Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus describe what they see as a significant political realignment: Both left and right, they claim, are converging on a state-sponsored and technology-based solution to global warming, one that will emphasize clean energy and/or carbon sequestration technologies. They argue that the debate about climate modeling is largely irrelevant and/or unproductive, because these technologies are generally agreed to be important in their own right and to have positive economic effects regardless of the degree of severity of global warming. They call on policymakers to embrace a large-scale, state-funded effort to achieve these breakthrough technologies and argue that state sponsorship for technological advancement is, historically speaking, the engine of much progress and innovation. This, they argue, is a reason to embrace the same approach with regard to global warming.
Read: The New Climate Center: How Technology Could Create a Political Breakthrough
Indur Goklany argues, in response to Jim Manzi and Joseph Romm, that solving the likely problems resulting from global warming will be both cheaper and more effective responses to climate change than any global response aimed at stabilizing or changing the climate itself. Harm reduction will also pay important dividends regardless of the degree of global warming, since it will include the development of new treatments for diseases, better flood protection, improved crops, and general economic advancements for the developing world. These factors, when taken together, will help us to face any global warming scenario effectively, and they will also offer even larger benefits outside any considerations of climate.
Read: Reducing Vulnerability to Climate-Sensitive Risks is the Best Insurance Policy
American Progress Senior Fellow Joseph Romm argues that atmospheric CO2 has already reached an unacceptable level, and that urgent action is needed in the next few years. Fortunately, this action need not involve prohibitive costs. Indeed, many possible options for greenhouse gas abatement will result in economic benefits.
These changes are desperately needed, too, before global warming reaches a tipping point beyond which the carbon sequestered in permafrost is also released into the atmosphere, aggravating the problem. Should we fail to act, widespread desertification, massive species extinction, and other catastrophic events are predicted, even by authorities whom Jim Manzi also accepts.
Read: A Small Cost Will Avoid a Catastrophe
The danger of potentially catastrophic global warming is an almost paradigmatic case of decision-making under conditions of extreme uncertainty. Of course, this is just another way of saying that many of the intellectual sinews of libertarianism are central to thinking through this problem. . . .
Despite the rhetoric, the best available estimate of the damage we face from unconstrained global warming is not “global destruction,” but is instead costs on the order of 3 percent of global GDP in a much wealthier world well over a hundred years from now.
It should not, therefore, be surprising that formal efforts to weigh the near-term costs of emissions abatement against the long-term benefits from avoided global warming show few net benefits, even in theory.
Read: Keeping Our Cool: What to Do about Global Warming
After nearly three years of outstanding work as the managing editor of Cato Unbound, Will Wilkinson is taking over as editor; I will be filling his shoes as managing editor. Because I’m mostly an unknown, I’ll just quote from my biography page at the main Cato website:
Jason Kuznicki has facilitated many of the Cato Institute’s international publishing and educational projects. His ongoing interests include censorship, church-state issues, and civil rights in the context of libertarian political theory. He is an Assistant Editor to the forthcoming Encyclopedia of Libertarianism. Prior to working at the Cato Institute, he served as a Production Manager at the Congressional Research Service. Kuznicki earned a Ph.D. in history from Johns Hopkins University in 2005, where his work was offered both a Fulbright Fellowship and a Chateaubriand Prize.
I’m looking forward to exploring some new ideas and new directions, but also to keeping up Will’s high standards for the publication. Cato Unbound will still be ably supervised by Brink Lindsey, who will serve as the Senior Editor, and whose help in managing the transition and all other aspects of the publication is greatly appreciated.
Read: New Editorial Lineup
