One of the reasons why the Left (as opposed to Left-leaning liberals) prefers to ignore many aspects of history, is because they just can’t bear the truth that their envisaged systems for delivering utopia failed, whilst the Western Enlightenment delivered humanity from the depths of brutal poverty to our current soaring heights of material abundance. They cannot stand that each of the 42 times full Socialism has been tried, it not only collapsed, but also proved itself to be congenitally predisposed towards totalitarianism and prone to delivering wave after wave of State imposed mass murder and famine.
Of course the counterargument that Capitalism has killed people as well is certainly true- but when one examines the ledger then one finds that it has saved more people than it has disposed of for the simple reason that we live longer lives, no longer have to bear long periods of malnutrition and are far more peaceful now- for the simple reason that trade delivers more wealth in free market systems than war does. The Enlightenment has raised roughly 85% of the world’s population up out of absolute poverty, an achievement amply demonstrated by the fact that if we somehow transported a sampling of the 18th century population to today and attempted to provide them with the lifestyle to which their impoverished world had accustomed them, it would only cost us roughly $1.90 a day per person.
Some may be forgiven for believing that Race and Gender Equity is the only front in this war to dismantle the most beneficial system of ordering human affairs in human history, but by far the more decisive intellectual warfare is being fought on is the front of climate alarmism. This is not to say the man-made climate change is not a serious problem, because it is- albeit a more long-term, rather than immediate, problem than most realise. Many in legacy media have relied on the fact that most people have not actually read any of the IPCC’s voluminous reports and of those who have, many have lacked the critical or scientific acumen to understand that, especially with the most recent IPCC report, far from being a cause for further alarmism, in many ways it is grounds for cautious optimism.
For those unaware of The Honest Broker on Substack I would heartily recommend reading Roger Pielke Jr, and for those who may be sceptical, he has not only penned pieces for Nature, but has also been sourced by them as an expert on climate change, specifically with regard to extreme weather and the extent to which man-made climate change has played a role. I mainly quote him as a source because he demonstrates through his lucid arguments that our most recent progress on climate change shows that the worst case scenarios for climate change by 2100 are no longer plausible and the upper limit of our worst case possible impact on climate probably resides somewhere around the Rocky Road Scenario (SSP3) detailed in this Nature article.
This, in itself, may seem alarming- but one has to consider the basic premises of this scenario. First, it would require all or most economic growth in the Developing World stop, as well as efforts at healthcare, access to birth control for women and childhood education (especially of girls) in the Developing World to cease. Most or all areas of the Developed world would have to largely abandon Green Innovation or Green Infrastructure, most particularly in areas like small modular nuclear reactors or projects similar to the Three Gorges Dam. Generally, it posits a world in which countries are no longer able to cooperate on matters of climate change (even though they may be antagonistic in other areas) and where they are forced to opt for more and more coal plant power provision through an inability to afford other forms of energy investment.
And this is the crux of the matter, because although material abundance and the pursuit of wealth may be a cause of climate change, it is also the only viable solution. Despite the recent reduction in carbon emissions due to the pandemic, the delayed recovery from COVID scenario puts us further behind our climate goals by 2030, for the simple reason that we won’t have as much money to invest in alternate energy sources or other forms of climate innovation.
But by far the worst impacts of the pandemic have been felt in the Developing World where over 150 million people have been plunged into the absolute poverty of living on below $1.90 a day. The consequences of this global slowdown can have effects a far ranging as poorer childhood nutrition, reduced crop yields and a general slowing of regional economic growth. Some have argued for a renewed commitment to foreign aid, especially in the from of cash transfers, others have suggested other mitigation strategies- but all of this ignores the simple fact that although the $2.4 trillion plus contributed by the world’s wealthiest nations accomplished many things, most notably in the areas of clean water provision, access to medicines and childhood education, the effects of foreign aid on raising people out of poverty were almost negligible.
Instead it was a set of innovations powered by the free market which raised over a billion people out of poverty between 2000 and 2012. First, was the precipitous decline on global transport costs, particularly in the area of labour reductions caused by the automation of many loading jobs in ports. More importantly, the innovation of access to incredibly cheap banking systems via mobile phones allowed subsistence farmers to invest in ways to boost their yields, and this was even one area where even governments and charities were finally able to bear down on poverty through ground-up rather than top-down investments.
There are many valid criticisms which the climate movement can legitimately levy against Capitalism and free markets. Yes, consumerism is needlessly wasteful and we need to transition more quickly to consumer goods which are longer lasting and more sustainably sourced. Yes, capitalism does produce gross wealth inequalities even though it simultaneously solves the far more important problem of poverty and much of the capital is productive working capital which operates far more efficiently and less wastefully than government allocations of resources. But what we really need to reconsider is the canard that we could ever enter a sustained period of economic austerity, energy poverty or slower economic growth without the catastrophic impact of plunging billions of the world’s most vulnerable people back into the worst kind of poverty.
Ultimately the only force in human history which has sustainably raised people up out of poverty is the ability to generate surpluses and then trade them. No other force has even come close. Remove that facility from those countries which have to transition to largely post industrial societies, and their economic fall is all but guaranteed. Yes, there have been redistributive policies which reapportion resources to a society’s most needy, but as the recent experience of the Developing World during the pandemic should teach us, one can only really provide these redistributive social safety nets when one has the horn of cornucopia which the free market provides.
As a final note we should also consider the moral implications of capitalism vs. socialism in terms of our ability to tackle climate change. If we look at the history of the failed states of Socialism then we can quickly see that the imperatives of state-run industrial efforts operating in the interests of the common good often cause environmental disasters every bit as shocking as those found under the auspices of capitalism- the Aral Sea Disaster caused by the Soviet Union is but one of many such examples of mismanagement and landscapes best characterised as unliveable toxic waste dumps.
In Democratic Capitalist societies it is at least far easier to legislate against the excesses of the greedy capitalist than it is to argue against a socialist leader supposedly operating for the common good (because the secret police and the firing squad are always on call in such systems), and we should bear that in mind when telling ourselves the sweet but repeatedly disproven lie that more socialist systems might somehow help us tackle climate change.
I always enjoy your writing, Geary. This one is a topic close to my heart. I've been reading the various IPCC summaries since before AR5, along with selected original academic research. A few years ago I was so perplexed by the mismatch between what the science actually says and what the media reports, that I set about reading the papers behind the headlines (in those cases where any were cited). The distortions are frightening. Some months ago the Guardian splashed a headline that 20 feet of short term sea level rise was all but guaranteed (which was nothing like what the background paper said). There are regular alarmist reports on the BBC and elsewhere about sea level rise when the subjects are actually coastal cities on the worlds major river deltas which are subsiding due to river culverting and unsustainable groundwater extraction.
The linkage of singular climatic events to climate change is likewise misleading in the extreme. In many cases, rates of burning, flooding, storms etc. are the same as historical norms. In ALL cases, the toll on human life is a tiny fraction of its historical impact, and that's even before allowing for population increases. Just look at the last thousand years of flooding in the North Sea basin. Regular concurrences of onshore winds, high tides, and low pressure systems have produced devastating storm surges with decadal frequency. The impacts on low-lying coasts are horrific -- up to a hundred thousand deaths from some single events, and an average of ten thousand deaths each decade. As you will know, the barriers in the Thames and Rhine estuaries and other coastal works have made this mostly a thing of the past since the last killer floods of 1953.
In short, the effects of climate change -- while significant and certainly not to be ignored -- will be best mitigated by affluent societies capable of responding appropriately. The very last thing we need is to be starved of the energy on which modernity utterly depends. The irony is that the technologies best suited to the task are with us now: natural gas as a transitional fuel and Gen III and IV nuclear in the long run. Unfortunately we risk being the victims of Green ideology which has favoured unsuitable and unworkable solutions. Countries like my own (Ireland) now face an energy crisis due to reliance on wind which has failed to produce the goods for much of this summer.
Yet we seem determined to double down, going from 40% of power from renewables to 70% by 2030. That means that wind will be expected to provide 95% of power much of the time, to hit a 70% average. It will also have to cope with increased demand from EVs and electric heating if the Greens get their way, and with the complete retirement of coal and oil-fired generators. Meanwhile all new offshore gas exploration has been banned, and the Greens have shot down a much needed LNG import terminal because of their antipathy towards US fracking. We are a high tech country, with data centres expected to consume over 25% of power by 2030. But we have now been told we face grid instability for the next five years because of lack of investment in baseload power. We are also reliant on gas and electricity interconnectors to the UK which is facing its own energy cliff.
Worst of all is that a significant segment of the population is convinced that the world will literally burst into flames in the foreseeable a future. Adults decide not to have children, and children suffer from debilitating anxiety, all because of a fabricated horror story that has been concocted by a media seeking to attract more eyeballs.
Scientists are not immune either. I have been reading academic papers for long enough to see that there have been inexplicably bad predictions even for short term change. One "Ehrlichian" prediction from 2009 was that West African crop yields would fall by 25% by 2020 due to seasonal shift in rainfall patterns and other effects. In fact, crop yields rose by around 15%. Especially in Africa, the potential for better land management to increase yields is enormous.
Another paper reported that 50% of the worlds grain belts would be affected by climate change by 2100. This was dutifully reported in the press as a loss of 50% of the worlds grain. Of course, the paper says nothing of the sort -- northward shifts of grain belts into the Canadian prairies and Siberian steppes could increase the worlds available arable land. Needless to say such changes could be disruptive, but they are not the civilisational catastrophes (let alone extinction level events) that are being touted.
As you pointed out, the economic impact of climate change is barely a rounding error compared to the growth in global GDP by 2100, as long as we don't shoot our own feet off. Again, this is all available in the IMF's own modelling from the last two years.
I wonder if a backlash from a duped public is overdue. I somehow doubt it. The man in the street is not going to suddenly start reading academic papers. And yet, the UK's recent energy concerns just in time for COP26 later this month seem like an interesting opportunity for a clash of ideas.
Yes, it always fascinates me that the climate alarmists prattle on and on about "denialism" and the imperative to "follow the science", but then the most generally-accepted, best-resourced "science", the IPCC reports, do not in any way justify the kinds of policies they propose.
“This is not to say the man-made climate change is not a serious problem, because it is- albeit a more long-term, rather than immediate, problem than most realise.”
I see no reason to concede this point. We have a poor understanding of the causes of changing climate patterns which predate the industrial revolution by centuries, if not millennia.
I agree with everything here, Geary. Very well said. Huge fan!
I do, however, have a question. What do you mean by this phrase…"capitalism does produce gross wealth inequalities."?
I am reading it as that you believe that the inequalities created by voluntary market exchanges is a bad thing. But is this really your view? If so, why?
My take on the issue is that inequality of wages, profits, wealth and so on are absolutely necessary for the market to signal and incentivize change (in behavior, products, labor, etc). Inequality is thus not a bug, but a feature, and a necessary one at that. When markets are combined with a modern state with social safety nets and redistributive features (something true in all developed nations), the extremes of poverty are corrected, and are done so by tapping into the wealth generating power of markets.
So, my question is this… is inequality generated by properly functioning markets really a gross problem?
Climate change is only one of the many problems we would need to deal with.
There's also mass life extinction, mass pollution of the air, water and soils, the coming energy crisis, etc. And we're going to have to deal with everything, at the same time. Which is why it seems impossible to do so.
Increased difficulty to access clean water, for drinkink and food production, the increase of droughts in many places such as the Mediterranean periphery will undoubtedly throw millions on the road for their survival. Crises will make countries more unstable, especially those which already don't enjoy full stability.
The destruction of forests all over the globe, in Amazonia, Africa, on Sumatra, Java, Borneo, etc will only make things worse.
When I heard that Elon Musk was offering a $100M prize to anyone who'd find the best carbon capture technology, I couldn't help but think that was the most stupid idea I had ever heard.
Techno-fascination leads intelligent people to completely lose track of reality.
The best CO2 capture technology already exists and always has, it's called trees and plants.
If he really wants to help, he should use his billions to buy all primal forests on the planet to put an absolute stop to deforestation, and buy back the land claimed for intensive farming, palm oil and soy growing to let the forests regenerate. But then that's a lot less "sexy" than connected toys and gadgets.
Something that the article does not take into account is that, considering that growth keeps on being our motivation and objective, if we postulate that in 20, 30, 40 years time, millions more human will have access to what the West has enjoyed in terms of goods, equipment, infrastructures, whether it being medical, educational, urban, etc and all the wealth and comfort that goes with it, where will we find the resources to make everything we need for an ever growing number of people living by Western standards ?
In 40, 400, or 4,000 years, the earths will still be 13,000km in diametre. All the resources we would need to sustain billions living like Americans or Europeans won't just magically appear, out of thin air, just because we need them.
I'd like to point out that I am not a "socialist", not by American standards in any way, and I am a fierce opponent to the whole woke madness engulfing the world right now.
Yet I think the limits imposed by physics should help us understand that capitalism as it is today cannot go on sustainably, whether we like it or not. We're in for a diet, either planned wisely, or forced upon us by the reality of physics.
I agree wholeheartedly. If we destroy the engine of technological progress, we won’t be able to use it to solve the very real challenges we need it to solve. And on the whole, technological trends are decidedly good for the environment. Look at dematerialization for instance.
I’ll have to check out the Honest Broker. I’m not familiar with his work.
Some humility, please, Mr. Johansen. There are some things that we humans cannot comprehend: climate change being one. There are simply too many variables, too many unknowns to make meaningful predictions hundreds of years into the future.
I have never quite understood the equation of socialism with environmental friendliness. Certainly capitalist greed produces some true horror stories but it also has the capacity to create some incredibly advanced sustainable exploitation mechanisms. Socialist systems offer no such advantage. I can only think that the constant propaganda 'socialism is modern therefore it is good' pulls the wool over peoples eyes most effectively. Perhaps abandoning the shibboleth that socialism is a modern system is the way forward.
I always enjoy your writing, Geary. This one is a topic close to my heart. I've been reading the various IPCC summaries since before AR5, along with selected original academic research. A few years ago I was so perplexed by the mismatch between what the science actually says and what the media reports, that I set about reading the papers behind the headlines (in those cases where any were cited). The distortions are frightening. Some months ago the Guardian splashed a headline that 20 feet of short term sea level rise was all but guaranteed (which was nothing like what the background paper said). There are regular alarmist reports on the BBC and elsewhere about sea level rise when the subjects are actually coastal cities on the worlds major river deltas which are subsiding due to river culverting and unsustainable groundwater extraction.
The linkage of singular climatic events to climate change is likewise misleading in the extreme. In many cases, rates of burning, flooding, storms etc. are the same as historical norms. In ALL cases, the toll on human life is a tiny fraction of its historical impact, and that's even before allowing for population increases. Just look at the last thousand years of flooding in the North Sea basin. Regular concurrences of onshore winds, high tides, and low pressure systems have produced devastating storm surges with decadal frequency. The impacts on low-lying coasts are horrific -- up to a hundred thousand deaths from some single events, and an average of ten thousand deaths each decade. As you will know, the barriers in the Thames and Rhine estuaries and other coastal works have made this mostly a thing of the past since the last killer floods of 1953.
In short, the effects of climate change -- while significant and certainly not to be ignored -- will be best mitigated by affluent societies capable of responding appropriately. The very last thing we need is to be starved of the energy on which modernity utterly depends. The irony is that the technologies best suited to the task are with us now: natural gas as a transitional fuel and Gen III and IV nuclear in the long run. Unfortunately we risk being the victims of Green ideology which has favoured unsuitable and unworkable solutions. Countries like my own (Ireland) now face an energy crisis due to reliance on wind which has failed to produce the goods for much of this summer.
Yet we seem determined to double down, going from 40% of power from renewables to 70% by 2030. That means that wind will be expected to provide 95% of power much of the time, to hit a 70% average. It will also have to cope with increased demand from EVs and electric heating if the Greens get their way, and with the complete retirement of coal and oil-fired generators. Meanwhile all new offshore gas exploration has been banned, and the Greens have shot down a much needed LNG import terminal because of their antipathy towards US fracking. We are a high tech country, with data centres expected to consume over 25% of power by 2030. But we have now been told we face grid instability for the next five years because of lack of investment in baseload power. We are also reliant on gas and electricity interconnectors to the UK which is facing its own energy cliff.
Worst of all is that a significant segment of the population is convinced that the world will literally burst into flames in the foreseeable a future. Adults decide not to have children, and children suffer from debilitating anxiety, all because of a fabricated horror story that has been concocted by a media seeking to attract more eyeballs.
Scientists are not immune either. I have been reading academic papers for long enough to see that there have been inexplicably bad predictions even for short term change. One "Ehrlichian" prediction from 2009 was that West African crop yields would fall by 25% by 2020 due to seasonal shift in rainfall patterns and other effects. In fact, crop yields rose by around 15%. Especially in Africa, the potential for better land management to increase yields is enormous.
Another paper reported that 50% of the worlds grain belts would be affected by climate change by 2100. This was dutifully reported in the press as a loss of 50% of the worlds grain. Of course, the paper says nothing of the sort -- northward shifts of grain belts into the Canadian prairies and Siberian steppes could increase the worlds available arable land. Needless to say such changes could be disruptive, but they are not the civilisational catastrophes (let alone extinction level events) that are being touted.
As you pointed out, the economic impact of climate change is barely a rounding error compared to the growth in global GDP by 2100, as long as we don't shoot our own feet off. Again, this is all available in the IMF's own modelling from the last two years.
I wonder if a backlash from a duped public is overdue. I somehow doubt it. The man in the street is not going to suddenly start reading academic papers. And yet, the UK's recent energy concerns just in time for COP26 later this month seem like an interesting opportunity for a clash of ideas.
Yes, it always fascinates me that the climate alarmists prattle on and on about "denialism" and the imperative to "follow the science", but then the most generally-accepted, best-resourced "science", the IPCC reports, do not in any way justify the kinds of policies they propose.
“This is not to say the man-made climate change is not a serious problem, because it is- albeit a more long-term, rather than immediate, problem than most realise.”
I see no reason to concede this point. We have a poor understanding of the causes of changing climate patterns which predate the industrial revolution by centuries, if not millennia.
I agree with everything here, Geary. Very well said. Huge fan!
I do, however, have a question. What do you mean by this phrase…"capitalism does produce gross wealth inequalities."?
I am reading it as that you believe that the inequalities created by voluntary market exchanges is a bad thing. But is this really your view? If so, why?
My take on the issue is that inequality of wages, profits, wealth and so on are absolutely necessary for the market to signal and incentivize change (in behavior, products, labor, etc). Inequality is thus not a bug, but a feature, and a necessary one at that. When markets are combined with a modern state with social safety nets and redistributive features (something true in all developed nations), the extremes of poverty are corrected, and are done so by tapping into the wealth generating power of markets.
So, my question is this… is inequality generated by properly functioning markets really a gross problem?
Thank you Geary, insightful and interesting as usual.
Climate change is only one of the many problems we would need to deal with.
There's also mass life extinction, mass pollution of the air, water and soils, the coming energy crisis, etc. And we're going to have to deal with everything, at the same time. Which is why it seems impossible to do so.
Increased difficulty to access clean water, for drinkink and food production, the increase of droughts in many places such as the Mediterranean periphery will undoubtedly throw millions on the road for their survival. Crises will make countries more unstable, especially those which already don't enjoy full stability.
The destruction of forests all over the globe, in Amazonia, Africa, on Sumatra, Java, Borneo, etc will only make things worse.
When I heard that Elon Musk was offering a $100M prize to anyone who'd find the best carbon capture technology, I couldn't help but think that was the most stupid idea I had ever heard.
Techno-fascination leads intelligent people to completely lose track of reality.
The best CO2 capture technology already exists and always has, it's called trees and plants.
If he really wants to help, he should use his billions to buy all primal forests on the planet to put an absolute stop to deforestation, and buy back the land claimed for intensive farming, palm oil and soy growing to let the forests regenerate. But then that's a lot less "sexy" than connected toys and gadgets.
Something that the article does not take into account is that, considering that growth keeps on being our motivation and objective, if we postulate that in 20, 30, 40 years time, millions more human will have access to what the West has enjoyed in terms of goods, equipment, infrastructures, whether it being medical, educational, urban, etc and all the wealth and comfort that goes with it, where will we find the resources to make everything we need for an ever growing number of people living by Western standards ?
In 40, 400, or 4,000 years, the earths will still be 13,000km in diametre. All the resources we would need to sustain billions living like Americans or Europeans won't just magically appear, out of thin air, just because we need them.
I'd like to point out that I am not a "socialist", not by American standards in any way, and I am a fierce opponent to the whole woke madness engulfing the world right now.
Yet I think the limits imposed by physics should help us understand that capitalism as it is today cannot go on sustainably, whether we like it or not. We're in for a diet, either planned wisely, or forced upon us by the reality of physics.
I agree wholeheartedly. If we destroy the engine of technological progress, we won’t be able to use it to solve the very real challenges we need it to solve. And on the whole, technological trends are decidedly good for the environment. Look at dematerialization for instance.
I’ll have to check out the Honest Broker. I’m not familiar with his work.
Some humility, please, Mr. Johansen. There are some things that we humans cannot comprehend: climate change being one. There are simply too many variables, too many unknowns to make meaningful predictions hundreds of years into the future.
I have never quite understood the equation of socialism with environmental friendliness. Certainly capitalist greed produces some true horror stories but it also has the capacity to create some incredibly advanced sustainable exploitation mechanisms. Socialist systems offer no such advantage. I can only think that the constant propaganda 'socialism is modern therefore it is good' pulls the wool over peoples eyes most effectively. Perhaps abandoning the shibboleth that socialism is a modern system is the way forward.