Articles by David Roberts

Never mind climate science — what about climate economics?

The word "uncertainty" has become a bit of a bugaboo in green circles, since it's typically used by skeptics to muddy the waters on climate science. But uncertainty around climate science is not the only relevant kind when it comes to global warming.

There's also uncertainty with regard to how much it will cost to do something about it.

It seems to me this is woefully under-discussed. Virtually all public discussion of climate change has to do with the science -- whether global warming is real, how fast it's happening, the effects on sea levels, weather patterns, species, etc. The assumption seems to be that if we can nail down the science, policy will automatically follow.

Not so.

Actually, it is about the oil

Also in the NYT (but behind the $elect wall), Ted Koppel (who I guess is looking for new ways to spend his time) points out the obvious:

Keeping oil flowing out of the Persian Gulf and through the Strait of Hormuz has been bedrock American foreign policy for more than a half-century.

...

Perhaps the day will come when the United States is no longer addicted to imported oil; but that day is still many years off. For now, the reason for America's rapt attention to the security of the Persian Gulf is what it has always been. It's about the oil.

Why else would we be building permanent bases in Iraq?

And why are statements like this still viewed as vaguely conspiratorial and wacky? If we can't openly discuss the plain truth, we'll never get anywhere.

Short and blunt

James Gustave Speth (see Grist interview here) writes a letter to The New York Times:

The world we have known is history. A mere 1 degree Fahrenheit global average warming is already raising sea levels, strengthening hurricanes, disrupting ecosystems, threatening parks and protected areas, causing droughts and heat waves, melting the Arctic and glaciers everywhere and killing tens of thousands of people a year.

Yet there are several more degrees coming in our grandchildren's lifetimes.

It is easy to feel like a character in a bad science fiction novel running down the street shouting "Don't you see it!" while life goes on, business as usual.

Climate change is the biggest thing to happen here on earth in thousands of years, with incalculable environmental, social and economic costs. But there is no march on Washington; students are not in the streets; consumers are not rejecting destructive lifestyles; Congress is not passing far-reaching legislation; the president is not on television explaining the threat to the country; Exxon is not quaking in its boots; and entire segments of evening news pass without mention of the climate emergency.

Instead, 129 new coal-fired power plants are being developed in the United States alone, and so on.

There are many of us caught in this story. We must find one another soon.

James Gustave Speth
New Haven, Feb. 20, 2006

Gore’s presentation

There's been a lot of talk lately about Al Gore and his fabulous PowerPoint-based global warming presentation. There's even a movie coming out about it.

If you care to know the details -- in advance of seeing the movie -- Ethan Zuckerman, who saw Gore at the TED 2006 conference, has a play-by-play.