Two interesting global warming related articles

1) James Waterton on Samizdata thinks that 'If global warming is real, it is now inevitable' and backs this up with some observations from Beijing and about China & India:

'The fact is that if AGW is a genuine phenomenon, it is inevitable. There is absolutely no point in the rich world winding back its CO2 output, because China, India and the rest of the developing world will replace any first world CO2 reductions several times over. Despite the occasionally placatory noises about limiting CO2 emissions heard from the likes of the Chinese central government, the fact is that the Chinese, the Indians, the Russians, the Brazilians, nor anyone else from the developing world will ever stymy their nations' opportunity to develop by hobbling their industrial output via significant CO2 emissions controls. Nor are the leaders of these countries likely to do anything to incur the wrath of their citizens by curtailing their perfectly reasonable aspirations to own motorcars, motorcycles, air conditioners and enjoy the convenience of air travel - all enormous direct or indirect sources of CO2 emissions. If significant CO2 reduction could be achieved with minimal economic and social cost, then perhaps the developing world would cooperate. However, large-scale CO2 reduction is an extremely expensive and socially disruptive exercise, and this reality will persist for several decades.

And it is too late to roll back the clock - too many people in the developing world have tasted the fruits of development, and quite legitimately demand more. Those governing the aspirational billions are far more likely to be influenced by them than An Inconvenient Truth. Global CO2 emissions are going to continue to grow for many years, there is no doubt about it. The "global warmenists", as the mighty Tim Blair calls them, need to re-evaluate their positions, because what they propose at present is simply an exercise in developed-world wealth destruction on an epic scale. Those insisting on such a state of affairs appear little short of anti-human luddites, as detractors of the green movement have long asserted. Bjørn Lomborg is spot on - any resources allocated towards the AGW issue should be directed towards researching crisis management and developing an appropriate disaster-relief capacity under the circumstances of rapid climate change, even if only as an insurance policy. And the absolute last thing we in the developed world should be doing is hampering the wealth-creating organs of our societies in a futile effort to cut CO2 emissions. If AGW is truly the looming catastrophe that many predict, we need to be as wealthy as possible to plan and make provisions for its impending consequences, and thus deal with them when they start to unfold.'

He's quite right but the ecomentalists in much of the West just won't listen.


2) Frank Furedi at Spiked ponders the matter of 'competitive fearmongering' when it comes to climate change and nuclear power. A fascinating article and well worth a read. Here's a few extracts:

'After the accident at the Fukushima nuclear plant in tsunami-hit Japan, fear appeals based on the alleged threat from nuclear reactors successfully – at least for now – trumped the climate alarmists’ predictions of planetary apocalypse. The German shift shows that even in the midst of a titanic clash of competing calamities, scaremongering can be surprisingly pragmatic.

Historic experience tells us that the success or otherwise of competitive scaremongering has little to with the actual intensity of the alleged threat.

...

Competitive scaremongering is encouraged by a cultural imagination that is far more open to appeals based on fear than on faith in people and the future. That is why even sensible attempts to counteract scaremongering can sometimes get sidetracked by the temptation to respond in kind, with an alternative form of alarmism. This regrettable tendency is strikingly illustrated in the response of some experts to the anti-MMR crusade. The health scare and panic about a bogus association between the measles, mumps and rubella (MMR) vaccine and autism shows that scaremongering can fundamentally alter the way we live our lives. Hundreds of thousands of parents have become needlessly worried about allowing their children to be vaccinated by what is a very safe vaccine. Immunisation rates have sharply declined, with potentially dangerous consequences for children who do not get the vaccine. With so much at stake, it is understandable why some opponents of the anti-MMR crusaders have responded with their own fear appeals, claiming that a measles epidemic could threaten the future health of children across the West.

...

However, the contemporary culture of fear is very selective in its attitude towards invisible contaminants. Official reports suggest that around 10,000 people may have died from cancer as a consequence of the world’s gravest nuclear disaster in Chernobyl in 1986. But that’s a relatively small number compared with the thousands of deaths caused by coal-mining and its associated pollution. Although contaminants released by both technologies have caused death, coal-mining rarely provokes the kind of hysteria that nuclear energy does.'

Do read the whole article and remember it the next time the BBC or Daily Mail are running a scare story based on dodgy science - now why am I thinking about the mobile phones cause cancer stories?