Barrel Strength

Thomas Friedman, the New York Times columnist, makes an interesting case for the precautionary principle today. That is, if we believed there were a 1% chance that Al Qaeda had nukes, we would act as if they had nukes. Same with global warming. If there were a 1% chance we were causing it, we should act as if it were true. “A low probability, high-impact event.”

Friedman’s argument is as follows:

“We know that our planet is enveloped in a blanket of greenhouse gases that keep the Earth at a comfortable temperature. As we pump more carbon-dioxide and other greenhouse gases into that blanket from cars, buildings, agriculture, forests and industry, more heat gets trapped.

“What we don’t know, because the climate system is so complex, is what other factors might over time compensate for that man-driven warming, or how rapidly temperatures might rise, melt more ice and raise sea levels. It’s all a game of odds. We’ve never been here before. We just know two things: one, the CO2 we put into the atmosphere stays there for many years, so it is “irreversible” in real-time (barring some feat of geo-engineering); and two, that CO2 buildup has the potential to unleash “catastrophic” warming.

“When I see a problem that has even a 1 percent probability of occurring and is “irreversible” and potentially “catastrophic,” I buy insurance. That is what taking climate change seriously is all about.”

In short, if our time horizon goes back only to 1850, at the end of the last mini-ice age, and measure only from there, and ignore the medieval warming period, the cold snap that was the Dark Ages, the Roman warming period, when Mediterranean climate went as far north as southern Belgium, indeed, if we ignored the the entire history of the planet’s climate, we could be alarmed enough to tax ourselves into penury so that we could go back to the energy consumption levels of 1890, or earlier.

My point is not that Friedman is wrong. Of course he is. My point is that he is backing off the claims of global warming catastrophe. Now there is only a chance of it. 1%. Then he switches the subject. Watch this:

“If we prepare for climate change by building a clean-power economy, but climate change turns out to be a hoax, what would be the result? Well, during a transition period, we would have higher energy prices. But gradually we would be driving battery-powered electric cars and powering more and more of our homes and factories with wind, solar, nuclear and second-generation biofuels. We would be much less dependent on oil dictators who have drawn a bull’s-eye on our backs; our trade deficit would improve;  the dollar would strengthen; and the air we breathe would be cleaner. In short, as a country, we would be stronger, more innovative and more energy independent.”

The transition period would be an eternal nightmare of total regulation of everything by a pseudo-scientific elite on a false theory. Does that not sound like Marxism?

Once when I was in law school, I did my rant on the subject of global warming. One of the bright young things of the class came around to my side of the big conference desk, put his arm around my shoulder, and tried to reason with me. “Maybe the claims of global warming are exaggerated. But would it not be better to get to an energy-efficient society by whatever means?”
- Oh, I said. Plato’s noble lie in a new guise.

This was the same law class where a bunch of lawyers were trying to devise energy efficient engines, an absurdity I did not fail to point out. If the full panoply of global warming measures goes ahead full-bore, lawyers will be designing your car engines, believe me. And that will not be the worst of it, by any means.