The recent upsurge of concern over global warming and the financial crisis has reinvigorated advocates of world government, who claim that it is the only way to solve global problems that cross state boundaries. Left to themselves, individual states might "free ride" on the efforts of others, and the issue in question might remain unaddressed. This recent piece by Financial Times columnist Gideon Rachman is one example of the argument. For a more detailed and more academic statement, see here.
This case for world government is superficially appealing, but seriously flawed. Even if world government advocates are right to assume that some global problems are too big for any one nation to solve, it doesn't follow that world government is needed to address them. The problems in question can be addressed equally effectively through cooperation between a few major powers. For example, the United States, the European Union, India, Japan, and China produce the lion's share of the world's greenhouse emissions. An agreement between these major powers could therefore drive emissions way down, even if other states sought to free ride. Similarly, these major powers have the vast majority of the world's banks and other financial institutions, and could therefore cooperate with each other to address the financial crisis (assuming, for the sake of argument, that such international regulation is necessary).
Both economic collective action theory and basic common sense suggest that cooperation between a small number of like-minded actors isn't difficult to achieve and is not likely to be plagued by free-riding. Free-riding would be inhibited by the fact that each of players knows that the whole arrangement is likely to fall apart if they don't do their share (i.e. each is big enough for it's failure to contribute to have a decisive impact). In other words, efforts at free-riding would be prevented by the knowledge that if they are attempted, there will be nothing left to free-ride on. For a fuller statement of these points and cites to relevant literature, see pp. 1241-43 of this article that I coauthored with John McGinnis.
Obviously, cooperation might be prevented not by free-riding but by honest disagreement over the nature of the problem, the kind of action needed to address it, and whether or not the costs of action exceed the benefits. However, such disagreement can also arise even within the confines of a single worldwide government. Unless that government takes the form of a dictatorship or very narrow oligarchy, it too will sometimes be prevented from acting by internal disagreement. And we can't assume that the advocates of stronger action are necessarily right. For example, the the US, China, and India may be correct in their belief that the costs of radically reducing fossil fuel emissions in the near future outweigh the benefits. In cases where action is likely to cause more harm than good, the possibility that disagreement will block it is actually a good thing. In sum, there is no reason to believe that a world government can act to solve global problems more effectively than a consortium of the world's major powers. To the extent that honest disagreement might inhibit the actions of a concert of great powers more than those of a world government, that is as likely to be beneficial as harmful.
The argument sketched out here merely suggests that world government is unnecessary. In later posts, I will explain why its establishment would pose severe dangers of its own.
UPDATE: I think many commenters are conflating free riding (a situation where actors agree on the problem and on the need to act, but try to get others to bear all the costs) with genuine disagreement over the existence of a problem, the action needed to solve it, or the relative costs and benefits of that action. My contention is that the failure to act on global warming is caused by the latter: key players such as China, India, and the US believe that the costs aren't worth the benefits. If so, world government could not solve the problem, because presumably these parts of the world would have enough clout in that government to prevent it from adopting major cuts in fossil fuel initiatives. At least that would be the case if the world government were at all democratic. Between them, these three nations have nearly half the population of the world.
Related Posts (on one page):
- Perils of World Government:
- Why We Don't Need World Government to Solve the World's Problems:
I think the whole point that world government advocates make is that the prospects of the US, EU, India, Japan, and China all coming to an agreement is rather dim. Thus world government. Your example presupposes the nonexistence of the problem.
No one can seriously propose a world government with the UN a constant screw up and a shining example of what a world government would look like.
If the solution to global warming requires us to substantially scale back industrial production, a limited agreement would simply relocate the emissions producing industry. Plants in China would move to Indonesia, plants in India to Pakistan, plants in the US to Mexico, and so on. Especially since both the problem and solution to global warming are commonly considered to be long-term, this transition could easily occur within the decades long time period of implementing emissions controls.
It seems very unlikely that world government could form in the first place without those powers coming to an agreement.
What recent upsurge? The past 12 month have shown a cooling trend and that can change psychology. Of course one year means little, but perceptions count. Do polls show people all over the world are not more concerned about GW than they were in the past? Or is this concern mostly manifest in those who stand to profit off the proposed mitigations?
You reason from some extremely broad and abstract premises to the conclusion that a single government is unnecessary, since a consortium of states can act equally effectively where needed.
Your logic implies that the US constitution was unnecessary back in 1787 -- that the old Confederation, a consortium of states, could act equally effectively. (Which would come as a shock to the Founding Fathers.)
Do you really mean to endorse that position? If so, please explain. If not, please explain why your logic doesn't apply to the United States in the 1780s?
For example, the United States, the European Union, India, Japan, and China produce the lion's share of the world's greenhouse emissions. An agreement between these major powers could therefore drive emissions way down, even if other states sought to free ride.
Well, duh. That's kind of the entire issue. Lowering production of the biggest greenhouse emissions producers lowers overall emissions? You don't say! And you presume the cooperation that has been what everyone's been arguing over for decades. We're in this mess because they <i>won't</i> cooperate. It's a tautology and begs the question.
Similar arguments: "If I could master alchemy, I could easily turn lead into gold."
"If I could find a way to transcend gravity, I could easily fly"
More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims
“Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.” - Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.
Only 17% of atmospheric CO2 is man-made and it has never been shown to be linked to global warming or climate change expect by the politically driven and biased computer models of the IPCC. Computer models are not reality, Nature is reality.
This is not to deny that global warming and climate change are not occuring. These cycles are continuous. Man is not causing the changes, Nature is the cause.
Carbon is the basis for all life on the planet Earth. Caron dioxide is a necessary constituent in the cycle of life and is not a pollutant which makes the SCOTUS decision in Massachusetts v. EPA a repudiation of Nature for political expediency.
Dr. Rajendra K. Pachauri is the chairman of the UN/IPCC and is from India. Dr. Pachauri is a vegetarian and recommends a low, or no, meat diet, because bovines emit vast quantities of methane (CH4) and this CH4 is responsible for global warming. Again there is no proof, just his word. I asked this question on his blog: What about the 400,000,000 sacred bovines in India? The question was not answered nor posted on his blog. It seems that nefarious skeptics should keep silent.
With the incoming administration, We the People have the prospect of paying a heavy tax on carbon, based on a lie.
You know, propagandize a principle, say international conspiracy of jews or that "employers" "exploit" the "surplus labor" of the "employees," and a "solution" presents itself pronto. Sure, whether to expel, reform or exterminate jews, capitalists or carbon exhalers (that's you, buddy), gets debated, but the end result is always the same. The combined death toll to our friends Adolph, Joseph and Mao is a 100 million body tower of testimony to the power of lies. The next 100 million are soon due soon because the lie is now the "truth" and what comes next is as certain as Gore's place in hell.
You get out of that problem by creating binding treaties with strong international organizations that can coerce cooperation. In other words, by taking a step towards world government. The same thing is happening in the international financial sphere. It's the future. The nation-state is the past, and our present is a period of transition.
The opinion of the various peoples of the world would be adamantly opposed as well. Nationalism is alive and well throughout the world: people don't like foreigners, and they especially don't like the idea of giving foreigners control over their country.
No matter how infeasible it is to negotiate a greenhouse-gas emissions treaty and then get it through the world's various Parliaments, it would be a thousand times more infeasible to create a world government. It would be easier to conquer the whole world than to create a world government through peaceful negotiations.
Thus a lot of countries might be pro global warming, even if avoiding it became costless for them.
More than that, the clean technology that they develop can be imported (in theory) into developing countries. Many developing countries, for example, are skipping straight to cell phone use, without having first had land lines: the technology is readily available from developed countries and easily implemented into other areas.
So you believe that the world suffers from problems like lack of ability to tax separate countries in order to pay for a centralised world government, lack of a uniform currency, and, most of all, threats from invading space aliens?
But what about one moon government? :-)
So long as certain countries have a special status as nuclear powers it will be a matter of pride to other countries to be among those nations. Moreover, there will always be an incentive to manage your own deterrence rather than having an ally who might have other interests do it for you.
However, every additional country that has nuclear weapons increases the risk they will fall into the wrong hands or simply be used foolishly. Global disarmament won't work since that will just increase the incentive for a country to develop nukes. Someone needs to be able to respond to nuclear force with immediate reprisal.
So it doesn't have to be a full on government per see but it seems to me the only long term fix to this problem is to empower a global agency with nuclear deterrent capabilities. But I'd be interested in hearing other suggestions for a long term solution.
The single biggest issue which led to the Constitution was the discriminatory commercial regulations states were passing. That's why there was unanimous agreement that Congress had to control interstate and foreign commerce.
IOW, a very similar problem to that posed by global warming. Which is not to say that world government is at all practical or even an overall good thing. But the treaties suggested in the post aren't likely to be either.
There are ~50,000 members of the AGU (american geophysical union), ~4,000 members of ASLO (american society of limnology and oceanography), and ~11,000 members of the AMS (american metereological society). And Inhofe only found 650 who disagree with with the idea that anthropogenic climate change is happening??
The copy of the list I saw had less than 650 names, more like 600. Among those names are economists (e.g. John Lott, Jr), and people who asked him to be removed from the earlier list (e.g. George Waldenberger).
I'm not a lawyer, but let me try to put it this way: If I released a list of 600 lawyers (some of whom were actually paralegals, and some of whom had majored in political science or legal studies) who held that the federal income tax system is illegal, how relevant would that be in comparison to the membership of the federalist society?
Ed is also correct that just the man-made CO2 cannot be linked to global warming. But total CO2 concentrations are linked to warming. And not just by computer models.
Yes, manmade CO2 is only a small proportion of the total CO2, but the important thing to remember is that there is a carbon cycle. Plants draw down CO2 and animals respire and create CO2. But increased CO2 past a certain point cannot be drawn down and begins to accumulate. And this isn't just a case of warmer temperatures. It will also lead to ocean acidification, which may cause other problems.
Climate does change based on natural cycles. But these changes have not historically occurred on the time scales and at the rates which we are currently seeing.
I'm not sure what Dr. Pachauri's diet and religion have to do with his credibility. Methane is definitely a greenhouse gas.
The answer to these challenges may not be massive government intervention. But pretending that that vast majority of climate scientists don't agree with anthropogenic climate change, or worse, that the data don't show long terms worrying trends just isn't intellectually honest.
She agreed, saying that, unless someone managed to articulate arguments against it--perhaps as a series of blog posts--world government was inevitable.
We will both sleep easier now.
Scientists have shared a faith on all sorts of things. Phlogiston, Newtonian physics, "humors," and even the innate superiority of Noridic races.
The faith some have in science and computer models is touching. I thought that scepticism was the hallmark of scientific inquiry. Especially when the high priest of global warming puts out faulty data. Here's an interesting report on Dr. Hansen's church, the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.
I would think that a real scientist would have a control. Rather like a placebo. And then ask why some other planets in the solar system that are not suffering the effects of industrialization are experiencing climate change.
Personally I'd like to see circles of cooperation between countries, with the inner circle being the English-speaking democracies, then the other industrial democracies, then everybody else.
We can't even get the leaders of North Korea, a state in which the population is poor, oppressed and starving, to cede power to South Korea, a state that is ethnically and historically nearly identical and considerably better off.
Um...no, they're not? The whole point of government is that the majority can force their views on the minority. Alabama can't decide to let its companies ignore EPA rules and regulations just because it doesn't like them. Ilya's entire point is that you don't need world government. As long as a half dozen major actors agree, there's no need to get everyone else on board through some kind of supra-national organization. If the half dozen major actors agree and are willing to sign a treaty, what's the point of the government?
So that the non-major actors can try to coerce the major actors under some veil of legitimacy.
There are ~50,000 members of the AGU (american geophysical union), ~4,000 members of ASLO (american society of limnology and oceanography), and ~11,000 members of the AMS (american metereological society). And Inhofe only found 650 who disagree with with the idea that anthropogenic climate change is happening??
You seem to be implying that 50,000 members of the AGU, 4,000 members of ASLO and 11,000 members of the AMS are all believers in anthopogenic global warming. That is like saying The population of the United States is 300,000,000. You have no information saying that all these organizational members are AGW advocates.
The following petition was signed by over 31,000 American scientists. Please note the word scientists.
Global Warming Petition
We urge the United States government to reject the global warming agreement that was written in Kyoto, Japan in December, 1997, and any other similar proposals. The proposed limits on greenhouse gases would harm the environment, hinder the advance of science and technology, and damage the health and welfare of mankind.
There is no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide, methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of the Earth.
The petition was signed by more than 31,000 American scientists - please note the word scientist - and was orginated by Arthur B. Robinson, BS Caltech, PhD UCSD and Noah E. Robinson, BS SOU, PhD Caltech with a cover letter from Frederick Seitz past president of the National Academy of Sciences, the preamble of which follows: Research Review of Global Warming Evidence
Enclosed is a twelve-page review of information on the subject of "global warming," a petition in the form of a reply card, and a return envelope. Please consider these materials carefully.
The United States is very close to adopting an international agreement that would ration the use of energy and of technologies that depend upon coal, oil, and natural gas and some other organic compounds.
This treaty is, in our opinion, based upon flawed ideas. Research data on climate change do not show that human use of hydrocarbons is harmful. To the contrary, there is good evidence that increased atmospheric carbon dioxide is environmentally helpful.
The proposed agreement would have very negative effects upon the technology of nations throughout the world, especially those that are currently attempting to lift from poverty and provide opportunities to the over 4 billion people in technologically underdeveloped countries.
It is especially important for America to hear from its citizens who have the training necessary to evaluate the relevant data and offer sound advice.
We urge you to sign and return the petition card. If you would like more cards for use by your colleagues, these will be sent.
Frederick Seitz
Past President, National Academy of Sciences, U.S.A.
President Emeritus, Rockefeller University
Man-made CO2 has not been linked to global warming.
Dr. Pachauri is chairman of the IPCC and maintains that bovine methane (CH4) is causing global warming.
There is no denial that CO2 and CH4 are not green-house gases, they are just not the cause of global warming/climate change. Water vapor provides 95% of the green-house effect.
There has been no global warming beginning in 1998 and there was a cooling in 2007 and again this year, 2008.
The pretense is all on your part, and from your writing, you are not qualified to speak of intellectual honesy.
Be careful or else the attack dogs at realclimate will pounce on you because that statement is somewhat misleading. Water vapor is part of the feedback that amplifies the other greenhouse gases that are rightly classified as the "drivers." Water vapor is not a driver. But the other feedbacks, such as cloud cover could mitigate the warming. The IPCC models are weak here. I have yet to get a response on this issue from anyone that goes beyond asserting that a consensus of scientists are all right it. Then the usual insults follow that.
Cloud matter. You know this from direct personal experience. For example, deserts are extremely hot during the day and cold at night. Deserts usually have little to no cloud cover.
Anthony Watts and Steve McIntyre found that temperature measurements were faulty due to the monitoring set-up - near or on asphalt or concrete parking structures, under air conditioning vents and other similar placements due to the ingenuity of the installers. Anthony has posted 79 of these questionable temperature monitoring stations on his web site.
Some of the better installations are at airports, but a majority seem to be in Urban Heat Islands (UHI) downtown where the temperature varies greatly from the rural areas.
Hansen's group,GISS,is being closely watched and recently they submitted September data as October data, which was quickly noted by their monitors: 2008-11-12: It seems that one of the sources sent September data rather than October data. Corrected GHCN files were created by NOAA. Due to network maintenance, we were only able to download our basic file late today. We redid the analysis - thanks to the many people who noticed and informed us of that problem.
Deserts are hot during the day and cold at night. Why is that? Are there no green-house gases in the desert? Yes, there are green-house gases in the desert, but the humidity is low and without water vapor the daytime heat is not retained.
A meteorologist explained it to me.
Real Climate is sorta hostile to AGW skeptics.
The desert lacks cloud cover. During the day you get exposed to the direct light from the sun. At night there is no cloud cover to re-radiate the long wavelengths back towards earth so the surface rapidly cools.
This curve of absorbtion versus wavelength for water tells the story. In the visible region the absorbtion is low, but at IR wavelengths the absorption is high. So at night a cloud cover acts as a kind of blanket to keep you warm.
The vast majority of climate scientists are specialists in areas other than AGW, although the huge amount of funding on the issue is driving many more to put "climate change" in their grant proposals.
Of course, the real question is not what the vast majority of a group of people think, but whether the AGW hypothesis is sufficiently valid to justify the dramatic economic damage needed to change the supposed trend. The next question, addressed well here, is whether it is even possible for us to make a difference, should it be advisable.
There has been a notable trend the last few years of retired or near retirement age climate scientists denouncing the AGW hysteria. Many climatologists, including "the father of modern climatology" have come out in this manner.
One should ask: why only the old guys? The answer is, of course, the danger to a climatologist's career of being a skeptic. I personally know climatologists who are afraid to even discuss the subject because of this threat. But the old guys are safe, so they are speaking out. And we are not talking fringe bozos - note that the petition was signed by a past president of the American Academies, the most prestigious scientific body in the country.
Then another question is: why do we choose this long term, hypothetical threat over all the other problems of the world? Why are people urging changes that will cause enough economic damage to result in many deaths in the fourth world (yes, trickle down economic damage is real)?
Also ask why so many want to reduce CO2 emissions, while most vehemently object to any research into how to adapt to the potential warming, research into its possible benefits, or research in countering the CO2 with other terraforming projects?
There's a lot of money at stake for those in this game. So far, 50 billion dollars has been spent. And there's more money outside the government sector. I know a prominent climate skeptic who, a few years ago, went to Enron offering to argue their case against forced CO2 emission reductions. But, they weren't interested because of all the loot they expected to make trading carbon offsets.
Anyone who thinks AGW is a settled issue should take a look at how the hypothesis is derived (hint, it requires a very large amount of positive feedback beyond the simple greenhouse effect); they should understand a bit about mathematical chaos; they should understand what "parameterization" means in global circulation models; they should consider that some of the climate sensitivity models used are the exact same ones that are unable to make weather forecasts reliably more than a few days in advance; they should look at cui bono; they should look at the sociology of this; and, they should pick up a good book on pathological science.
Then they should ask themselves how much we should spend now on the bet that the temperature will rise a little bit in 100 years.
Well, the (electric) trains would run on time. ;^)
"Minor actors coercing major actors under veil of legitimacy" (thanks, Jerrod - well said)
I'd add to that:
Major actors coercing minor actors because of their disproportionate levels of military or economic power
One major actor stymieng (sp?) the other major actors because of its specific interests
One or more major actors protecting rogue minor actors because of specific interests
Major actors paralyzed on crucial issues because of competing interests
Sound familiar?? I think we already have this experiment down pat - its called the UN.
Keep in mind, by the way, that one does not need global government (which implies a loss of autonomy and choice) to have global governance - which implies only a level of shared cooperation as state interests coincide (which is what Ilya was saying in other words...)
This entire chain of argument bugs me.
The argument against consensus science is at it's very core an argument that resulted out of people denying the work of real scientists by claiming "here's one guy that doesn't agree" the counter argument was that "everyone else agrees" and then it's devolved into "here's 500 guys that don't agree." No one talks about to what. I say it's Al Gores fault. He made a damn propoganda video and now everyone thinks they have to argue against it because they're invested in proving him wrong.
There's at least two principles at work here, both have been solidly demonstrated to pretty solid burden of proof.
A. An increase in the atmospheric percentage of certain gasses will cause an atmospheric temperature increase over some period of time.
B. Human activity is actually capable of producing a measurable increase in the atmospheric concentration of those gases.
Scientists naturally disagree over things, if they didn't we'd have no reason for peer review. With regard to the above there's vast disagreement over percentages and times and degrees and concentrations etc etc etc.
I think this is misplaced.
The UN is exactly what we created it to be. When it was created none of the world powers were willing to bind themselves to any decision unless they all agreed on it. (perhaps Rightfully so)
In accordance with that idea and a general very strong respect for national sovereignty. We created an organization that has very little power apart from any agreement among it's member nations.
The general assembly is majority rule by state and is little more than a debate society. Is it any suprise that a majority of small countries produce decisions that big countries dont' like? THis problem pre-dates the UN in any sort of legislative bodies. Our own government is built around the arguments that balanced power between large populous states and small less populated ones.
Then the only body that can take real action relies on a consensus that rarely exists among its members and when it does exist, its always weak. For most of its history the security council was more or less non-functional because the soviet bloc would veto any western solution rihgt off the bat.
I have no problem with the fundamental premise that the UN hasn't worked *that* well. Although I'd disagree to some respects. It's been an enormous success encouraging some treaties and in distributing aid. But the inability of the UN to handle serious global problems is merely a result of the way it was designed from the beginning.
Just sayin
.
Which bears out the point - 'serious global issues' are best handled by a consortium of states that share an interest in tackling that particular problem. Its the free market at work, but with interests instead of currency. As to free riders, see Ilya's point.
Governance = cooperation based on shared interests for as long as is desired
Government = giving up autonomy to a 'higher power'
I'm personally saying this (and the previous point) as someone who at one time believed strongly in global government - but who now thinks that global cooperation/governance(regional, local, whatever) is a much better solution.
By the way, a treaty is an example of governance (not government), as the act of becoming a signatory is optional, and one can remove oneself at will. Unless one is cowed/coerced into signing..
That is a longstanding proposal, first made by Clarence Streit, usually called "Atlantic Union". See his books, Union Now (1939), and Freedom's Frontier — Atlantic Union Now (1961, 1949). Also see Association to Unite the Democracies.
My own longstanding positiion is that most nations today would be a liability in a world government, and that the only feasible path is for nations to join the United States of America as additional states.
However, too many people suffer from the Cnute Complex, the tendency to attribute godlike powers to the strongest guy around. The fact is that no government, no matter how totalitarian, can enforce a sufficient reduction in greenhouse emissions. Such a thing is beyond the competence of any government, and the impacts would never be accepted by the people, even in a totalitarian society.
The only thing that can reduce anthropogenic emissions is elternative technologies that meet the same needs at a lower cost and for a feasible capital investment, without producing emissions. I have proposed solar power satellites as one such alternative. But even that would not solve the problem unless we also prevented people from tilling the soil (which causes emissions from the oxidation of exposed topsoil).
The only real alternatives, in the long term, are (1) to reduce humanity to a small population (less than 10 million) living at a stone-age level; or (2) moving humanity into urban biopsheres that are totally self-sufficient in materials and use only a little energy. See Three Futures for Earth.
' "here's one guy that doesn't agree" the counter argument was that "everyone else agrees" and then it's devolved into "here's 500 guys that don't agree." No one talks about to what.'
No. That's not the argument. The argument is over theory, methods, data and inference. It's not a policy question or even a judgment question. The AGW advocates have not proven their case for a number of reasons. The following list is far from complete, but shows the problems with IPCC conclusions.
1. The GCMs have too many tunable parameters, and don't have enough or the right physics. The fits to data are not valid because of over parameterization.
2. The GCMs work by using resolution cells that are something like 250 km on a side. Thus they don't have the resolution to do the cloud physics, which occurs on a much smaller scale.
3. The models don't include the correlation between cosmic ray flux and cloud cover.
4. The CO2 concentration time series lags the temperature times series as shown by ice core measurements.
5. As shown by the Wegman report and other work, random noise will produce the Michal Mann's "hockey stik" plot.
6. The case against a chaotic climate system is weak. The field of chaos started with the weather simulation of Lorentz.
7. The temperature data is questionable.
The IPCC and other advocates have behaved in a highly unprofessional manner. Michael Mann initially refused to provide his data and analysis software to reviewers. James Hansen has branded critics as criminals who should be jailed. IPCC head Rajendra Pachauri likened Bjorn Lomborg to Hitler because he said the remediation money could be spent in better ways. I personally know an AGW critic who worked for DOE whose boss tried to muzzle him. It was all about money, this guy was a threat to the budget. The attack dogs over at realclimate.org frequently use strawman arguments or out-and-out misrepresentation against critics. Their smears against Prof. Nir J. Shaviv of The Hebrew University of Jerusalem are disgraceful.
1) dump extra heat into the Earth (since they capture energy that would miss the Earth), and can contribute to global warming that way.
2) won't be trusted by anyone who doesn't own them because they could be converted into weapons or used to hide a weapons program. And let's face it, they probably will unless the country sending them up already has a better weapons program.
3) won't be trusted by anyone who doesn't own them *and* the launch facilities needed to maintain them because getting your power from one means your essential utilities are now dependent on the political whims of another country. It's like how Saudi Arabia gets to push us around, only worse. Far better to have a plant that's actually on your own soil.
4) need infrastructure on the ground to receive the energy, which takes up a lot of space and has ecological consequences, and generally will be subject to NIMBYism.
I thought they were an interesting idea when I was a kid reading sci-fi magazines, but I know better as an adult.
A few people have hit on the idea of federalism, while others have missed it entirely. Suggesting that the major powers could just solve the problems themselves a la an alliance, consortium or agreement was specifically dismissed in Federalist Paper #15.
Two paragraphs later, Hamilton pointed out a more trustworthy source of cooperation in problem solving that relying on the whims of governments.
It seems most of us have forgotten or neglect this suggestion when discussing the plausibility of world government - circumventing the machinations of politicians and ambassadors and holding the workings of the global councils directly accountable to the combined global citizenry. Difficult, perhaps, but not more so than it was in 1787, prior to blogs, twitter and the Internet.
What's the problem with US owned solar power satellite stations generating energy for use by the US?
Of all the alternative energy schemes I've seen, this is the only one that looks like it might be practical someday. That "someday" is perhaps 50 years away. In the meantime, we can use Tar Sands and synthetic liquid fuel from coal to gain independence from foreign suppliers.
Solar powered satellites:
The increment is insignificant, and offset by the reversal of burning fossil carbon.
Doesn't have to be trusted. Some nations will put them up and others will purchase the energy or they won't. They can join in funding a multinational corporation to put them up, maintain them, and distribute the energy. Or they can fail to do so and let the first nation that does rule the world.
There is nothing to prevent any nation from putting up space-based directed energy weapons systems in any case, so it is largely irrelevant to whether they put up energy collectors.
Groundspace is not a scarce resource, nor is that much needed. That will be up to the purchasers of the energy. If a nation doesn't want to buy the energy it doesn't have to, but it will face other consequences.
Or less than 10 years if we get moving.
That would be a more convincing argument if nation-states really saw themselves that way. It's closer to the truth to say nation-states are mechanisms for manifesting national cultures in their laws and system of governance. Just because something works like a charm in countries A, B and C doesn't mean country X is going to rush to emulate it, particularly if it flies in the face of the prevailing culture of country X, or is otherwise unacceptable to the majority of country X's people. (See also: Same-sex marriage in Europe, and same-sex marriage in the United States.)
That's the real stumbling-block to one-world government: Unlike the government of a nation-state, a one-world government isn't an expression of any one culture, it's a purely utilitarian mechanism that would have to limit itself to ridiculously vague, symbolic and lowest-common-denominator measures on any given subject just to avoid flying apart at the seams.
If I agree with my neigbor to build and maintain a fence, have I created a "form of government"?
I'd say that it doesn't because said agreement doesn't provide a framework or enforcement mechanism for anything else.
How do you plan to coerce China or even India?
How would you coerce a reluctant US? Heck - how would you coerce a reluctant Germany? (Would the US provide force to coerce Germany? Russia might, but would that "cure" be acceptable?)
"So at night a cloud cover acts as a kind of blanket to keep you warm."
Clouds=Water Vapor=humidity
The argument about consensus science is strictly a counter-argument to use of the equally faulty "consensus science" to shut down debate about AGW and declare AGW the winner.
One factor helpful in (over time) removing badly failed governments is the ability of their population to flee.
Another is the availability of information from "outside" to counter internal propaganda.
The USSR spent enormous effort to combat both of these.
In the nuclear age, it's probable that there's an absolute limit to the amount of force one nuclear or potentially nuclear state can use on another. If WWII had happened 15 years later and both Germany and the USSR had been nuclear states, would Hitler have pushed the button before eating a bullet in a Berlin bunker? I don't know, but I'm glad we didn't find out.
"Water vapor provides 95% of the green-house effect."
"Cloud matter. You know this from direct personal experience. For example, deserts are extremely hot during the day and cold at night. Deserts usually have little to no cloud cover."
The first statement was taken from a posting entitled Global Warming: A Closer Look At The Numbers.
"Water vapor constitutes Earth's most significant greenhouse gas, accounting for about 95% of Earth's greenhouse effect (4). Interestingly, many "facts and figures' regarding global warming completely ignore the powerful effects of water vapor in the greenhouse system, carelessly (perhaps, deliberately) overstating human impacts as much as 20-fold."
This posting also has a Department of Energy table showing that the CO2 increase in atmospheric concentration was in a ratio of 5.76 to 1, natural to man-made. The chart is dated October, 2000. The data from DOE since that time does not differentiate the relative CO2 contributions. The monitoring station on Mauna Loa, The Big Island of Hawaii, gives the atmospheric concentration of CO2 as 385 ppm, with a yearly increase of 2.18 ppm. The assumption is that the increase in CO2 is anthropogenic. That assumption is false.
About the second statement: I spent a considerable amount of time in the desert while working at White Sands Missile Range.
Except the arguments about consensus science didn't exist until those arguing against AGW made "scientific oppression" their main line of attack. "It's not that challengers to prevailing theories can't support their own, it's that the evil establishment is attempting to crush proper debate."
An increase in atmospheric CO2 concentration causes a little warming. That small amount of warming causes an increase in water vapor, which in turn causes much more warming. Thus the water vapor acts as an amplifier. But an increase in water vapor causes an increase in cloud cover. If the additional clouds are like pancakes then the earth will get a increase in albedo, which causes cooling, along with a small increase in IR absorbtion. On the other hand, if the additional clouds are more like silos than pancakes then the albedo increase is small and the additional absorbtion is large, resulting in more warming. Thus clouds can act as either a positive or negative feedback. We don't know which will happen because we can't model the cloud physics accurately using GCMs. The cloud physics gives a lot of wiggle room to inject policy into the calculation and disguise that fact.
My whole point is that the clouds are a big deal in this business.
"Except the arguments about consensus science didn't exist until those arguing against AGW made "scientific oppression" their main line of attack."
Sorry, but I see quite the reverse. The response to scientific criticisms are met with an appeal to consensus. Bring up a defect in the GCMs and you get a response that relies on some kind of consensus.
If you think otherwise, then let's talk about the cloud physics. Tell me why their approach is valid. I have given at least one reason it isn't.
Consortium (aka alliance)
Government (as in global)
Federalism (as in global)
More?
Often additional clarity is reached just in the process of a clear definition of terms... (stated simply and concisely, of course).
This is true even if definitions differ.
Do you really mean to endorse that position? If so, please explain. If not, please explain why your logic doesn't apply to the United States in the 1780s?
It implies no such thing. First, 13 states is considerably more than 5-6, making cooperation far more difficult. Second, the 13 states faced serious external threats (Britain, France, etc.). The 5-6 major powers of the world don't face any external threats of comparable magnitude, except perhaps for each other. Third, the whole world today is far more diverse and has many more conflicts of interest than did the 13 states back in 1787 - implying that a common authority would have far more severe costs.
Scientific criticisms are entirely different from the criticisms that are usually voiced.
If a survey can find almost 1000 journal articles discussing the topic of climate change from the last decade, scientific debate is completely alive. I'm sure at least one or two of those discuss cloud physics and various attempts to compensate for it in mathematical models. A quick google search found this one, this one, and this one.
Most people aren't reading journal articles on cloud physics and neither am I. But there's clearly some substantive scientific argument going on. Aside from your arguments on cloud physics, there's hardly been a single substantive scientific argument in this thread. The vast majority of people attacking global warming either do so summarily, or do so by repeating overused and thoroughly debunked arguments.
Even national governments have competition, except for those that restricted the emigration of their citizens - and we all know how every single one of them turned out.
It's not good negotiating strategy to accept as soon as your opponent offers a deal whose benefits to you exceed the costs to you. It's usually advantageous to hold out for an even better deal. Hence our game of international chicken.
In addition, for the negotiations to accomplish anything, the parties need to reach a deal that can be pushed through the U.S. Senate by a 2/3 vote. Heads of government in other countries don't suffer from this problem: if the Government of the UK or India negotiates something, it's usually not hard to push it through the Parliament because the heads of government of those nations run the Parliament. Likewise with whichever faction is in power in China. But the American Administration can make no such promise: the Senators have no accountability to the Administration, huge portions of American industry are opposed to any meaningful action on climate change, a bunch of Senators are sincere believers in pseudoscience, and the enormous Senate supermajority required means that a treaty can be blocked by Senators representing as little as 9% of the population of the U.S. [1]
Thus any meaningful action would require a treaty so favorable to the rich world (or at least the U.S.) that China and India would never sign on.
[1] 25% if one only counts solidly red states, and only then because a bunch of states that would have been considered solidly red four years ago have turned bluish-purple. Today, to get 17 "solidly red" states, you have to count all the way to Texas.
They did later on, but not in 1787.
And that a common authority is more necessary to solve those conflicts.
Given China's current government, I think it's hard to say what the Chinese people "really" would want if they had access to full and accurate information.
The interests of the 13 states did diverge in some ways, most notably the divisions between small states and big states and between slave states and free states. The various nations of the world have a lot more dividing them.
The theory as put forth by Maurice Strong, Algore and the UN is that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are causing global warming/climate change. Their has been no data or proof whatsoever that links CO2 to global warming/climate change other than computer models based on bias and a political agenda. Anecdotal propaganda about Polar Bears, penguins, etc. is not scientific proof of anything. The argument is not about global warming/climate change. That has always been happening and always will. The purpose of Algore and his sycophants is to penalize the people of the world through taxes on carbon - the basis for all life on Earth- and CO2 - essential to the life cycle of all living organisms on Earth. And they are doing this with absolutely nothing more than anecdotal gibberish.
Summarily you say? How about "consensus" science and "settled" science? That summarizes the total Algore argument. Oops! My error. There is no argument. It is "settled." Demanding proof is one of those repetitious overused and thoroughly debunked arguments.
Anthropogenic CO2, which is 17% of the CO2 atmospheric concentration of 385 ppm, is not causing global warming/climate change.
To paraphrase X-Files, "The proof that it does, is not out there."
The concept of the world government also belongs in the past. The technological trends point to further fragmentation of Nation-States into thousands of microstates not intregration into a single world government. Look up "super-empowered individual" and "fifth generation warfare". "GlobalGuerillas" is a good place to start. Can't coerce someone to your set of world laws if they can destroy your army and police with one push of a button.
Besides, who's going to be in charge? The Caliphate? The OIC already effectively controls the United Nations.
I concentrate only on the original theory as put forth by Algore and IPCC: Anthropogenic CO2 causes global warming/climate change. Anthropogenic CO2, 17% of the atmospheric concentration of CO2 of 385 ppm, is insignificant to any global warming effect of the green-house gases and most certainly to any effect on climate change. Taxing carbon will not only be costly, but will restrict our freedoms by giving governments more control over our every day lives.
The Algore group has successfully diverted attention from anthropogenic CO2 to global warming/climate change. Tell me when the Earth's temperature and climate have not been changing naturally.
The propaganda technique used by the Algore camp in this case is called diversion.
Google Watts Up With That and join in on the discussions.
The uncivil commenters have been kidnapped and taken out of the country by guys in black helicopters.
I think a single world government is a bad, bad idea for any number of reasons. But suppose there was such a government with a federal structure. You have a House of Representatives with seats proportional to population and a Senate with 2 seats per country, and a President elected in some way more or less approximating a popular vote. What would such a government do about global warming, or poverty, or pollution or any other global problem? Would they do anything? Presumably we wouldn't have outright wars, just some local guerilla insurgencies, but it's not obvious to me that this world government would have any inclination to do anything about any of the other problems that supposedly require a single world government to address.
You put the cart before the horse. When challenges arose, then the "2500 scientists back AGW" or "it is the consensus among scientists" first came out.
In the world of science, the challengers need not create an alternative theory to refute an existing theory.
AGW is extremely weak. The scary forecasts are based on assumed dramatic positive feedback - the sort of feedback that, if it existed, would have already sent the climate to the rails. Without that feedback, doubling CO2 raises temperature maybe 1 degree C (by basic physics), and that's if there's no negative feedback - a dubious assumption.
The forecasts are tested on Global Circulation Models that cannot be calibrated for a high CO2 environment, and that that can accurately predict almost ANY past record you want, because they are extremely sensitive to their parameterization. They cannot even model convection, the primary heat engine of the atmosphere. Instead, it is simply predicted by parameters. Some of these models are also used for forecasting weather, and they are not very good (I use several) - they are often dramatically wrong only 12 hours after initialization, although they are usually good for a whole 3 to 5 days.
The models predict (well, their user's predict) more than just warming. There is a specific signature to be expected. That signature has yet to be detected.
The models cannot handle cloud particle size, which is a very critical parameter, as sign of the effects of cloudiness is dependent on the droplet size - clouds can reflect or absorb heat from the sun.
The "calibration" of the models, and theories about the climate system's response to global warming are based on very noisy paleoclimatic data. Even recent data is poorly calibrated and, except for satellite data, has poor spatial density.
The sociology of AGW science is tightly wrapped up with pathological phenomena - hypercharged political and media pressure, politically motivated grant offerings and (very significantly) selective acceptance of papers for publication. The "hockey stick" controversy highlights this - with major AGW proponents refusing to release source code or raw data until strongly pressured. The periodic adjustments for measurement error for the ground record by GISS always make the warming appear worse - a result strongly at odds with the statistical expectations for measurement error.
The media attitude is so bad that few know that the earth has not warmed at all in the last 10 years, in direct contradiction to the models and the IPCC report. Instead, everyone is running around like we are at the tipping point of global disaster. The AGW proponents say "It's just normal variation, the PDO, the warming will resume pretty soon. Trust us.
Few know that it was as warm in the Midieval times as it is now, nor that there was a "little ice age" a few hundred years ago from which we have been recovering.
The recent melting of the northern arctic ice is constantly hyped as "proof" of AGW, when it has been melting during a time of cooling! Explain that!
Of course the thread isn't delving into the intricacies of cloud physics. But you just made an important point: there is substantive scientific argument going on - about cloud physics and much of the rest. So much for consensus! Unfortunately, because of the sociology and politics of the issue, there isn't enough argument going on. Too many people are afraid to proffer skeptical hypotheses. As I mentioned earlier, it is no accident that it is very senior scientists, with nothing to lose, who keep popping up and attacking AGW.
If someone wants to go into the science I recommend starting with the book A Climate Modelling Primer. This book provides a good introduction to subject. See pages 35-37 on climate feedbacks and sensitivity. Note the discussion on page 37 on the difficulty of even determining the sign of the feedback.
I'm looking forward to getting version 7 of Mathematica because it provides direct and automatic access to the series data from over 17,000 weather stations. Now with a minimum amount of time and effort, one can look at whats' happening with temperature.
Good discussion on feedback, and the sensitivity factor can be found at sciencebits.com. Unfortunately the link is down at the moment.
“Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.” – . Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.
“The Kyoto theorists have put the cart before the horse. It is global warming that triggers higher levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, not the other way round…A large number of critical documents submitted at the 1995 U.N. conference in Madrid vanished without a trace. As a result, the discussion was one-sided and heavily biased, and the U.N. declared global warming to be a scientific fact,” Andrei Kapitsa, a Russian geographer and Antarctic ice core researcher.
“Nature's regulatory instrument is water vapor: more carbon dioxide leads to less moisture in the air, keeping the overall GHG content in accord with the necessary balance conditions.” – Prominent Hungarian Physicist and environmental researcher Dr. Miklós Zágoni reversed his view of man-made warming and is now a skeptic. Zágoni was once Hungary’s most outspoken supporter of the Kyoto Protocol.
“The quantity of CO2 we produce is insignificant in terms of the natural circulation between air, water and soil... I am doing a detailed assessment of the UN IPCC reports and the Summaries for Policy Makers, identifying the way in which the Summaries have distorted the science.” - South Afican Nuclear Physicist and Chemical Engineer Dr. Philip Lloyd, a UN IPCC co-coordinating lead author who has authored over 150 refereed publications.
“Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense…The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning.” - Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.
“CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another….Every scientist knows this, but it doesn’t pay to say so…Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver’s seat and developing nations walking barefoot.” - Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.
“But there is no falsifiable scientific basis whatever to assert this warming is caused by human-produced greenhouse gasses because current physical theory is too grossly inadequate to establish any cause at all.” - Chemist Dr. Patrick Frank, who has authored more than 50 peer-reviewed articles.
“Earth has cooled since 1998 in defiance of the predictions by the UN-IPCC….The global temperature for 2007 was the coldest in a decade and the coldest of the millennium…which is why ‘global warming’ is now called ‘climate change.’” - Climatologist Dr. Richard Keen of the Department of Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences at the University of Colorado.
Do we really want to risk damaging our economy with so much uncertainty?
Good argument, wrong question at the end. Regardless of which side is right, if humanity does the wrong thing here, there will be damage to the economy.
"Regardless of which side is right, if humanity does the wrong thing here, there will be damage to the economy."
Let's say that AGW is real, and the climate sensitivity factor is in the middle of the uncertainty range, around 3 deg C. Most of the damage to the economy will something like 50 years. What's the present value of that future economic damage? I would rather suffer damage in the future than right now, which is the middle of the worst economy since the Great Depression.
Clarence Streit, in his books cited previously, provides a comprehensive analysis of why alliances inevitably fail and federal unions can sometimes succeed (but only for problems that fall within the competence of government, which leaves out the problem of Climate Change/Global Warming).
The question of to what extent GW is anthropogenic is largely besides the point. If there is a GW threat then it doesn't really matter how much we might be causing it, because the remedy, if any, is much the same in any case. If it is anthropogenic that might provide some clues on what the best remedies might be, but likely not.
The main potential threat seems to be a clathrate extinction. Humanity can handle rising sea levels and redistribution of habitats and agricultural zones. But a runaway clathrate eruption really could probably wipe most of us out, and do so too suddenly to give us time to respond. We need to drill down on risks like that if we are to make rational choices, and, as I have argued above, the only really rational choice is to develop cheap technologies that do not convert fossil fuels into greenhouse gases and drive such risky practices out of the marketplace. People are always going to adopt the least expensive, most profitable (in the short term), methods, regardless of long term consequences. The only way to avoid long term disasters from this is to provide better short term solutions for people to adopt instead.
Thanks for the very interesting link. Your model isn't a GCM, however. Also, how well did the Kuwait oil fires correspond to the various models. Sagan claimed they would cause cooling because the soot would ascend to the stratosphere. It didn't (I don't know how he expected to get past the tropopause inversion in that scenario).
That's making the big assumption that climate stasis is the optimal condition, and that warming is bad.
So we have two probabilities to multiply: the probability that AGW to significant levels will happen, and the probability that it well be net harmful.
Beyond that, the rush to "do something now" discounts the future technological and scientific developments that are likely to make any forced solution look silly in retrospect. Now is a time of dramatic progress in areas that affect energy usage and production - from AI to nanotech to continued IC improvements to better understanding of climate systems to... well, who knows?
Yes, things will be different in the future in ways we can't imagine now. Potentially everything will look silly in retrospect - action or inaction.
As an engineer, I find many of the current proposals to be, at best, uninformed. At the same time, the technical literature is full of developments which are trending towards significant improvements in the next decade.
Picking which of those developments will succeed is the classic error of "industrial policy." Ask Japan about their 5G computer initiative, as just one of many Japanese examples.
Please, go to the above article by Bjorn Lomborg in The Australian, December 15, 2008. Don't know if the LINK will work.
Moneyrunner43 wins the thread in my book.
That fact alone, coupled with the enormous transfer of power to government, should make anyone highly suspicious of this whole thing.
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