Stephen
Kershnar
The Climate Change Crusade and Philosophy
Dunkirk-Fredonia Observer
October
25, 2015
The
2015 United National Climate Change Conference is coming up in about a month.
The conference aims to put a legally binding and universal agreement on global
warming (that is, climate change). Manmade global warming (that is, climate
change) refers to the claim that the climate system is warming and that it is
caused, at least in part, by human activity. Among the solutions that various
groups have suggested are taxing, regulating, or punishing people to reduce the
use of fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas). Other suggestions include
reducing consumption and travel, moving to more efficient cars, buildings, and
appliances, and promoting vegetarianism. If these goals are adopted,
governments will likely pursue them through coercion.
The scientific consensus is that that the earth’s surface and oceans are warming due to in part to the emission of greenhouse gases. In 2014, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) found that it was more than 95% likely that increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases and other human activity is causing global warming. Various scientific models predict that in the 21st century, the global surface temperature is likely to rise anywhere from 0.5 to 8.6 °F, depending in part on how much greenhouse emission occurs. That there is manmade global warming is the consensus view of most, if not all, of the major scientific bodies.
If
these models are correct, the question becomes what, if anything, should be
done about climate change. Among the possible responses are reducing greenhouse
gas emissions, learning to live with its effects, and climate engineering. The
American and European left want to reduce greenhouse emissions via higher
taxes, more regulation, and various criminal punishments and civil fines. The
philosophical problems that accompany these solutions are worth considering.
First,
policies that aim to lessen greenhouse emissions not to prevent harm from
pollution-related harm today, but to combat global warming decades from now
might not be the best use of charitable resources. One group (Copenhagen
Consensus) tried to rank the effectiveness of various types of altruistic
policies and found that lessening global warming by reducing greenhouse gas
emission is not the most efficient type of altruistic spending. More good was
done by other programs, such as ones that lessened malnutrition and hunger,
combatted chronic and infectious diseases (such as malaria and HIV), and funded
research and development for green technologies that combat climate change and
increase agricultural productivity.
Even
if manmade global warming is bad for mankind, this does not mean it should
receive priority if there are more pressing problems. For example, if a dollar
spent on reducing malnutrition or malaria does more good than reducing
greenhouse gas emission, this should guide our spending of scarce charitable dollars.
Second,
at least in the near future, the costs of lessening greenhouse emissions
through the left’s programs might exceed their benefits. Arguing in the New York Times in 2013, Bjorn Lomborg
argues that in the near future, the increased use of coal and other fossil
fuels is crucial to helping the poor in the third world escape poverty. He
argues that over the last 30 years, China lifted 680 million people out of
poverty in part by giving them access to more modern energy, mostly through the
burning of coal. He notes that this resulted in terrible air pollution and a
huge increase in greenhouse gas emissions, but argued that this is a tradeoff
many developing countries would welcome (for example, those in sub-Saharan
Africa). Perhaps this is incorrect, but it is incumbent on environmentalists to
show why.
As a
theoretical matter, the benefits of added wealth might exceed the costs of
depletion. Consider this cartoonish example. For example, if depleting various
natural resources allows the economy to expand at 5% rather than 0% for 25
years, the per capital income of the average American will go from $55,000 to
$186,000 (in 2015 dollars). Future generations might do better with more wealth
and technology than a pristine environment.
Third,
if a policy leads to the creation of different people than otherwise would be
created, then the policy does not harm anyone. More than a decade ago a
controversy erupted when a deaf lesbian couple intentionally had a deaf child by
using the sperm of a man from a multi-generational deaf family. Their action
did not harm anyone because there was no one whom they made worse off (leaving
aside taxpayers). Their child would not have existed were he not (partially) deaf.
Similarly, if the left’s changes in the economic system are large enough, this
might affect the people who come into existence in the same way that
industrialization, world wars, and the computer economy have a large effect on
who reproduces with whom. If such a large effect occurs, then, over the long
term, it is hard to see who would be harmed by large-scale greenhouse gas
emissions. People are not harmed by the emissions if they would not have
existed were the emissions not to have occurred. Whether the left’s programs
are large enough to affect reproductive patterns is an empirical question.
Fourth,
even if greenhouse gas emissions make the world a better place, it is not clear
we have a duty to make the world a better place. For example, it might well be
that the world would be a better place if wealthier couples donated their money
to famine-relief programs rather than going on European vacations, but they
don’t have a duty to do so. Similarly, there’s nothing wrong with happier and smarter
couples having two children rather than five even though this makes the world
worse because there are fewer happy people.
These
economic and philosophical concerns about some of the proposals to lessen
greenhouse gas emissions as a way of lessening global warming are well-known
and serious. If climate change crusaders do not address them, then their
solutions should be rejected.
