Get What You Want
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Script
All right skeptics, here’s the first of the three videos I did just for you: “Get What You Want,” followed by “I Hope I’m Wrong” and finally “No Holds Barred,” all part of the expansion pack accompanying the video “How It All Ends.”
I suggest that before you watch this video, you first make sure you’ve watched the following parts of the expansion pack to “How It All Ends”: “Nature of Science,” “Risk Management,” “Why There Is Still Debate,” “The Manpollo Project,” “Mechanics of GCC,” “Scare Tactics,” “The Solution,” and “God’s Will.” This is because we are entering the home stretch of the argument—the really outlying details, and those videos contain rebuttals to most common objections to the idea of human-caused global climate change, which I’ll sometimes just refer to as AGW, since that’s how I’ve found most skeptics refer to it. And notice I’m referring to you as skeptics, not denialists. In a debate, it’s just way more productive for each side to refer to the other as that side prefers. If you’d like to return the favor of civility, you can refrain from calling me an alarmist, though, I am alarmed, and I think others should be more alarmed than they seem to be, and—truth be told—if there were a big red handle that said “global alarm” on it, I’d probably pull it. But I wouldn’t run. No running. Anyway, a lot in your camp use the term “alarmist” as an epithet, so how about just referring to me and my ilk as a “warmers,” and I’ll stick to calling you “skeptics,” which you may notice turn into “hard-line skeptics” the farther you make it through my videos.
If, as you watch this, you find rebuttals popping up in your mind, please pause and ask yourself if I’ve already said something in a previous video which may answer your rebuttal. There’s a lot of back-and-forth lines of reasoning, and it would take too much time to haul out each one for review every time we hit on a piece of it.
When I posted “The Most Terrifying Video You’ll Ever See” in the Spring of 2007, it garnered over a million views on various sites within a month. I quickly put out three more videos titled “Patching Holes” to answer the objections raised. Over the course of that online debate, I read well over 5,000 comments on my arguments, most of them critical. So I learned a bit about the skeptical viewpoint.
In any technique of conflict resolution or negotiation, the most useful strategy is always about finding common ground—what is it that the two disagreeing sides both need, and is there a way to satisfy those needs? So I just started brainstorming, listing universal human needs, and it jumped right out at me. Common objections to action on AGW like “We need to protect the economy” and “The government just wants more control of our lives,” seem to me to really all come down to one thing: the need for self-determination. No one wants to be limited by others or told what to do. Specifically, it seemed a majority of the comments could be lumped into two subcategories: economic self-determination (sort of the “I need to put food on the table” idea), and social/political self-determination (sort of the “Don’t tread on me” idea).
So, this video is going to proceed with the assumption—hopefully a reasonable one—that if you are a hard-line skeptic who has watched all my other videos and still isn’t convinced that action on climate change is worth it, it’s because you feel a very strong need for economic and political self-determination, and you feel that need is threatened by taking action on climate change.
The purpose of this video is not to argue you out of those totally valid needs, but to show you how taking action is actually your best bet in getting those needs met. And that not taking action on climate change is actually a greater threat to your economic well-being, and to your political and social liberties, than is taking action.
You wouldn’t be at all misguided to ask me why am I taking such a great effort to do all this. What do I have to gain? That’s a good question to ask. Please remember to ask this of all your sources, not just the ones you disagree with.
I don’t have anything more or less to gain than the next guy. In fact, my motivations are completely pragmatic. I don’t get paid for this, I’m not looking for a job, and I’m not running for office. What I hope to gain. . . is a less nasty world a few years down the road. Because I’m a science guy, and when I learned the specifics of the science of climate change, it’s scared the willies out of me.
“But you won’t be around to see the difference,” you might say. I’m not convinced of that, and if you watched my video “Scare Tactics” you’ll know why. Plus, I’ve got two little girls that mean more to me than anything. I want to do whatever I can to eliminate the possibility that they inherit a Mad Max world. That’s my motivation. So I guess it’s kind of selfish—I want to feel like I was a responsible father, and did everything in my power to protect my kids.
I point out that my motivations are simply pragmatic, because in my experience, that’s the case for a lot of you, as well, so it’s common ground for us. As one commentator wrote in response to what he thought was my environmental do-gooder pitch:
[SCREEN] “I can tell you right now that when the rubber meets the road, people are more concerned with their own personal economies than they are with the distant specter of global climate change. My personal economy, for better or worse, ends at my property line.” So you and I are really motivated by the same thing: we just want the best for ourselves and our loved ones. And as I think you’ll see, we don’t need to be in conflict about that.
So really, don’t dismiss me as just another greenie shouting “Save the Planet.”
In fact—screw the planet! Save us! (Don’t tell the tree-huggers I said that.) The planet will do fine on its own! And it’s not even the race I’m concerned about—I think humanity will survive. What I’m concerned about is me and mine, and our lifestyle.
I’m doing all this because my careful study of the science has shown me a future scenario that’s unlikely—but still terrifyingly feasible—where I end up holding people off at gunpoint to keep them away from my grandkids’ clean water supply. I’ll do that—but I’d really rather not end up there.
In evaluating how to meet our needs of self-determination, let’s take a look at the problem as if we were a business, because if there’s anything the free market does well, it’s evolving businesses that are good at figuring out what’s in their own best interest. How does a business go about deciding what to do? In general, couldn’t we say that a business would do a careful analysis of future threats and opportunities, and then research which courses of action would be most likely to maximize benefits and minimize costs?
So if you’re a business, and you discover the potential of a drastic threat to you, what would you do? You’d study it, right? You’d ask “What is the likelihood, and what are the costs and benefits of various courses of action?” You’d want the highest quality answer possible, so you’d hire professionals. And the greater the potential threat, the more resources you’d be willing to devote to looking at it. If it might threaten the very existence of the business, you’d delay less important projects and divert funding so that you could hire the best experts available.
And in that process, you’d be careful to combat your own psychology, because you know that no one—not even you—wants to change “business as usual,” and your hired help certainly doesn’t want to end up being the bearer of bad news about who gets shot. So to get the highest quality answer, you do everything you can to make sure you hired unbiased, independent people. You don’t want yes-men telling you what they think you want to hear. You want smart people telling you what is the most likely thing to happen, regardless of whether you like it or not.
You’d tell them “Everything may be riding on this. So make darn sure your answer is correct,” and being the best, they’d tell you “It’s impossible to make sure, because there’s always uncertainty.” And you’d be self-aware enough to know that it’s a waste of money to hire experts and then not listen to them simply because your own human shortcomings of bias, fear, and stubbornness got in the way.
So then you’d tell them “Okay—then do it carefully, check your answers, and then do it again. And then, run it by others.”
And if, after all that, they came back to you with bad news, and you found yourself dismissing their answers, thinking “that can’t be right,” you’d be self-aware enough to stop and ask “Do I just think that because I don’t like their answers? Am I unconsciously letting that influence my judgement of their quality?” Because after all, you did go our of your way to hire expert, unbiased professionals. That doesn’t mean they’re infallible, but it does mean you’d better have some really compelling reasons to ignore what they say.
So let’s translate all this into the climate change debate. Before we examine what various experts say, let’s put ourselves in the business leader’s shoes when he asked himself whether he might be letting his likes and dislikes interfere with his judgement. It’s my observation that a lot of climate skeptics have very strong Republican or libertarian leanings. As I explained in the video “Why There Is Still Debate,” this isn’t surprising, since those philosophies have a general distaste for government, and acknowledging AGW would seem to imply increased government action.
But let’s be very explicit: it is not in your own interests to let your distaste for government (or Senator Gore, for that matter) influence your judgment about physical reality. Those are two totally different things. It’s also the very definition of bias, and it doesn’t serve you. So be very deliberate to not confuse hostility towards government with uncertainty in climate science.
Okay let’s examine what the experts out there have to say about protecting our economic self-determination in the face of action on climate change. And as we “hire these experts” let’s remember the credibility spectrum we developed in the video “Risk Management” and focus on sources from here up. Sources down here (think tanks and individuals) can be useful for giving insight or new ideas, but are less useful for analysis because of the greater potential for bias. Generally that’s what I mean when I say “credible.”
I covered a lot of this in detail already in the video “Risk Management,” but it’s worth a brief recap here. After a conscientious search for credible economic disaster scenarios arising from taking action when it wasn’t necessary, the worst-case scenario I could find from a credible source was: a 3% reduction in GDP growth. That’s the outside figure, from a DOE report that Prof. Ross McKitrick sent me. Most credible predictions put the worst case somewhere around 1.5-2%. Also note that it’s GDP growth, which in the U.S. over the past 30 years has averaged a bit over 3% per year, and has actually been negative several times. So the worst case credible scenario is that the GDP continues to grow, but very slightly. I did have a chuckle when I came across a dire prediction from a 1998 Heritage Foundation article warning that if the U.S. followed the Kyoto Protocol, by 2010 gasoline could cost as much as. . . $1.91 a gallon.
So what might a business leader make of this? “That’s it?” He might say. “That doesn’t sound catastrophic. What else is out there about the economic effects of taking action? And fire that Heritage guy—he’s lost his credibility and I don’t have time for histrionics.”
Well there is [Bjorn] Lomborg’s Copenhagen Consensus, which had 4 Nobel Laureates on board. They concluded that action on global climate change shouldn’t be a priority compared to other world issues. But they didn’t really talk so much about the negative economic impacts of action on climate change, and anyway whatever credence we give to their advice is pretty much cancelled out by the conclusions of the [placard: “Economists’ Statement on Climate Change”—a petition with 6 Nobel Laureates, but who’s counting—which concluded that the right course of action would actually make money]. Plus, both of those were sort of think tanks anyway, so we’re not going to listen too much to them.
There’s also the [placard] Stern Report, prepared by Nicholas Stern for the British government. As we think about how much credibility to assign to him, technically, he’s an individual. But he headed up a whole working group, and the government of the world’s 12th wealthiest country listens to him, so I’d place his report somewhere in the high middle—higher than the Copenhagen Consensus for sure, cuz a lot more work went into it, and a lot more was riding on it, so its methods were probably way more rigorous. [grid, on placard] His study concluded that this up here would cost about 1% of GDP. Note that they’re talking GDP, not GDP growth, so don’t try to compare it to the GDP number I mentioned earlier. 1% doesn’t sound like much, but in dollars (or pounds sterling, in their case), that’s a huge amount of money.
“That sounds significant,” our business leader might say. But then we’d be obliged to point out that the Stern report estimated that this down here would probably cost around 20% of GDP.
“Holy cats!” our boss exclaims. “Is this guy for real?”
Well, I had the good fortune of having a brief email exchange with Prof. Richard Tol, a critic of the Stern report who has publicly said that the report is too pessimistic and “could be dismissed as alarmist and incompetent.” When I sent professor Tol my standard request for credible worst-case economic scenarios, he pointed me to the Stanford Energy Modeling Forum (EMF), calling it “the most authoritative source on these matters.” After digging around for a while in their reports, I couldn’t find any doomsday scenarios, but I did find this conclusion in a 1993 report:
[SCREEN] “Thus it is possible to reduce emissions significantly from their non-controlled level without significantly reducing the growth of the economy.” (EMF WP 12.1 Global Climate Change: Impacts of Greenhouse Gas Control Strategies, Executive Summary, page iii) This was the exact opposite of what I was looking for!
So I emailed the quote to Prof. Tol, telling him that and asking:
[SCREEN] “If Stanford’s EMF is ‘the most authoritative source on these matters,’ am I left with NO defense to the alarmist’s argument ‘No one knows for certain, so why not act, just in case’??!!? Help!!!”
He never answered. I’m sure he’s a very busy guy, but still—I’d like to know his response.
“Hmph,” Says our boss. “Are there any other sources towards the top of the credibility spectrum—you know, the really solid stuff—who have weighed in on the economic threat of action on climate change?”
One of our topmost categories is statements from organizations that contradict their normal bias. Remember the U.S. Climate Action Partnership—that group of heavyweight companies like Ford, GM, GE, Dupont, Shell, BP and others that I mentioned in previous videos? Their statement about the economics of action on climate change is pretty unequivocal:
[SCREEN] “Each year we delay action to control emissions increases the risk of unavoidable consequences that could necessitate even steeper reduction in the future, at potentially greater economic cost. . . . Action sooner rather than later preserves valuable response options. . . and should lower the costs of mitigation and adaptation.”
Remember, this is coming from groups whose acknowledged bottom line is to build value for shareholders. If you want to argue with them, you’d better have some pretty good stuff.
And, as long as we’re at the top of the credibility spectrum, it’s worth mentioning that the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) said:
[SCREEN] “The longer we wait to tackle climate change, the harder and more expensive the task will be.”
And the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) said that:
[SCREEN] “Delayed action will increase the risk of adverse environmental effects and will likely incur a greater cost.”
True, those are organizations of scientists, not economists. But as long as you think you and I are qualified to do armchair evaluations of the threat to the economy, why not let a few tens of thousands of Ph.D.s have their say, too?
“Criminey!” exclaims our business leader, leaning forward on the conference table. “Why the heck are we still talking about this? It seems pretty clear what’s in our best economic interests. Any other arguments to be made?”
Well, there’s the argument that if planned, debated spending would cause economic hardship up here, then last-minute, panicked spending, compounded by natural disasters, would certainly be even worse down here.
And if the idea is to protect the economy (a phrase I got from the talking points of a Cato Institute presentation on AGW), then really, how good for the economy are floods, droughts, landslides, hurricanes, wildfires, epidemics, wars, and refugees?
And even if we take the outlandish extremes—at least in a depression you can still plant a subsistence garden. Down here in a chaotic climate, your area may not even have topsoil or a growing season.
But then a voice of dissent rises from the opposite side of the conference table. “I’d rather not take action on an uncertain threat, so that we can face any real threats that do materialize down the road with the wealth that an unfettered economy would bring us.”
“Hmmm,” sez our boss. “On the face of it, that sounds appealing. But isn’t that just like the practice of ‘leveraging’ in the investment realm? Where you borrow money from one place and then invest it somewhere else? As long as the interest you pay on the loan is lower than the yield you get from your investment, you make money. But if the rates flip, you’re totally hosed. Essentially, we’d be betting that our unfettered economy would grow faster than any potential threats to it. And given the odds we’ve gotten from the eggheads who actually know the science, and the consequences if we’re wrong, that seems like an extremely high-risk bet. Not prudent, not prudent at all,” he mutters.
“Before we adjourn, are there any other arguments to be made that acting on climate change—even in the face of the stated uncertainty—is pragmatically in our best economic interests?”
Well, how about this: the solutions are exciting and can maintain our standard of living—like hydrogen fuel cells, cars that “run on water,” and biodiesel. And before you let someone pile on with all the shortcomings of alternative energies, let me point out—they’re comparing it to fossil fuels. And it’s not a fair comparison, because we’re already set up for fossil fuels, which makes them very cheap and easy compared to the technologies of the future. That’s why those energy technologies are called “alternatives,” rather than “perfects.”
But here’s a news flash: there’s only so much fossil fuels left in the ground; we’re going to run out of the stuff, probably in your lifetime. We WILL move to the new technologies, almost certainly in the next 50 years. There’s a good chance we’re right now around Peak Oil, having already burned more than what remains in the ground. And before you parrot the old “we’ve got enough coal for 500 years,” you’d better watch the video titled “The Most Important Video You’ll Ever See” on my wonderingmind42 account. All it takes is some simple arithmetic to show that anyone knowledgeable who feeds you that line about coal is either woefully ignorant, or unforgivably manipulative.
So, it is inevitable that our energy technologies will change. And isn’t it true in business that the early innovators are the ones who make the big bucks? Like Ford, Goodyear, Microsoft? So it’s going to happen—you can’t deny that. Why not start now, mitigate possible downsides, and make some money in the process?
The U.S. could be leading the world in this. We’ve got the world’s greatest higher education system and the best research resources—we could use those to lead in new technologies and to sell it to the rest of the world, increasing our own economic prosperity. The ones that change last, lose out—just look at history. So do we want to be left behind? To make money, you hire the best people to look ahead, and then you position yourself to get in early so that YOU have the expertise, YOU have the product, YOU have the brand, and EVERYONE buys from you. Who’s going to be the next Bell? Not those that rely on oil and coal technology.
Given all that evidence and reasoning, from such credible sources, don’t you think that the prudent business leader would agree that the course of action which is most likely to maximize opportunity and minimize cost—to “protect the economy”—is to take significant action now to combat global climate change? Doesn’t it just seem practical?
Now, as for protecting our social and political self-determination—our liberties—the case seems much simpler to me, and can be summed up in a single sentence: democracy cannot survive in a Mad Max world.
There’s a reason martial law exists. It’s so that when the asteroid hits the fan, the government can do whatever necessary—even suspending the rights of the individual—in order to secure the greater good for the greater number. Do you think anyone in New Orleans in the days after Katrina gave a rat’s ass about civil liberties? No—they were busy looting bottled water and disposable diapers. And had the National Guard gotten there faster, they would have opened up the fire hoses on the looters to ensure order. There’s nothing like large scale natural disasters or threats to national security to bring out the draconian in any government.
I often hear the very strident objection: “Action on AGW would lead to government control of our lives!” Well, given the probability of AGW being real versus it being a huge, elaborate hoax, isn’t it more likely that the greatest long-term threat to your liberties is inaction?
And if you’re concerned about national autonomy, here’s two words to whet your appetite for developing renewables: “energy independence!” Here’s two more: “goodbye OPEC!”
So back to protecting your economic self-determination. . . . When I was asking around for credible predictions of the economic costs of unnecessary action, one exasperated skeptic finally complained:
[SCREEN] “predictions of economic models are even more uncertain than climate models.”
I did a double take. Cuz if that’s the case, then where the heck is the wisdom in ignoring the warnings of the climate models based on the even less reliable predictions of the economic models? But it’s even more lopsided than that, because none of the economic models actually even predict nasty economic consequences of action. All of the economic doom-and-gloom predictions seem to be conjecture by sources at the bottom of the credibility spectrum! Does this really sound like the best bet for protecting your economic well-being?
How well is field economics known for making correct predictions? That is, how often do economists’ predictions come true? Sometimes, sometimes not. How often do the predictions of science come true? When you fly in a jet airliner, or use your cellphone, or turn on your tap water, or get on the Internet, or take Advil. I’m not saying science—or the scientist—is infallible. I’m just saying when it comes to comparing the predictive power of science versus the predictive power of economics, who’s your daddy? No—wait—I’m not saying that.
I’m saying—in our business analogy—when you’re looking for a reliable track record in making predictions, the résumé of science far outweighs the résumé of economics. Both have their place, both are useful, both make mistakes. One isn’t intrinsically better than the other. But if you’re going to put them head to head—which, make no mistake, is what you’re doing if your answer to “Why not act, just in case?” is “Because it would cost too much”—then you’ve got to give the job to science.
“Hey, wait a minute,” someone says. “Science isn’t so hot. Remember when the eggheads were all certain in the 1970’s that the globe was going into an ice age that never materialized? They’re always screaming some Chicken Little story. So why should we listen now?”
A totally understandable sentiment. But it turns out the claim that scientists in the 70’s were warning of an impending ice age is a classic urban myth, originating in some over-hysterical media coverage about an NAS report that was actually trying to say: the climate is changing, and we’d better figure out how to understand it better. That’s why it’s so important to distinguish between media stories, and what the organizations are actually saying. There was nothing back then even comparable to the unprecedented statements today that most every scientific society is making. But don’t believe me—go look up for yourself what the scientists said during the 70’s “Ice Age” scare—not just what the media said the scientists said. The NAS report that was the source of that urban myth is available in its entirety online. Remember to evaluate your sources. George Will is not a reliable source on what NAS said. NAS is.
It’ true, you can always find some doom-and-gloom story in the history books and newspaper archives. But look around now, and then do some digging. Look at the extent and quality of the warnings made now about global climate change. When you have all these scientific societies, and all these profit-driven companies lining up with the usual suspects of all the environmental organizations, something profoundly different must be going on now. You will not find—ever in history—a warning with this level and widespread extent of weighty opinion and analysis behind it.
I’m serious—go looking for yourself. And remember the warning about confirmation bias from the video “Nature of Science”: don’t just stop when you find something that supports what you already think. Go further. See if you can find the refutation to that. You’ll see that never before have so many professional societies issued so many warnings in such strong words. Never before have so many companies vested in the status quo publicly called for change—for government regulation of themselves. I think you’ll see that to dismiss this as another Chicken Little story just because it seems to predict doomsday—like so many failed doomsday predictions before—is not just irrational, it’s downright reckless. Sometimes the wolf is at the door.
I believe you want the best for yourself. I even believe you probably want the best for the whole world. I think if you try to become brutally aware of your thinking—your biases, whether your goal in looking for information is to get closer to the physical truth or just to strengthen your opinion, whether you are starting from belief or starting from evidence—and you analyze this in historical perspective, you will see that we are in a time like no other. Because our population and our technology are large enough to change the planet, and the old way of thinking, where we could tolerate mistakes, no longer serves us. Because this time it’s global, there’s no longer anywhere to move on to.
Whether you’re a tree-hugger or a tree-logger, pro-life or pro-choice, communist or laissez-faire, fascist or libertarian, you still want economic and political self-determination. And I hope you’ve seen that, using basic risk assessment and weighing all the factors from all the sources, [checklist on board] it is in your best interests to do all you can to increase public demand for policy changes to combat global climate change as soon as possible.
If you’re still not convinced, then I’ll meet you at your next video: “I Hope I’m Wrong.”
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