climate change
1 Feb 2008
The Scientists vs the Economists
Ross Garnaut
The Department of Science should be given equal say with Treasury in the fight against global warming, writes Geoff Davies
Global warming calls forth the services of two professions above most others: science and economics.Each has specialist knowledge that is needed to address the global warming challenge. The two professions are regarded and treated very differently, but they should not be.
Each profession comprises technical specialists and there are evident limits to the relevance and reliability of their expertise. Many in both professions are narrow specialists, and a few in each are broadly aware and relatively wise. Yet scientists are marginalised and economists are at the centres of power. We give scientists too little credence, and economists too much. We will pay a heavy price in altered climate if we do not redress the imbalance.
Under Howard, scientists were sternly enjoined to speak publicly only about science, and not to cross the line into "policy". The line was hard and the approved scope narrowly defined, although politicians crossed the line from their side to interfere with scientific reports.
Fortunately the new Labor Science Minister, Kim Carr, has made clear - after some early confusion - that he wants scientists to be much freer to join in public debate, and believes they have a responsibility to do so.
But scientists will still have far less influence than economists. Such is the modern mystique of economics that politicians have pretty much abdicated the job of running industrial civilisation to economists.
Your modern economist is basically an optimiser. Economist Professor Ross Garnaut, who the Prime Minister has put in charge of a climate change review, provided a clear illustration this week. Although the PM asked him to come up with a goal for reduction of greenhouse gas emission for the year 2020, Professor Garnaut said publicly he thought it would be better to focus on the long-term goal of a 60 per cent reduction by 2050. It may turn out, he said, that adopting a shorter-term goal pulls us away from the best long-term strategy.
It's a perfect example of optimiser thinking. Here we are at point A in 2008, and we want to be at point C in 2050. Getting to point B in 2020 might turn out to have been a detour away from the optimal route from A to C.
There are two big problems with Garnaut's approach. First, the idea that we can optimise our future course is a fantasy. Second, the Earth is showing strong signs of outrunning the scientific projections on which the 2050 goal was based.
Last northern summer so much Arctic sea ice melted that it dropped way out of the range of the IPCC's projections. Instead of having an ice-free Arctic near the end of the century, as the IPCC projected, it's plummeting towards a meeting with zero within only five years.
This is alarming, because ice-free water absorbs a lot more of the sun's heat than iced-over water, so the Arctic as a whole will warm even faster. That means potentially releasing more carbon dioxide and methane from melting tundra, which would accelerate the warming even more. In other words scientists fear a tipping point beyond which the whole thing would run out of control, even if we stopped emitting carbon dioxide tomorrow.
One prominent expert is Professor James Hanson, a climate scientist with NASA. We should pay attention to what he says, because he's been broadly correct for two or three decades now about the likely course of global warming. Recently he said the danger level for atmospheric carbon dioxide might be much lower that the 450-550 parts per million that has been taken up by politicians and economists.
Professor Hanson now thinks the danger level is 350 parts per million. We passed that level several years ago. We are now at 383 parts per million, and the rate of increase is increasing. The science has moved on from last year's IPCC report. The Earth may be moving on even faster.
Thus Professor Garnaut's focus on a 60 per cent reduction by 2050 may be totally irrelevant. The Earth may be tipping right now. We may be able to tip it back, but only if we act quickly and dramatically. We can't wait for nuclear, or "clean coal", or any other technology that will take decades to put in place and might not work anyway. The most cost-effective option, short-term or otherwise, is to dramatically increase the efficiency with which we use energy.
Ironically, Professor Garnaut's strategy treats scientists' estimates as if they are accurate and reliable. The scientists have never claimed that, of course, and they've copped a lot of misrepresentation and abuse from the ignorant and self-interested as a result. Scientists are generally careful to estimate uncertainties and, perhaps more importantly, to spell out the assumptions underlying their analysis.
A core problem with modern free-market economics is that it assumes economists can predict the future, though economists are not very conscientious about mentioning that key detail. Everybody knows you can't usefully map out your life strategy from now until 2050. Life keeps giving us big surprises, and we'd better hedge against bad news or we're likely to get badly burnt. It means the theoretical core of economics is built on shifting sands and its long-term projections are virtually worthless.
Australia has some of the world's best climate scientists. They should be on the climate change review panel, and one of them should co-chair with Professor Garnaut. The Department of Science should be given equal say with Treasury.
Economists are narrow technocrats. The world is too important to be left in their hands.
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Unfortunately, the Department of Science has a track record of behaving politically - attempting to censor CSIRO statements (often successfully) and presumably others of its stable of bodies as well. It certainly does not have the Scientific integrity of or expertise of it’s "stable" eg CSIRO, Bureau of Meteorology etc.
It would be far better to let relevant scientific departments such as Bureau of Meterology, CSIRO etc to have equal standing with Economists in any debate or report.
CSIRO SPRS (retired)
What about social and humanitarian concerns?
Economics should have no primacy, nor should government departments.
We need to balance ALL decisions against a basket of priorities like water, food and medicine.
While it’s true that the world should not be left in the hands of economists, it shouldn’t be left up to government departments either. The community should be involved in those decisions that affect it.
If we can do phone banking, then we can do phone voting to get a better fix on what people really value.
… this article reminded me of the quip, ‘what’s the point of being filthy rich if you don’t have a planet to spend it on?’
… and economists? The Govt needs to ask the ones with their head screwed on right (like Professor Steve Keen) what they think we should do before its too late.
Exactly.
"The Australian", adopting its usual climate change denial approach, is clutching at Garnaut’s latest pronouncements, promoting the view that it doesn’t matter when you emit carbon dioxide, as long as you don’t exceed some mysterious long-term limit.
Where are the scientists to challenge this? If you put one tonne of CO2 into the atmosphere now and leave it there for ten years, it contributes to global warming for the whole ten years. If you release it gradually over ten years, it contributes only half as much to warming over that period.
If we release most of the allocated target for any period early, we increase the warming and the risks.
Who could argue that scientists shouldn’t have an equal say in the review? After-all, their modeling is probably more firmly grounded on factual observation than that of economists.
Beyond that, there should be genuine community input commissioned on the policy alternatives. Citizens are consistently excluded from these policy formulations, and consulting with them could deflate or inform otherwise-counterproductive responses.
Either way, it is essential that we establish short-term targets that bring about this new reality - despite the scientific evidence, the entire world justifiably ignores the entire problem if we too, once-again, selfishly exempt ourselves from short-term carbon-reduction.
Beyond science, managing the problem of carbon emissions is good economic and social practice, if for no other reason than the skyrocketing price (scarcity) of carbon-based energy and production inputs.
Getting an economist to head a climate change review is like getting a doctor to design your house, a secretary to do your plumbing or hiring an artist to run your public transport system (which could explain what’s going on with trains in Melbourne - no offence to artists). The various climate related scientist need to set the limit on CO2 emmisions and then the enconomist (hopefully with social policy experts) can have a say in managing the resources within the constraints set out. But we do live under a market-fundamentalist theocracy so what chance is there that common sense would prevail.
"Economists are narrow technocrats. The world is too important to be left in their hands."
"…the idea that we can optimise our future course is a fantasy."
Such verve.
And what is the pragmatic solution Geoff Davies presents us with in response to such characterizations of the nature of the political decision making process?
Another layer of bureaucracy. But don’t worry folks, this one will be the "right" kind. It will be "scientifically" informed. According to Davies, contemporary "science" is not interested in being "accurate and reliable." Rather, scientists prefer to "estimate uncertainties" and "spell out the assumptions underlying their analysis." Davies advocacy for ‘science’ based decision making smacks of a religiosity that even free market economists dare not aspire to. According to Davies, scientific analysis can no longer be tainted with the accusations that it is wrong, or misguided, or conditioned by cultural bias, or the result of political compromise. Why does Davies think that he can get away with ascribing "science" with such a teflon coating?
"Life keeps giving us big surprises, and we’d better hedge against bad news or we’re likely to get badly burnt."
Ah-ha! I get it. The secrets out. We can’t control everything, or predict the future with certainty. Our only hope is conservativism. We still need to hedge our bets, just don’t let simple minded economists do it. Give that power to "scientists" whose methodological approach absolves them from ever having to admit that they have been asking the wrong questions.
Long story short forum dwellers: The ‘choice’ between scientists and economists is a false one. Both scientists and economists need to focus their attention on pragmatic solutions (google ‘feed in tariffs’) for energy production, not pie in the sky religious edicts about who has the right to produce carbon.
Bob, with every respect to yourself, you are too harsh on Geoff Davies, after all, Economists are notorious for getting it wrong ALL the time!
Let’s face it, for a list of the world’s most harebrained ideas no list could be longer than one produced by the world’s Human Sciences faculties!
After centuries of argument, for example, economists still today cannot decide what the true definition is of money, while discoveries in the natural sciences have answered questions about molecular biology and are probing deep into the mysteries of quantum physics and environmental sciences unimagined by those first economists to examine the as yet unsolved mysteries of money in our lives!
I think we should first allow our economists to arrive at some general consensus about the true definition and function of money before we let them loose on our environment!
Good on you Geoff! When can we expect a sequel?
Scientists, I am sorry but as long as we allow ourselves to be ruled by the Religious, of all faiths, - and much of economics is nothing else - I suspect you have a snowball’s hope on Planet Earth.
Probably, there are too many people, using too much and for too long. Voluntarily correcting that is simple but not easy so it will have to be done for us and I doubt that any of us will be around to see the result. To paraphrase "Le Roi Soleil" (the Sun King) "Apres NOUS le deluge" ("After US, the deluge!").