Shrinking is growth!

I'm shocked. Shocked I tell you!

Via M. Simon, I see evidence -- from no less than UN sources -- that Global Warming is not as hot as previously thought. To which Simon adds:

...water vapor is the most important greenhouse gas and that the models used for prediction do not handle cloud cover very well.

We don't know if clouds are net reflectors or net absorbers of solar energy. Which is a pretty big hole in the models. Not to mention that the models are not very fine grained. Which means that compared to the real climate the energy balances between different regions are not well modeled.

There are so many surmises involved -- so many shifts demanded in so many, um, "paradigms" -- that I don't know where to begin.

Until quite recently, it was insisted upon that the deadly automobile was the primary culprit. Now it's cattle gases:

Cows generate more greenhouse gases than all forms of transport combined, a United Nations report has revealed.

The methane and carbon dioxide they produce is killing off vast tracts of forest and coral reefs, contributing to acid rain and destroying fragile ecosystems.

The study, called Livestock's Long Shadow, warns that drastic action is needed.

Its author, Henning Steinfeld, said: "Livestock are one of the most significant contributors to today's most serious environmental problems.

"Urgent action is needed to remedy the situation. The environmental costs per unit of livestock production must be cut by half just to avoid the level of damage worsening beyond its present level."

Drastic action!

No bull!

I can't think of better news for radical vegans and animal rights activists. Newly empowered, they can demand a meat-free society in the name of saving the precious earth.

But it's human activity that's the principal collective target, and collective destruction is needed to save humanity from collective destruction!

As I've observed before, moving backwards is the new direction for "progressives." It fascinates me that there are still so many traditional leftists who still believe in things like "economic growth" as the best solution for the world's pressing problems. Economists tend to be left of center, but most of them are still thinking in terms of development and growth, and I find myself wondering....

Just what will happen to the old growth progressives under the coming new paradigm shift? If all human activity is to be labeled bad, growth will become the new taboo, and progress will mean moving towards primitivism.

What are the implications for economics itself?

The aspect of this which most amuses me ought to frighten me, and that is that there's no possibility of rational debate. Each side thinks the other is ignorant, stupid, and blind to all logic. It's starting to remind me of the Culture War stuff.

The difference, though, is that in this case I'm evil not because of any alleged lifestyle issues, but merely because I'm alive.

What would they have me do? Stop eating beans?

(Nah, I'd still be breathing.)

posted by Eric on 12.13.06 at 10:14 AM





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Comments

And then there are some of us who remember all the talk about the "incoming ice age" back in the 1970s, which of course was just around the corner.

Fausta   ·  December 13, 2006 02:20 PM

Not only do I remember that, but I remember being taught that by my paleontology professor as a freshman at UC Berkeley in 1972. He had done a huge amount of research, had graphs charts, and his thesis was that we never left the Ice Age, but were simply in one of the warmer periods -- soon due to run out.

Another era, another theory.

Eric Scheie   ·  December 13, 2006 03:28 PM


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