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His solution is much cheaper than the proposals from others. For example this panel: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/04/AR200705040

His solution is much cheaper than the proposals from others. For example this panel: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05/04/AR2007050401214.html http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/05... wanted 100$ for a tonne of CO2 emitted, that's way more that 100billion per year.

anthonyb 16y ago
Yep, it's about 2.9 trillion per year globally, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio... and my calculator. That's for the most aggressive option though, which they estimate will stabilise CO2 by 2030. There's a $20 and $50 option, but sadly no link to the actual paper, so no idea what those options would get you. Lomborg's proposal apparently takes until 2100, but it doesn't say how he arrived at that date, or how he knows that'll be either safe or enough to halt emissions.
- Devilboy 16y ago
  Yea so Lomborg is basically arguing that we don't need to be quite that aggressive and that it would be cheaper to stabilize slowly in 90 years rather than doing it for a high cost in 20. Sure it will cause more problems for people to do it slowly but if we want to HELP PEOPLE it's better to put that money towards other programs which will help people much more on a 'per dollar spent' basis.
  - anthonyb 16y ago
    Right - so once we get down to brass tacks, we're arguing for pretty much the same thing - some sort of action on CO2. What happened to the "spend < $1" earlier? I suspect that CO2 will start having a lot more impact in the next 10-20 years, at which point people will get a lot more serious about it and the 90 year programme becomes unlikely.
    - Devilboy 16y ago
      What happened to the "spend < $1" earlier? What do you mean? He's saying that instead of spending about 60 trillion by 2030 we can instead spend only 9 trillion by 2100.
      - anthonyb 16y ago
        Yes - with a lot of assumptions, ie. that climate change is not going to be that bad. That's far from assured. 2 deg C is considered the danger point (ie. you'll see more drastic effects, possible positive feedback, etc.) by most climate scientists, and it looks like we'll hit that at around 2040-50 at the rate that we're going. But at the point that we hit 2degC and see bad effects, how long do you think it'll take to turn it around? The pessimistic side of me says that this will be yet another excuse not to do anything... until 2050 when 2C hits, at which point it'll cost a packet to try and fix the climate as quickly as possible, and the only way to fix things will be the drastic geoengineering, like pumping SO2 into the stratosphere, massive sea walls and solar shades in orbit.

anthonyb 16y ago

Yep, it's about 2.9 trillion per year globally, according to http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dioxide_emissions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_carbon_dio... and my calculator. That's for the most aggressive option though, which they estimate will stabilise CO2 by 2030. There's a $20 and $50 option, but sadly no link to the actual paper, so no idea what those options would get you. Lomborg's proposal apparently takes until 2100, but it doesn't say how he arrived at that date, or how he knows that'll be either safe or enough to halt emissions.

Devilboy 16y ago
Yea so Lomborg is basically arguing that we don't need to be quite that aggressive and that it would be cheaper to stabilize slowly in 90 years rather than doing it for a high cost in 20. Sure it will cause more problems for people to do it slowly but if we want to HELP PEOPLE it's better to put that money towards other programs which will help people much more on a 'per dollar spent' basis.
- anthonyb 16y ago
  Right - so once we get down to brass tacks, we're arguing for pretty much the same thing - some sort of action on CO2. What happened to the "spend < $1" earlier? I suspect that CO2 will start having a lot more impact in the next 10-20 years, at which point people will get a lot more serious about it and the 90 year programme becomes unlikely.
  - Devilboy 16y ago
    What happened to the "spend < $1" earlier? What do you mean? He's saying that instead of spending about 60 trillion by 2030 we can instead spend only 9 trillion by 2100.
    - anthonyb 16y ago
      Yes - with a lot of assumptions, ie. that climate change is not going to be that bad. That's far from assured. 2 deg C is considered the danger point (ie. you'll see more drastic effects, possible positive feedback, etc.) by most climate scientists, and it looks like we'll hit that at around 2040-50 at the rate that we're going. But at the point that we hit 2degC and see bad effects, how long do you think it'll take to turn it around? The pessimistic side of me says that this will be yet another excuse not to do anything... until 2050 when 2C hits, at which point it'll cost a packet to try and fix the climate as quickly as possible, and the only way to fix things will be the drastic geoengineering, like pumping SO2 into the stratosphere, massive sea walls and solar shades in orbit.