Climate Alarmism Reconsidered

187 Pages·2003·0.58 MB·English

by  Robert L. Bradley

Climate Alarmism Reconsidered

Climate Alarmism
Reconsidered
robert l. bradley jr
The Institute of Economic Affairs
First published in Great Britain in 2003 by
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CONTENTS
The author 9
Foreword 10
Acknowledgements 13
Summary 14
List of fi gures 16
1 Introduction 19
2 Carbon energy sustainability 23
Growing supply 23
Declining pollution 28
Improving quality 32
Increasing consumption/falling intensity 33
False alarms 35
Relative superiority 37
Conclusion 39
3 Issues in climate science 41
Natural and anthropogenic change 43
Scientifi c optimism 49
Benign warming distribution 51
Water vapour feedback revision 61
Conclusion 71
4 Issues in climate economics 72
Carbon dioxide – a positive GHG 72
IPCC damage analysis versus mainstream economics 75
1995 IPCC report: Economic and Social Dimensions 76
2001 IPCC report: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability 78
Realism/optimism 86
Realism/restraint 90
Politicisation versus optimism 94
Sequestration versus mitigation 96
Conclusion 97
5 Framing the policy issues 99
The Kyoto conundrum 100
Stasism and ‘problematic’ warming 107
The precautionary principle 111
Poverty 114
Conclusion 118
6 Climate policy 119
‘No regrets’ GHG reductions 119
Beyond ‘no regrets’: a little something? 122
The Nordhaus/Boyer proposal 123
Cap-and-trade 124
Beyond ‘no regrets’: a lot of something? 126
Environmentalist/environmental regret 131
Hydro and nuclear power 132
Kyoto compromises 133
Emission trade-offs 134
Renewable trade-offs 135
A technological fi x? 139
Corporatism (corporate welfare) 141
Conclusion 142
7 Conclusions 144
Appendix A: Falsifi ed carbon energy alarmism 147
Depletion 147
Pollution 151
Climate change 152
Conservation 154
Power plant impact 155
Loss of freedom/central planning 156
Policy 157
Appendix B: IPCC support for climate optimism 158
Natural variability – important 158
Rate of atmospheric GHG build-up – overmodelled 159
Satellite/balloon temperature records –
modest warming 159
Reduced temperature variation
(decreasing diurnal cycle) 160
Sub-freezing warming concentration 162
Sea level rise – falling estimates 163
Weather extremes not increasing 164
Surprises – very speculative 165
Increased precipitation – not much 166
Feedback effects – the key uncertainty 166
Climate modelling – tentative 168
Aerosol cooling – in dispute 169
Regional forecasting – not reliable 169
Appendix C: W. S. Jevons – fi rst critic of
renewable energy 171
Wind power 172
Hydropower 173
Biomass 174
Geothermal 174
About the IEA 176
THE AUTHOR
Robert L. Bradley Jr is president of the Institute for Energy
Research in Houston, Texas, and a senior research fellow at the
University of Houston. He is author of The Mirage of Oil Protection
(1989), Oil, Gas, and Government: The US Experience (2 vols, 1996)
and Julian Simon and the Triumph of Energy Sustainability (2000),
as well as shorter studies on energy history and policy. He received
the Julian L. Simon Memorial Award for 2002 for his work on
energy sustainability issues. Bradley received his BA in economics
from Rollins College, where he received the S. Truman Olin Award
in Economics. He received an MA in economics from the Univer-
sity of Houston and a PhD with distinction in political economy
from International College.
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FOREWORD
It has become accepted wisdom that human activity is chang-
ing the climate for the worse, and policy activism is necessary to
transform the energy mix away from carbon-based fuels. This view
is propagated through the media and at educational institutions
throughout the UK and the EU more generally. Unfortunately, it is
rarely exposed to critical appraisal, turning what should be a live
intellectual debate into ‘indoctrination’ rather than ‘education’.
Hobart Paper 146 by Rob Bradley of the Institute for Energy
Research in Houston, Texas, is a welcome reassessment of much
of the accepted wisdom regarding climate change. His wide-rang-
ing analysis documents a number of weaknesses in the argument
that we are facing serious adverse impacts from climate change.
His argument gains weight when the general context of energy sus-
tainability debate is considered, where the ‘alarmists’ on fossil-fuel
reliance have been wrong time and again.
There is no longer an energy depletion problem: the evidence
is clear that, as long as governments do not interfere, new sources
of energy can be found to meet demand at constant costs or better
– not just for the next generation or two but for centuries ahead.
Pollution is declining dramatically in the USA and in the EU.
Energy is used with greater and greater effi ciency, as the energy
required per unit of output decreases. And market forces have ef-
fectively addressed energy reliability/security challenges as com-
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