Day 4 : Is not alarmism, is it responsability

With problems with exponential nature (their gravity accelerates with time) like global warming and corona crisis, there are typically two behaviours. One is the hollistic one, which looks at the source at the problem and find solutions that are structural. The other type, I would called the reactionist, see problems in isolation, and focus on fixing the symptons, allegating some sort of false urgency that never gives space to proper long term thinking.

If you are a hollistic person, probably you would try to understand the nature of global warming and how our model of development affects it. You would understand that there are more KPI's that CO2emissions, like soil health, biodiversity, water availability, food security, energy security, inequality, climate justice, that we need to cover in order to fix the crisis, which is broader that emitting a gas,  as it really goes deep on how we treat earth, and how we define prosperity. 

I am currently reading the latest book of the famous and influential Bjorn Lomborg, and to be gentle, I would called the worse expression of reaccionism. He tries to minimize and discredit those who make of global warming a crisis that needs immediate action, as it affects our prosperity and social integration.  He relies blindy on the power of adaptation, making a fair point but giving total trust to that power in a world with less cultivable land, energy, biodiversity, and water. There are many points on his criticism to the "PANIC creators" I want to confront, not as a expert of the topic, but as scientist that uses multiples disciplines and common sense, and not growth faith in my though process.

Let me start:

1. Is it not true that the economic impacts of climate change are negligible, and the cost of applying measures are too much to be taken. Yes, we need to measure and evaluate every policy, but he applies a rather interesting form to estimate the cost and benefits of adaption: he assumes infinite growth, without considering planetary boundaries of any sort, specially on the energy side, which is critical to the development of complex societies. On the cost of climate change, he makes an obvious point that some adaptation will happen, but he does not apply any limits to the extent of adaptation.  We must keep in mind that those requiring more investment for climate adaptation are those countries least responsible of the cost, and also the poorest, so they have less capacity to adapt. It is therefore not a sure thing, that adaptation is going to happen fully, or that it is even technically feasible : we do not have the technology for infinitely cheap energy, material availability, soil restoration, clean water at the scale that will be necessary.
2. He missleadingly attributes all prosperity with growth, as the only tool to improve education, health, and innovation for mitigation of climate impacts. It is a false truth, as this applies to only moderate amounts of income, and the effectivity of growth after low amounts of GDP does not necessary implies more prosperity, or shared prosperity. There is a clear qualitative component of how this material wealth is created and distributed. It does depend on the policy and values of this society to ensure happiness, social integration, health, education and innovation. 
3. He claims that climate policies affect negatively the poor mainly, as we are limiting their growth. I do not know any sensible policy study of climate policy that does not recognize the fact that there must be some climate justice, and those who pollute more in a cumulative fashion, which are the richest nations, should apply the most urgent measures. No one is talking about limiting development in poor nations. 
4. Another fallacy is to argue that if the rich nations stop emissions (this is not the only thing we should reduce, as soil, biodiversity and water are also on the low), the impact in overall emissions will be negligible, as the developing nations are those having a greater share of the emissions. A presummed specialist of the topic, should know the flaws of emissions accounting, in a highly delocalized economy, most of the industry is in low to medium income nations, but most of the value adquision of this production and the consumption of such products are located in rich nations. Therefore, rich nations, via delocalizing resource use and hence pollution, are the highest contributors of climate change. This trend will not change unless the consumption patterns and productive model of the rich nations changes dramatically, which is not very likely. At the end of the day, those who are richer, consumer more, and the total pie of the pollution should be allocated to them, and no those who internalized missleadingly via externalization of costs.

I truly wish he is right, because it would be a very convenient truth. If we pursue growth, all our problems will be fixed, because humans can adapt always to any shock. If wish there were not precedents of collapsing civilizations, physical limits to grow, and even the laws of thermodynamics  because it is all very unconvenient, but we live with that. For too long, economists like him have been making policy ommiting the material reality of our life. We cannot omit that we will depend heavily on natural resources to thrive, and those have a compexity and richness that we still do not fully understand. Without fish in the oceans, 1.000 millions people loss their living support system. With the collapse of the ocean, our capacity to absorb CO2 is compromised. With the destruction of the biodiversity and forests, the risk of pandemics and land destruction is too high to make a liveable planet. With the destruction of glaciers and snow fields, we are not only lossing drinkeable water, but also starting and exponential journey of accelerated heating, making the earth more dessertic and hard to live. Without climate justice, the poor will be poorer, and most of our success on eliminating poverty will be vanished.

Adaption is key, so it is prevention. There are little problems in life where prevention is not cheaper that reactive action. The health of our planet is not an exeception. I guess he believes in what he writes, but, I really hope he engages into a more open understanding of living systems. Growth has limited power to bring properity, and we need to accept the decreasing returns to prosperity, while his increasing cost on life systems and development are hard to ignore.

We are not a bunch alarmists, we are humble enough to not explore what it means to live in a collapsed world, in a planet with more injustice and wealth concentration. Even if you are partially right, and we can grow GDP for longer, who wants to live in a death planet, with geoengeering, nuclear dangers and useless complexity?

Last week I was in a glacier that is 10th the seize it was in 1889, and in contrast to the dry lifeless peaks of my beloved Atlas,  there is much more than a romantic view to be willing to fight againts this growth nonsense. The lack of a cold planet, is the lack of life, of prosperity, of colors... A mocrome land that is just yellow like the sun expands, while reaccionist tell us to believe in a growth that benefits mainly the elite, and gives a residual of that to the poor ones. Because enough is enough, and because we are measuring prosperity and not material growth only, I am afraid the book False alarm, will be another one in the embarrasing history of growth mania.  

A note of hope, when someone needs to use bright colors, upper case in his cover, trying to calm down and make a crisis small, it is because we are in the right track. First they were making fun, negating the problem, now they accept it, but it is much smaller, and in the future, they will join and say why the goverment did not act before, like they do with the Corona crisis. Reaccionists, it could be too late for Earth, but is never to late to change ; )