They’re All Wrong About Climate Change: All Of Them
THEY are all wrong about climate change. “All” being those who tell us that we’ve got to crush capitalism, localise, banish greed from the human heart……no, sorry, I’ve not the heart to carry on with the tripe we get from Greenpeace and the like. But they are all wrong in what they tell us we must do about climate change. And the people who tell us so are the IPCC themselves.
Let us accept for a moment that the International Panel on Climate Change is correct: that we’ve a problem and one that we ought to do something about. That is, after all, what all the environazis are telling us we must indeed believe. So let us do so. Specifically, let us believe what the IPCC is telling us about what we need to do about this problem. Which they tell us in this newly released paper.
Yes, that’s economics, not climate science: but then economics is about people, the incentives they face and their actions dependent upon the incentives they face. If we want to change the world, do something about a problem, we thus need to use economics to change the incentives that people face and thus their behaviour.
So, what is it that the IPCC says we need to do? Well, actually, they say that in the 21 st century we need to act pretty much like we did in the 20 th century. Lots of economic growth, more globalisation and markets and there’s just one thing extra: use a little less fossil fuels.
No, really: their economic forecast which has the least climate change is also the one that has the most economic growth. The global economy expands 6 times in the next 81 years (as opposed to about 8 times in the 20 th cent.) and climate change doesn’t happen. And we get very little of our energy from solar cells or bloody windmills to boot.
Yes, I know, this isn’t what we get told by Greenpeace, George Monbiot, WWF, Friends of the Earth, Caroline Lucas, nef, that entire trainlaod of fools telling us that medieval peasantry is what we must return to. This is because they are wrong. The very organisation which tells us there is a problem, the IPCC, tells us that they are wrong.
There’s a more technical explanation, with graphs n’stuff, here. But the takeaway point is simple enough. Economic growth is the solution to our environmental woes, not the cause of them. Anyone who tells you different is simply deluded.
Posted: 11th, August 2011 | In: Reviews Comment | TrackBack | Permalink
