Utopians

Bjørn Lomborg has been the most controversial author on this controversy-filled subject by arguing that there are much more effective ways to better the human condition, now and in the future, than mitigation attempts like the Kyoto Protocol. He doubts that climate change will be particularly devastating and advocates reducing disease and poverty all over the developing world rather than spending more billions to mitigate climate change. He estimates that the Kyoto Protocol would cost $180B per year counting lost economic growth while his proposals would cost only $52B per year. Not only would the human benefits be more immediate and certain, the increased wealth would leave everyone better able to adapt to whatever climate change comes.

While his science and economics are are probably incorrect—they have been viciously challenged as misrepresentations and plagiarisms—his policy prescription is rational. If we are willing to spend $180B a year as insurance against an uncertain future, we should be more willing to spend a third as much to alleviate conditions that exist today.

Nordhaus and Schellenberger argue that the Chinese can’t be expected to care about climate change until their basic life needs are met. Environmental problems like Pittsburgh’s were as obvious throughout the 20th century as China’s are today, but we did nothing until we were wealthy enough. The US environmental movement began in the 1960s when enough people felt economically secure enough to consider less immediate needs. Pollution became intolerable not because it was getting worse but because higher priority problems like economic depression and war, got better.

Utopians suggest that world poverty must be reduced to solve the climate change problem. Jeffery Sachs claims investing $200B for 20 years could prove Jesus was wrong when he said “You always have the poor with you.” This might be cheaper than having wars with all the countries that proliferate coal-fired plants.

Economist Andrew Simms argues that the concept of Third World debt would be turned upside down if we properly accounted for the costs of CO2 emissions. Suppose we charged people $5 per ton of CO2 they emitted—the lowest cost for avoiding it, according to Apt. Suppose further that we charged countries retroactively for the CO2 back to 1800. Then the developed world owes the less developed world a lot of money that will come in handy as climate change rocks their less prepared societies.

This approach calls for unprecedented altruism. Since Darwin, scientists have struggled to explain where altruism comes from. Three plausible evolutionary theories:

• · Reciprocal altruists do favors for others and expect repayment. Many species exhibit this behavior. Unfortunately, the people of the future Third World, if there are any, can’t pay us today.
• · Kin altruists aid people with whom they share genes, parents, siblings and descendants. The effect is very pronounced in insect colonies because they share genes much more extensively. This theory would suggest that people expecting a large number of descendants might go green.
• · Group altruists act to make their group’s pie bigger even if their relative slice gets smaller.

If being altruistic were a conscious, rational choice, it will not make you green because the beneficiaries are too remote in time and relationship. However, altruism is a genetically-conferred trait like the enjoyment of sugar and sex. Even if it is not fulfilling its evolutionary role, it may still control your behavior. The big question for humankind is whether the forces that make altruism a trait are strong enough to induce the behavior needed to avert slow-moving disasters.