In the middle of the book, Mr. Lomborg estimates the cost of global warming. Here we see the benefits of his analysis and its limitations. He estimates the cumulative loss of GDP from climate change at around 4%. In doing so, he attempts to be thorough, adding a slew of worst-case scenarios to the mix, including ocean acidification. The problem is ocean acidification, while the economic impact to humans may be limited, the cost to marine life would potentially be devastating, and Mr. Lomborg makes no effort to hide this point. While consigning every animal in Finding Nemo to a fate of mass extinction (granted, this is a worst case as the issue appears to not be well understood) may to some be a small price to pay for the millions lifted out of poverty in the process, few in the west would accept this dichotomy in such a clinical fashion. Even in the developing world this dichotomy may mot be so simple. Recall that Africa is rapidly growing and will continue to do so no matter what. As Africa becomes wealthier, its environmentalist movement will spring forth as well, and the “compassion” we felt for them in forgoing the Great Barrier Reef may be lost on them.
At one point, Mr Lomborg lost me a bit towards the end by calling misguided policies of environmentalists in the ’70s “murder.” This is deeply unfair. Human beings build their morals on emotion, and emotion for the environment and the morals the emotion produces do not fit into neat boxes of costs and benefits weighed on a scale. If we are ready to make such calculations and hold every suboptimal strategy for the preservation of human life out to be “murder,” we had better be prepared to forgo much of what to us makes life worth living. We are animals, not moral machines. This is, in essence, the Achilles heel of Lomborg’s analysis. Human beings may be pursuing a suboptimal strategy on climate change, but it’s our right to do so if we so wish.
In many respects, the costs of global warming policies may end up doing Mr. Lomborg’s job for him. It seems likely with the enormous free rider problem global warming policy has, that in the long run global warming policy will not be overdone to the extent that Lomborg fears. The more aggressive politicians get with their policies, the harder it will be to hide their costs. The difficulty comes in the short run when the costs of such policies are hidden under the ruse of “creating jobs” and breathless marketing of slick technologies, and voters are left with a huge headache on their hands when the costs become all too clear. This will have the unhappy effect of increasing political polarization and nationalism, and the latter in particular has even greater implied costs for the world than all but the most extreme global warming policies, with none of the upside that global warming mitigation would have. As such, a serious and utterly thorough analysis of all the costs and benefits associated with various climate policies is a must-understand for the world’s leaders.
If you find yourself in the oil and gas industry, you need not be overly fearful for your job or worry that you are engaging in something deeply immoral. You should understand the manifold benefits your industry brings, along with its costs.