By now we’ve heard all the doom and gloom about how global warming will end civilization as we know it.
So, it is refreshing to find someone who actually says a little warming might be a good thing.
More smokestacks needed?
Writing recently in The Wall Street Journal, British climate scientist and author Matt Ridley — based on one of those infamous leaks about the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s (IPCC) “fifth assessment report,” which is to be officially published at the end of this month — concludes “there is a better than 50-50 chance that by 2083, the benefits of climate change will still outweigh the harm.”
The predicted warming of 2 degrees Fahrenheit over the next 70 years would “extend the range of farming further north, improve crop yields, slightly increase rainfall (especially in arid areas), enhance forest growth and cut winter deaths (which far exceed summer deaths in most places). Increased carbon dioxide levels also have caused and will continue to cause an increase in the growth rates of crops and the greening of the Earth — because plants grow faster and need less water when carbon dioxide concentrations are higher,” the writer concludes.
Additionally, Ridley says the latest 2,000-page report dials back the alarm, predicting future global warming will be slightly less than previously forecast.
“Since the last IPCC report in 2007, much has changed,” Ridley says. “It is now more than 15 years since global average temperature rose significantly. Indeed, the IPCC chairman Rajendra Pachauri has conceded that the “pause” already may have lasted for 17 years, depending on which data set you look at. A recent study in Nature Climate Change by Francis Zwiers and colleagues of the University of Victoria, British Columbia, found that models have overestimated warming by 100% over the past 20 years.”
Maybe we should crank up a few more coal-fired plants to get that warming up to beneficial levels.
4TH ST8 
Precisely how is Matt Ridley a “scientist”?
That is how he is described by those who not his detractors.
You mean he has an advanced degree in climate science? That he works at a scientific research insitutition? That he has published peer-reviewed papers on climate science?
Precisely what is it that makes Matt Ridley a “climate scientist”?
The only people allowed to criticize are those within the organization?
Interesting.
Matt Ridley has a doctorate in zoology. That makes me just as great an expert as him, except that he’s a politician, which automatically makes me a more reliable source. It doesn’t matter what his pedigree is. He’s quoting a document that hasn’t been released yet. Have patience. When the document comes out, we’ll all have plenty of time to argue about it.
Honestly, Thomas, if you’re going to quote every fool that opines about climate change, why not go for a little variety and quote Greenpeace? They’re just as reliable as your sources and a lot more colorful.
Never thought I would see the day where conservatives are the glass half full crowd and liberals the doomsayers.
Whats wrong with looking for positives in the inevitable?
“We’ve got to ride the global warming issue. Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, we will be doing the right thing, in terms of economic policy and environmental policy. ” – Timothy Wirth quoted in Science Under Siege by Michael Fumento, 1993
“Whats wrong with looking for positives in the inevitable?”
Yeah, where’s that ol’ Paul Krugman spirit. Just three days after 9-11, the estimable Professor Krugman was proclaiming that the attacks “could even do some economic good”? Where has the statists’ faith in disaster Keynesianism gone?
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/09/14/opinion/reckonings-after-the-horror.html
“Honestly, Thomas, if you’re going to quote every fool that opines about climate change, why not go for a little variety and quote Greenpeace? They’re just as reliable as your sources and a lot more colorful.”
While you’re quoting Greenpeace, Mr. Mitchell, can you throw in some Al Gore quotes? I think he falls under the category of “every fool” too.
Here is what Krugman actually wrote:
“It seems almost in bad taste to talk about dollars and cents after an act of mass murder. Nonetheless, we must ask about the economic aftershocks from Tuesday’s horror.
These aftershocks need not be major. Ghastly as it may seem to say this, the terror attack — like the original day of infamy, which brought an end to the Great Depression — could even do some economic good. But there are already ominous indications that some will see this tragedy not as an occasion for true national unity, but as an opportunity for political profiteering.
About the direct economic impact: The nation’s productive base has not been seriously damaged. Our economy is so huge that the scenes of destruction, awesome as they are, are only a pinprick. The World Trade Center contained 12 million square feet of office space; that’s out of 375 million square feet in Manhattan alone, and 3.5 billion in the United States as a whole. Nobody has a dollar figure for the damage yet, but I would be surprised if the loss is more than 0.1 percent of U.S. wealth — comparable to the material effects of a major earthquake or hurricane.
I strongly doubt Tim Wirth ever said any such thing.
Here is some more from that Krugman post-9/11 column on the effect of the terrorist attack on the economy that Milty professes to find so outrageous:
“So the direct economic impact of the attacks will probably not be that bad. And there will, potentially, be two favorable effects.First, the driving force behind the economic slowdown has been a plunge in business investment. Now, all of a sudden, we need some new office buildings. As I’ve already indicated, the destruction isn’t big compared with the economy, but rebuilding will generate at least some increase in business spending. Second, the attack opens the door to some sensible recession-fighting measures. For the last few weeks there has been a heated debate among liberals over whether to advocate the classic Keynesian response to economic slowdown, a temporary burst of public spending. There were plausible economic arguments in favor of such a move, but it was questionable whether Congress could agree on how to spend the money in time to be of any use — and there was also the certainty that conservatives would refuse to accept any such move unless it were tied to another round of irresponsible long-term tax cuts. Now it seems that we will indeed get a quick burst of public spending, however tragic the reasons.”
What an outrage.
Don’t forget that Matt Ridley has history as an unreliable source of advice: Failed banker in charge of Northern Rock Bank in UK – had to be bailed out by the tax payer.
http://www.reasonandreality.org/?p=1468
I have to reluctantly conclude that there is evidence that Tim Wirth, did indeed say something roughly close to the quote by “Winston Smith.” To wit (According to secondary citations to a 1988 story in National Journal):
“Energy conservation, its advocates say, is the answer to a host of environmental questions, particularly those related to air pollution. “Clean air policy and energy policy have collapsed into the same issue,” said Jessica T. Mathews, vice president of
World Resources Institute. The most dramatic example is global warming, also called the greenhouse effect, in which carbon dioxide is a major villain. Because carbon dioxide is created by burning fossil fuels, the world’s major energy sources, the most immediate way to curtail carbon dioxide emissions is to consume less energy. “What we’ve got to do in energy conservation is try to ride the global warming issue,” said Sen. Timothy E. Wirth, D-Colo., the Energy and Natural Resources Committee’s point man on that issue and chairman of the Alliance to Save Energy. “Even if the theory of global warming is wrong, to have approached global warming as
if it is real means energy conservation, so we will be doing the right thing anyway in terms of economic policy and environmental
Nyp, you’re incorrect in attributing outrage to my quotation of the estimable Professor Krugman. Mockery would be a closer description.
And thank you for quoting the estimable Professor Krugman’s column in more detail, but I did post a link to it, so anyone who reads this blog who wanted to give the estimable Professor Krugman the time of day merely had to click on the link to read the statement about the 9-11 attacks being economically beneficial in its full context.
So Nyp, are you an advocate of disaster Keynesianism? Are you looking for the economic benefits from yesterday’s shooting at the naval yard? I can’t wait to read the estimable Professor Krugman’s op-ed on that one.
Looking for economic benefits from global warming reminds me of people that don’t use seat belts who claim that they are safer because they can escape more quickly if their vehicle runs into a body of water or in the the event of fire.
I do not know what it means to be “an advocate of disaster Keynesianism.” If you are asking whether a national emergency such as a war has the effect of pumping up an economy as money rushes into building munitions plants, etc., the answer is “of course.” And your attempt to make some kind of hay out of the shooting spree at the Washington Naval Yard is stupid and offensive. You should withdraw it.
Still waiting for that invasion from outer space.
“And your attempt to make some kind of hay out of the shooting spree at the Washington Naval Yard is stupid and offensive. You should withdraw it.”
Do you call on Senator Feinstein to do the same?
http://www.reviewjournal.com/opinion/gores-new-testament-liberal-gobbledygook
Sounds like Bastiat’s broken window.
Or Keynesianism’s “dig the hole, fill in the hole…”
“if their vehicle runs into a body of water or in the the event of fire”
IS very different from
WILL run into a body of water…..
IF the future is supposedly known THEN planning for it and looking for positives is advisable. Nay looking for positives is paramount. Stop the doom and gloom.
“And your attempt to make some kind of hay out of the shooting spree at the Washington Naval Yard is stupid and offensive. You should withdraw it.”
Do you also consider Mayor Gray’s statement to be a case of “making hay” and being “stupid and offensive”? And do you call on him to withdraw his statement?
“As I look at, for example, sequestration, which is about saving money in the federal government being spent, have we somehow skimped on what would be available for projects like this and then we put people at risk.”
Mayor Gray’s statement sounds stupid to me. Not quite as offensive as yours. But pretty dumb.
I don’t know what Senator Feinstein said.
Nyp, suffice it to say that I have no intention of withdrawing my statement, and much as I consider you a friend, I appreciate your condemnation of my statement.
You guys just don’t get it. There’s no doom and gloom here. When I buy insurance for my home or car, I’m not predicting an accident or fire. I’m protecting myself from an obvious risk. The fool is the one who doesn’t buy insurance because “it won’t happen to me”. That’s you guys.
But I don’t buy insurance to protect me from a Voodoo hex.
________________________________
Rincon misses the point again. The reality is the warming could have positive effects. Sadly you guys keep harping on the doom and gloom, apocalyptic, sky is falling attitude.
Greening the planet is happening. Horrors! Green leaves with less water! The Sky IS FALLING!
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130531105415.htm
Whats this? Uncertainty in climate predictions? But the Sky IS FALLING! Did somebody cry “wolf”….? 2 degrees is not bad 4 degrees is dangerous but the fabled SIX WHOLE DEGRESS???? is “unlikely”….
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/05/130528100143.htm
Conservatives= glass half full
Liberals = doom and gloom
Never would have thought it.
Conservatives = bet your ass on global warming being voodoo
Liberals = bet your ass on the coming apocalypse unless radical action is taken
Moderates = take out reasonable insurance to minimize a risk that 97% of climatologists agree is substantial.
Nobody can predict the future. Anyone who claims to is either mentally unbalanced or lying. Anyone saying that the risk of global warming is near zero is predicting the future. Draw your own conclusion.
The Conservatives are just as gloom and doom as the Liberals. They refuse to believe that global warming can be minimized without breaking our country, yet these same Conservatives support spending trillions of dollars on hugely expensive medical care, huge tax breaks for the rich (some of which I receive, thank you) and 3 1/2 wars. Conservatives aren’t Conservative. Through past stupidity, they’ve shown themselves to spend as much or more than the Liberals. Try planning instead of reacting for a change.
I don’t expect to get into a major auto accident, yet I pay several hundred dollars a year for auto insurance. That’s because I recognize a risk that, although small, can lead to devastating consequences if I’m unlucky. Conservatives refuse to spend anything at all on global warming or even to adopt insurance that has a zero cost – because they can predict the future! “It won’t happen to us” is your mantra, and you grasp at the slimmest straws to assure yourselves that the problem will go away if you just hide your head in the sand. You and your kind are the reason that we are still bogged down, hemorrhaging lives and money in the middle east. Are you proud?
wow, you take great leaps to the island of conclusions about my statements. I must have hit a nerve or something.
I say the possibility of positives is as great as the possibility of negatives.
Show me the liberals pointing at the positives, go ahead, you cannot. They are all screaming and waving their hands in the air calling any who try to say things may not be as bad as all you guys say all the time “The Sky is FALLING” and even louder “WOLF”.
Tax breaks for the wealthy benefit you and you are happy about them, but they are not killing the country any more than the earth is melting away at a 6 degree Celsius increase in average mean temperature. In fact quite the middle is being discovered in both examples. 6 degrees is unlikely, the recession caused the wealthy to get more wealthy. They stop spending money so their investments grow as the fed forces the stock market ever higher into real bubble range as real employment indicates the recession has not ended, it has stagnated.
When both sides make efforts to stamp out their respective fringe elements then we may see some improvement. Sadly both sides, with liberals the most in denial, refuse to allow they have any fringe element. Conservatives are inundated with blame for every incident like the latest mass shooting, its always somehow the fault of conservatives in these things.
Insurance is not supposed to take all the money of the insured. That was called protection racketeering and I believe its against some law or the other. Radical changes equate to a protection racket in their costs. Insurance is starting from the premise the majority do not need to use it and will not need to use it. Liberals claim we all must bend way the hell over and let them shove their one and only accepted “solution” up our collective rear ends.
I disagree with the Liberals just as much as Conservatives, Steve. It just happens that there are no Liberals to viciously assault…er, discuss issues with…except for nyp, and he’s already outnumbered. To spend massive amounts of money on climate, similar to the money Conservatives have urged us to spend on medical care, the tax breaks, and various wars would be more wrong than to do nothing. The Conservatives and Liberals have already broken our financial backs. We cannot tolerate much more of it. Claiming that the risk is near zero though, is stoopidity (two o’s added for emphasis 🙂 ).
The liklihood of harm is greater than that of benefit for a very good reason: Sudden radical change is very damaging in the short term, even if it’s beneficial in the long run. Having Canada and Russia become superpowers while the southwest United States and western China wither may be fine in the long run; it’s just a little hard if the change occurs in less than 100-200 years.
Same thing with our coastlines. We’re already paying for that. 6 inches less water would have saved billions in Hurricanes Sandy and Katrina, but the sea continues to rise. Unfortunately, we cannot move trillions of dollars worth of buildings out of the way. We will probably have to eat the cost. It would take a lot of benefit to make up for that alone.
On a foreign policy note, if we just stay out of the middle east, the Muslim fanatics will destroy each other, just as Liberal and Conservative fanatics are destroying us here. In both cases, they refuse compromise and fight to the death, resulting, of course, in death. Ours is figurative; theirs is literal.
“Unfortunately, we cannot move trillions of dollars worth of buildings out of the way.”
Sure we can. That’s part of the concept of disaster Keynesianism. And it has an economic benefit for all of us. Just ask the estimable Professor Krugman. That’s what he said about 9-11.
No, he did not.
I stand corrected, Nyp. I was engaged in hyperbole. I wrote, “And it has an economic benefit for all of us.” All the estimable Professor Krugman wrote was, “…the terror attack…could even do some economic good.”
“Ghastly as it may seem to say this, the terror attack — like the original day of infamy, which brought an end to the Great Depression — could even do some economic good.”
The use of ellepses as a cheap rhetorical device.
Here is what Paul Krugman actually wrote in his economics column following the 9/11 attacks:
“It seems almost in bad taste to talk about dollars and cents after an act of mass murder. Nonetheless, we must ask about the economic aftershocks from Tuesday’s horror.These aftershocks need not be major. Ghastly as it may seem to say this, the terror attack — like the original day of infamy, which brought an end to the Great Depression — could even do some economic good. But there are already ominous indications that some will see this tragedy not as an occasion for true national unity, but as an opportunity for political profiteering.
“About the direct economic impact: The nation’s productive base has not been seriously damaged. Our economy is so huge that the scenes of destruction, awesome as they are, are only a pinprick. The World Trade Center contained 12 million square feet of office space; that’s out of 375 million square feet in Manhattan alone, and 3.5 billion in the United States as a whole. Nobody has a dollar figure for the damage yet, but I would be surprised if the loss is more than 0.1 percent of U.S. wealth — comparable to the material effects of a major earthquake or hurricane.
“The wild card here is confidence. But the confidence that matters in this case has little to do with general peace of mind. If people rush out to buy bottled water and canned goods, that will actually boost the economy. For a few weeks horrified Americans may be in no mood to buy anything but necessities. But once the shock has passed it’s hard to believe that consumer spending will be much affected.
“Will investors flee stocks and corporate bonds for safer assets? Such a reaction wouldn’t make much sense — after all, terrorists are not going to blow up the S.&P. 500. True, markets do sometimes react irrationally, and some foreign markets plunged after the attack. Since then, however, they have stabilized. On the whole it’s just as well that our own markets have stayed closed for a few days, giving investors time to calm down; the administration was wrong to put pressure on stock markets to reopen right away. By the time the markets do reopen, the worst panic will probably be behind us.
“So the direct economic impact of the attacks will probably not be that bad. And there will, potentially, be two favorable effects.
“First, the driving force behind the economic slowdown has been a plunge in business investment. Now, all of a sudden, we need some new office buildings. As I’ve already indicated, the destruction isn’t big compared with the economy, but rebuilding will generate at least some increase in business spending.
“Second, the attack opens the door to some sensible recession-fighting measures. For the last few weeks there has been a heated debate among liberals over whether to advocate the classic Keynesian response to economic slowdown, a temporary burst of public spending. There were plausible economic arguments in favor of such a move, but it was questionable whether Congress could agree on how to spend the money in time to be of any use — and there was also the certainty that conservatives would refuse to accept any such move unless it were tied to another round of irresponsible long-term tax cuts. Now it seems that we will indeed get a quick burst of public spending, however tragic the reasons.”
World war. Disaster Keynesianism at its absolute best.
Macabre.
So is Nyp saying that the line, “Ghastly as it may seem to say this, the terror attack — like the original day of infamy, which brought an end to the Great Depression — could even do some economic good,” was actually written by Patrick Henry and not the estimable Professor Krugman?
yeah. that’s it.
“Ghastly as it may seem to say this, the terror attack — like the original day of infamy, which brought an end to the Great Depression — could even do some economic good.”
I’ll give the estimable professor credit for one thing. The sentence above is pretty close to an acknowledgement that the New Deal didn’t get us out the Great Depression. Of course, according to the estimable professor that was only because FDR didn’t spend enough money from 1933 to 1941.
yeah. that’s it.
By the way – what did get us out of the Great Depression?
According to the Keynesians, WWII was the ultimate New Deal program. It caused the astronomical increase in public spending that was necessary to lift us out of the Depression.
However, other economic theories maintain that non-Keynesian policies would have ended the Depression well before 1940. We’ll never know for sure because we didn’t take any of those paths.
Whether you believe in Keynesianism or not, Lord Keynes’ theories were pretty dominant for several decades. As I recall, in 1970 Patrick Henry said, “We’re all Keynesians now.”
So, what do you think? What was it that lifted the US out of the Great Depression?
Nyp: I really don’t know. The narrative that WWII ended the Depression thru full implementation of Keynesian theory is difficult for me to dispute, but I’m not an economist. And like I said previously, there are many economists who believe the Depression could have been ended much earlier (and without the expense of a world war) thru non-Keynesian policies. However, that’s a “what if” scenario, and no one can assess those scenarios with 100% confidence.
Previously, I made a comment that in 2017 the legacy of the Obama presidency would be “It could have been worse.” It got me to wondering about another “what if” scenario. What if FDR had honored tradition in 1940 and not sought a third term? What would his legacy have been then? He would have left office in early 1941 with the country still in the Depression. Most likely, he would have been succeeded by another Democrat, so I guess today’s Dems would still claim FDR laid the groundwork for what happened later. But what if Wendell Wilkie had been elected in 1940 instead of FDR’s chosen successor? What then? Would people today be giving credit to President Wilkie’s economic policies for lifting us out of the Depression?
After the war Congress cut taxes.
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After the war the USA was the only industrial economy left functioning, the world was forced to by almost exclusively from the USA.
So the solution is to destroy the worlds industrial base and force everyone to buy from us again…
That is truly a macabre take on Disaster Keynesianism.
That makes no sense. If the economies of several other industrialized countries were pulverized during the period shortly after WWII, so were their customers. There wasn’t anybody to buy our goods.
Moreover, the Western European countries had recovered by the late 1950s, while the American economic “boom” lasted through 1973.
By the way – that “boom” period coincided with much higher tax rates than exist today, and much stronger unions.
Must be a coincidence.
Its easy to tax a trapped base.
I should clarify the rest of the worlds industrial manufacturing was devastated. They NEEDED to buy from us so they could work at rebuilding.
Since they recovered in the 1950’s that only gave them even more purchasing power and beefed up the US economy, the only one with that decade and a half head start. It was through the 1960’s the US began to import more and more stuff at really cheap prices, adding to the boom.
1973, the year of the CVCC import. I believe in coincidence, but that was just to much.
Simply not true. There was very little in the way of exports during the post-war era. (Not much in the way of imports, either.) From 1945-1973 exports generally fluctuated between 4-6% of GDP. In other words, peanuts. During the 1970s it went up to 10%. Now, about 16%.
We did not grow following WWII because of the economic weakness of our trading partners.
“We did not grow following WWII because of the economic weakness of our trading partners.”
Exactly wrong. The rest of the world was re building. What we exported was small then. THE DIFFERENCE AS YOU MAKE CLEAR was the clear lack of imports. The USA had to build and trade within our own borders and we were the only industrial country in the day with the ability to begin immediately. In fact imports were far smaller than exports at the time. During this time we were actively rebuilding Japan. Its no surprise they were the first to import durable goods into the USA in quantity. Meanwhile the only place for the USA to get durable goods was from (due to devastation keynesianism) the USA!
As, (your figures indicate), the rest of the world got back on its feet USA exports increased significantly adding to our internal productivity and output.
Look at this. More positive news about the planet and its habitability over the next few millennia.
Phew, that was a close one!
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2013/09/130918211434.htm
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2425775/Climate-scientists-told-cover-fact-Earths-temperature-risen-15-years.html#ixzz2fRVwpdQW
You guys need to get your facts straight. http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2009/2/4/saupload_09_02_02f_gdp_since_1930.png&imgrefurl=http://seekingalpha.com/article/118349-real-gdp-since-1930&h=404&w=557&sz=18&tbnid=pTQt7Y7nbBhrJM:&tbnh=90&tbnw=124&zoom=1&usg=__SjrJO6Av30FH99Q7kcB8fsb1chk=&docid=6UJT4x3SXgz4fM&sa=X&ei=v4k_UpzOE-SOyAHex4HAAg&ved=0CD0Q9QEwAg
According to this, GDP rose at a greater than historic level from 1933-1943 with the exceptions of 1937 and 1938)1938 showed a small decline while 1937 showed a small increase). Since the GDP improved substantially as soon as Roosevelt took office and continued to improve quickly through the beginning of WW II, I have to ask for your evidence that Roosevelt’s policies had no positive effect.
Unemployment rate.
>
Looking at GDP, the war didn’t get us out of the depression, but looking at unemployment, it did. Of course it did. Most of the potential workers had left the country! You can’t use employment figures to say the war got us out of the depression. Steady progress was made from 1933 to 1937, but the recession of 1937-8 delayed recovery greatly. The causes according to Wikipedia:
“Economists disagree about the causes of this downturn. It has been widely noted that the Undistributed profits tax enacted in 1936 caused a panic in Corporate America. Faced with the specter of taxation on retained earnings the business world immediately ceased most planned expansion and capital equipment purchases. Each of the major schools of economic thought also attributes other possible causes to factors central to their ideologies. Keynesian economists assign blame to cuts in federal spending and increases in taxes at the insistence of the US Treasury,[4] while monetarists, such as Milton Friedman, assign blame to the Federal Reserve’s tightening of the money supply in 1936 and 1937.[5] Austrian school economist Johnathan Catalan assigns blame to the relatively large expansion of the money supply from 1933 to 1937. He also notes that the money supply did not tighten until after the recession began.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recession_of_1937%E2%80%9338
None of this suggests that Roosevelt’s programs were responsible or were ineffective. I also find it interesting that GDP rose faster than unemployment, as it has in the present recession. Perhaps businesses were taking advantage of the fact that people were desperate for jobs to extract greater efforts from their workers for the same pay. That’s what I see today.