A Few Simple Observations

As I was reading Dave Roberts' The decisions we make about climate change today will reverberate for millennia, it reminded me of a few simple observations I've been meaning write down. The Roberts piece boils down to "vote for a Democrat" in November. 

Roberts supports that position by noting that climate change doesn't stop in 2100; it will go on for thousands of years. This is a crucial time in the history of humanity, but the fight will go on for a long time. He cites this recent Nature perspective, which concludes that

... short-term emissions targets are important, as they represent tangible steps that individual countries are taking towards reducing emissions. Some of these reductions will come from the deployment of non-fossil-fuel technologies and increasing energy efficiency. But accelerated investment in the technologies required to achieve deeper reductions over the long term — such as electric or fuel-cell vehicles, or advanced biofuels — will not necessarily result from these new agreements. These and other disruptive technologies are unlikely to have a major impact on emissions if one's perspective on the problem of human-caused climate change does not extend beyond 2100.

Taking the longer 10,000-year view means that a balance is needed between policies that focus on lowering near-future emissions and policies that accelerate the development and deployment of new technologies that can transform our energy systems and infrastructure in the long term.

This is not merely a call for more research, but also for a re-examination of financial incentives, energy regulations, international agreements and the global equity considerations they entail, because key elements of innovation occur as much during widespread deployment as they do in the laboratory. The success of the COP21 Paris meeting and of every other future COP must be evaluated not only by levels of national commitments, but also by looking at how the various commitments will lead to the proliferation of non-fossil energy systems, and ultimately to the point when zero-carbon energy systems become the obvious choice for everyone.

Long story short, humans are in this game for the long-run.

Now I am going to change the subject and tie things together later. You know, make a few simple observations.

When did the Age of Globalization begin? You can take a long-term perspective because nations have been trading with each other for a long time, but in modern times, let's just say 1985. That's roughly the time when "emerging markets" joined the global economy. Since that date, the human economy on Earth has become truly global in scope in a way it never was before. In this sense, humans have created something new.

And how has that worked out?

By my crude reckoning, it took a mere 23 years for our modern globalized economy to blow up. It's been limping along ever since, and, now, it is blowing up again 8 years later. These two meltdowns are connected of course, because policy-makers globally never actually addressed the financial conditions which caused the initial crisis.

For example, due to monetary stimulus all  over the world, global debt levels are much higher than they were in 2008. Among all the major players in this global economy, it now takes more and more debt to generate a dollar of GDP. There are trillions and trillions of dollars worth of derivatives (side-bets) out there, and no one can truly understand the underlying dependencies. Wealth and income inequality at the global scale is astonishing and getting worse all the time. Etcetera. And now, international markets are crashing again and lots of phony (stimulus-created) wealth is disappearing.

What would an alien observer say about human abilities to manage a global economy?

I'm pretty sure an alien observer would conclude that humans, on the face of it, have not demonstrated an ability to manage a global economy. They would conclude that humans are almost totally incompetent in this regard.

Now, the natural question to ask is why are humans unable to manage a global economy? Today, I don't care about the answer. I care only about the observed facts.

In so far as the underlying financial fundamentals of the global economy are arguably worse than they were 8 years ago, it appears that humankind's ongoing failure to manage their global economy is going to continue for some time to come. I'm confident humans will muddle through somehow, at least in the medium term, and maybe they'll even be able to get things humming again some years from now. On the other hand, I doubt any such success will last very long.

And now let's go back to the beginning of this post. Does this text, repeated for your convenience with emphasis added, make any sense at all?

Taking the longer 10,000-year view means that a balance is needed between policies that focus on lowering near-future emissions and policies that accelerate the development and deployment of new technologies that can transform our energy systems and infrastructure in the long term.

This is not merely a call for more research, but also for a re-examination of financial incentives, energy regulations, international agreements and the global equity considerations they entail, because key elements of innovation occur as much during widespread deployment as they do in the laboratory.

The success of the COP21 Paris meeting and of every other future COP must be evaluated not only by levels of national commitments, but also by looking at how the various commitments will lead to the proliferation of non-fossil energy systems, and ultimately to the point when zero-carbon energy systems become the obvious choice for everyone.

It makes no sense whatsoever as far as I can see. Humans can't even manage a global economy with the current energy system, let alone, at a global level, re-examine financial incentives, energy regulations, international agreements and the global equity considerations they entail with an eye toward creating a zero-carbon energy system for the year 2100 and beyond.

In baseball, you can't score if you can't get to first base.

Comments

[Andy]

You can't even do it at a local level. However if we keep saying things like, we must because the alternatives is so bad, we need to, there is no other choice, failure is not an option etc. Well, I expect the number of depressed environmentalists to rise significantly.