Evidence That Standard Models Understate Climate Change’s Impact on the Poor
As clowns like Representative Todd Akin (R-MO) are wont to point out, the scale of the average temperature shift associated with catastrophic climate change is not especially large relative to ordinary fluctuations in the weather. In other words, in most parts of the world summer is much hotter than winter, and the summer-winter gap exceeds the sort of changes associated with carbon emissions. If you’re dumb, this becomes a reason to get blasé about climate change. If you understand the issue, you understand that even modest structural shifts in the climate can have enormous impacts—shifting rainfall patterns, altering sea levels, massively increasing the odds of extreme weather, etc.
Consequently, most climate change analysis focuses on these kinds of problems. But new research from Melissa Dell, Benjamin Jones, and Benjamin Olken gives reason to believe that the hot weather on its own will likely have large adverse consequences for economic growth rates in poor countries:
We find that higher temperatures reduce the growth rate in poor countries, not simply the level of output. Since even small growth effects have large consequences over time, these growth effects – if they persist in the medium run – imply very large impacts of permanent temperature increases. [...]
To the extent that responses to future climate change are similar to historical responses, our findings have implications for quantifying potential future impacts of climate change. Even assuming that countries adapt fully after only a decade to temperature changes, if the future response follows our historically-driven estimates, the future effects of climate change for poor countries would be substantially more negative than those implied by existing models. For example, our estimates imply that global climate change would lower the median poor country’s growth rate by 0.6 percentage points each year from now until 2099. Extrapolated over 90 years, the median poor country would then be about 40% poorer in 2099 than it would have been in the absence of climate change.
That’s the estimated negative impact assuming complete and successful adaptation . And that, in turn, is a completely heroic assumption. Members of congress considering the Waxman-Markey bill should think that over, but so should political leaders in China, India, and Brazil.
All this via Ryan Avent.
34 Responses to “Evidence That Standard Models Understate Climate Change’s Impact on the Poor”
Register
RSSLogin
Topic Cloud
ArchivesBlog RollAbout Matt YglesiasContact Me
Donate
June 6th, 2009 at 4:08 pm
Ha, ha! Poor brown people in foreign countries! F*ck ‘em. U.S.A! U.S.A!
June 6th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
Matt, do you think we can expect any mention of stuff like this from Obama when/if health care reform passes? His Cairo speech mentioned his (noble) desire to speak the truth. Obama’s done a lot to help the rich – but I don’t even hear him paying lip service to the environment or the poor now that he’s in office. I know, I know, the political questions of “truth or ignoring consequences” answer themselves… but they’re still worth asking, and I wish someone were confronting Obama with these questions.
I understand if he wants to avoid panic, but the risk on the other side is remaining in denial until the worst is literally above our heads – or my generation’s heads, at least. Brutal honesty can spur momentum for bold action while there’s still time to act. Brutal denial, at least from what I’ve seen in history, stirs all that momentum and energy up far too late to make a difference.
June 6th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
yeah, they should all consider just how impoverished their citizens will be by a huge, unnecessary (and futile – the IPCC assumes virtually no impact from the proposals being talked about) change like this.
It’s very progressive to take money from the poor and hand it to favored political groups though. This is just a large scale version of the kind of theft we now see with GM and Chrysler.
June 6th, 2009 at 10:11 pm
Ah, global warming. Well, this is sure to bring out a ringing cluster of denialist crackpots and nutbars with all sorts of ju ju, anecdotes, arguments and wacky pseudo-conspiracy theories. Bring it on. And while you’re at it, tell us all how the gnomes in Zurich run the world, how peak oil is a myth cause oil is infinite, that evolution is a fraud, the protocols of zion are true, that the holocaust didn’t happen, Clinton killed Vince Foster and alien bodies are at area 51.
Really, we need the laughs.
June 6th, 2009 at 11:35 pm
If you understand the issue, you understand that even modest structural shifts in the climate can have enormous impacts—shifting rainfall patterns, altering sea levels, massively increasing the odds of extreme weather, etc.
Changes in precipitation had no substantial effects on aggregate output in either poor or rich countries. When we examine the impact of changes in average temperatures lasting a decade or more rather than annual changes, we find very similar results.
Climate alarmist + economist = fortune teller
June 6th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
Den Valdron – you might try reading Bjorn Lomborg, who makes the point that it would be far less costly – and more effective – to take adaptive measures if and when we need to, rather than impoverish ourselves ahead of time.
June 7th, 2009 at 12:03 am
Watch out for that China stuff Matt. They are slippery cats. They are going to be pointing fingers at us in five years.
China is, by far, the world’s leader in THE MOST IMPORTANT green investment for combating climate change, the production of electric automobiles. China’s government is also spending tens of billions -even as we berate them- to build the infrastructure -charging facilities and battery switching stations- to support this vital green technology.
They will soon be the world leader in wind power generation. The most conservative estimates of China’s massive commitment to wind power have the country deriving at least 20% to 25% of their total energy needs from this alternative energy source by the year 2020.
China is also -just for the hell-of-it- undertaking the largest construction project in the history of mankind, and it is green, green, green. China is laying down 15,000 kilometers of high speed rail in less that two decades time -most of it will be in service by 2015 and all of it by 2020.
June 7th, 2009 at 12:21 am
It is the old hare and the tortoise story, Matt. Except this time, while the rabbit is off bragging -mid-race- how great he is, the tortoise hops in a 500hp, low-slung, aerodynamic, hyper-efficient electric muscle car and blows past the finish line at a smooth 180mph -and keeps on going.
June 7th, 2009 at 12:39 am
Max424 – China is also building a ton of coal plants. They are not terribly interested in “being green” – they are interested in building lots of power generation across a ton of technologies. Which is what we would be doing, if the left didn’t oppose everything that might work.
– Like the power lines that will need to run from remote wind/solar installations (that the left won’t allow to be built in places like the Mojave Desert, and off the shore of Massachussetts)
– Like the nuclear plants that the left won’t allow us to build, even though they don’t emit any carbon
When the left wants to become part of the solution, and not just a bunch of whiny chasers of fantasy, let the rest of us know.
June 7th, 2009 at 1:33 am
Nitwit too Stupid to Name, #6:
You’re completely correct, because the mass extinction-in-progress costs nothing; curbing or slowing it saves us nothing.
Asshat.
June 7th, 2009 at 1:41 am
To #10 – as I said, the IPCC itself states that the measures being considered will have a trivial impact on your goals, while at the same time impoverishing many, many people – including the poor the left pretends to care about.
The level of carbon emissions slowdown that would have an impact (assuming you buy into this stuff at all) would require a drop in the usage of energy that is politically impossible. Quite simply, no one is going to don a hair shirt to make Matt feel better about himself.
June 7th, 2009 at 2:04 am
James Robertson
I don’t know, James, as I wrote in my comment, the Chinese are simultaneously engaged on five of the largest construction and infrastructure projects ever undertaken -the three I have described, plus the Three Rivers Dam (#3 all-time), and the aqueduct project (#2 all-time -HSR network #1 all-time), which is essentially about building several reverse flow rivers.
All these projects were planned with global climate change in mind. The Chinese know they probably have the biggest potential problem regarding climate change, the loss of their water supply if the glaciers in the Himalayas dry up. They are taking unprecedented action.
What are we doing? Well, we are going to rely on the Free Market. The Free Market will make all the decisions for us. Of course, the Free Market does not believe in Global Warming, or infrastructure, or for that matter, the United States of America.
The Free Market is Free! It is unfettered by nation-state boundaries. The United States can kiss its ass. Right?
June 7th, 2009 at 7:03 am
By the way, my comment should have read:
Beijing’s BRAND NEW subway system as it looks now -almost all of it was started after 2004 and completed in 2008.
Let’s continue to spend a trillion dollars per year on defense preparing to fight the itsy bitsy Chinese Navy in the Taiwan Straight. What the fuck America. Wake up! The Chinese are laughing at us. And they should.
June 7th, 2009 at 7:59 am
Re James Robertson
Well, well, Mr. Robertson has graduated from nutcase Roy Spencer to Bjorn Lomborg. Lomborg, at least is not a nutcase, although his prescriptions are controversial. Attached is a link to a commentary on Mr. Lomborg.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2008/08/so_whats_wrong_with_lomborg.php
June 7th, 2009 at 10:45 am
Two of the underpinnings of Lomborg’s analysis are that we’ll recognize when we’ve reached a point at which we’ve really got to act or omg! (and that we’ll then do it) and that whatever change is in store for us will be incremental rather than a change in category. A little less food, say, rather than 50% fewer people living on rapidly declining scrub lands with wars for food erupting uncontrollably around us.
I’ve decided that we’re not going to do anything and that whatever is in store for us, we’re going to get. We’re more animal than angel. The Lomborgs of the world are just coyotes rather than hyenas. Like some we could name.
June 7th, 2009 at 10:52 am
Yes, Lomborg makes the point that the precautionary principle is a pretty bad way to make policy….
June 7th, 2009 at 12:20 pm
Yes, Lomborg makes the point that the precautionary principle is a pretty bad way to make policy….
For example, it would be money better spent if we had let all of our ailing financial institutions fail this year and last.
Is “jackal” a synonym of for “hyena”?
June 7th, 2009 at 12:57 pm
Todd Akin was my representative until I moved last year. I knew him in the 90’s through a boy scout troop that two of his sons and my son were in. I’ve been to his house several times and have heard him speak to various groups. He comes from a wealthy family and has a background in civil engineering.
It scares me that this guy is an elected representative. All his children are “Christian” home-schooled. He, and many others in the troop, were deeply into the militia movement. He believes that the American government’s authority comes directly and exclusively from the Bible. He, and especially his wife, are nice folks, but it is dangerous for them to have power.
June 7th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
Re pragmatic idealist
I’m sure that Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann is a nice lady but she is also a total moron. Unfortunately, there are all too many fucktards like Akin and Bachmann in Congress.
June 7th, 2009 at 4:35 pm
Climate change always has had a disproportionate effect on the poor in the past, and there’s no reason to think it will not continue that way.
But it’s because they’re poor. It would be cheaper to make them resilient at a regional level than to try and reshape the world economy.
I personally think we should do quite a bit of the first, and pick the low hanging fruit for the second while we wait for measurements to actually become accurate.
http://www.examiner.com/x-9111-SF-Environmental-Policy-Examiner~y2009m5d29-Global-warming-will-hit-the-poor-hardestbut-its-poverty-not-the-heat-that-will-kill
June 7th, 2009 at 5:26 pm
With the oceanic oscillations in their cooling phases for the next twenty years, and the sun possibly presaging a century of cooling, it is far more likely that the poor will face a climate catastrophe like crop failures from global cooling than anything imaginable from warming. And we all face economic catastrophe from the completely unnecessary, and regressive, Cap and Trade scheme pushed by the likes of Waxman simply from a reflex to overgovern and underunderstand.
==================================================
June 7th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
As clowns like Representative Todd Akin (R-MO) are wont to point out, the scale of the average temperature shift associated with catastrophic climate change is not especially large relative to ordinary fluctuations in the weather.
Just like other clowns like to point out that there are greater differences within a race than between the races on average.
In other words, in most parts of the world summer is much hotter than winter, and the summer-winter gap exceeds the sort of changes associated with carbon emissions. If you’re dumb, this becomes a reason to get blasé about climate change.
I hope that everyone who reads this statement will also apply the same logic to discussions of differences in racial IQ.
June 7th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
kim, old horse, I was wondering if/when you were going to show up again.
Let’s see … in previous threads you argued that AGW was wrong because temps were off though CO2 was monotonically upward.
AND
You said that you knew that climate had lots of forcings.
Such an interesting problem. How could both be correct?
June 7th, 2009 at 11:19 pm
Uh, is this economic growth or population growth? If it’s the latter, why is that a bad thing? Fewer people means slower consumption of resources and lower CO2 emissions. If it’s the former, well, economic growth isn’t necessarily a good indicator of overall well-being anyway. What I want to know is whether we will have enough food and how many people will die as a result of climate change that wouldn’t die otherwise.
June 7th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
See also.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:08 am
Re Kim
Hey, our old buddy Kim the birfer shows up again. How’s the efforts of Keyes, Taitz, and Berg to remove President Obama from office going? He’s still there as far as I can see so apparently it isn’t going too well. Oh well, maybe the tooth fairy will show up with a Kenyan birth certificate for the president.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:13 am
Apropos of this thread, a link from todays’ „ashington Post about the possibility of rising sea levels on the East Coast of the US.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/06/05/AR2009060501342.html?sub=AR
June 8th, 2009 at 7:15 pm
Jeffrey, #23, those are only superficially contradictory. Sure, CO2 is a forcing; it’s effect as a greenhouse gas depends on that forcing and the associated feedback and the sum is not known.
SLC, #26. Don’t you see how pitiful you sound there, wallering on about birfers. This is climate here, this thread, and policy. I’ll go read your #27, but the sealevel rise for the last few hundred years has stumbled and whether it is because the sea has really hit a tipping point and started cooling bigtime or not is the big question.
==================================================
June 8th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
Omigod, SLC, your link is more models, along with the caveat that models might be wrong. How interesting. It’s not as if all models are wrong, but it’s a little amusing to see the disclaimer thrown into the mix.
Yes, I can dispute that sea level is not rising. It’s had a steady rise for centuries, long before we started spewing CO2, but has basically not risen for the last three years. The meaning of this phenomenon is not clear, but it might augur that the generalized warming of the past few centuries is over. More likely, it is a short term stumble in sea level rise. Nonetheless, whatever the meaning, it is some evidence that there is not a ‘hidden’ store of excess heat waiting to be expressed after Pacific ‘weather’ straightens itself out. The obvious lack of any recent thermal expansion of the ocean corresponds with Josh Willis’s measurements of a falling global ocean temperature since 2005, from his Argos bouys.
So relax, hurricanes are going to represent a bigger threat to the near term beach habitat on the East Coast. Sea level rise is not in the cards; not from man’s effect on climate, anyway.
==========================================
June 8th, 2009 at 8:29 pm
kim, old horseflop, you contradict yourself. You drew a conclusion about AGW based on CO2 rising monotonically. (You rise mornontonically.) You didn’t act as if the sum were unknown when you were speaking ex cathedra.
June 8th, 2009 at 9:13 pm
Jeffrey, #30. Oh ye of meager understanding. The General Climate Models expect a monotonic rise of temperature from the monotonic rise of CO2. It ain’t happenin’. That won’t resonate in any cathedral.
=======================================
June 9th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Re Kim
Another day has gone by and Keyes, Berg, Taitz efforts to remove President Obama have yet again not prevailed. Maybe Mr. Kim should pay a visit to Kenya himself and conduct a search for the presidents Kenyan birth certificate.
June 9th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Here’s a link to a thread on the denialism web site with some insights into the psychology of deniers like Mr. Kim.
http://scienceblogs.com/denialism/2009/06/the_psychology_of_crankery.php
Here’s another link to a thread on the deltoid web site which shows how the deniers quote each other rather then peer reviewed literature in their denialism.
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2009/06/always_click_on_the_links.php
June 9th, 2009 at 9:52 am
kim, faith and begorrah, you’ve revealed yourself to be a little liar, now. Out wich ye. Go and never darken my towels again.