?
December 29, 2004 in Environmentalism | Permalink
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Comments
Firstly, there is no single assumption in the SRES, but a range of scenarios involving combinations of different assumptions and divided into four main groups. Two of these groups project per capita incomes in developing countries above today's US level, two of them project incomes below that level. So your claim that "It is assumed that in 2100 the average level of wealth in currently Third World countries will be about that of the US today" is misleading.
Secondly, the figures in the SRES are clearly *averages*. So to talk of 'people' in general being 'vastly richer' than us is also misleading. Some people - notably those living in OECD countries - will indeed be vastly richer than us in today's OECD countries. But there will probably be large numbers of people who will have not even have reached our present level by 2100, particularly in Africa and parts of Asia.
Thirdly, it is again misleading to claim on the basis of the IPCC scenarios that "mankind will, for the first time in history, abolish absolute poverty". I presume you're defining poverty as incomes of less than $1 or $2 a day here, but in that case you're just defining poverty out of existence. Most people would consider anyone who earned less than (for example) $5 or $6 a day 'poor' in absolute terms. The fact is that eyeballing projected world average incomes tells us very little about likely trends in the extent or degree of actual poverty in all parts of the world.
Fourthly, the statement that "If people are not vastly richer than us in 96 years (and counting) time then there will not, in fact, be the global warming that the IPCC is predicting" is wrong. The IPCC report predicts global warming in *every one* of its scenarios, including those in which *average* world income is only in or around the 1990 OECD average, rather than 'vastly' higher.
Posted by: Jim | Dec 29, 2004 2:13:28 PM
Crichton may be factually correct in saying, "people of 2100 will be richer than we are, consume more energy, have smaller global population, and enjoy more wilderness than we have today. I don’t think we have to worry about them."
Reduce the world population by 95% and sure, the rest will live in a resurgent wilderness with more resources available to them (and lovely pieces of real estate). I don't think we have to worry about Bush or Cheney and their tribes. They're certainly not worried about us.
S
Posted by: Sonsa | Jan 9, 2005 8:39:51 PM
