Adding Paint to a Windowpane

I used to think I understood global warming. CO2 is a "greenhouse gas" because it is transparent to visible but absorbs infrared. Light passes through the atmosphere and hits the ground, where it re-radiates as infrared. CO2 in the atmosphere keeps it from radiating back out into space, and--voila!--the Earth gets warmer.

That's true as far as it goes--but does that mean that more CO2 means more warmth? The graph above shows why that is a very important question. Adding more CO2 to the atmosphere is like putting more paint on a windowpane--once you've absorbed the infrared radiation coming up from the ground, you can't absorb much more of it.

The claims that increasing CO2 will lead to increasing temperatures are based on hypothetical "feedback" effects, such as "warmer air evaporates more water, which is also a greenhouse gas." But that argument would seem to work for any kind of warming--solar flares, volcanic eruptions, and so forth.

Testing New Comments

Housekeeping here... I've installed "IntenseDebate" for the comment section.

(Wishful thinking, I know--but it looks like a nice feature.)

No Taxation with Radiation Act of 2010

Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. Here's a modest proposal for change.



Executive Overview: fast-track nuclear power plant construction by

1. giving the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission exclusive regulatory power over plants that choose to operate under the provisions of this act,
   
2. giving a single "rocket docket" court exclusive original jurisdiction over all nuclear claims,
   
3. creating a ten-mile tax-free zone around all operational nuclear power plants and a tax-free zone in each county that agrees to and is approved to accept nuclear waste, and
   
4. providing for tax-free nuclear bonds and a $10,000 guarantee for individual investors.

I. The name of this Act is the "No Taxation with Radiation Act of 2010."

II. All current and proposed nuclear power plants in the United States may elect whether to operate under the provisions of this Act [hereafter, "Federal Plants"]. Plants that choose not to operate under the Act shall be subject to all relevant state and local laws but shall be exempt from all requirements of this Act other than national security regulations promulgated by the Department of Defense. Federal Plants are hereby exempt from all state and local environmental, labor, and public utility laws and regulations.

III. The United States Nuclear Regulatory Commission [hereafter, "NRC"] shall promulgate comprehensive and exclusive regulations for the construction, operation, and decommission of Federal Plants. The DOE shall issue all necessary permits for the construction, operation, and decommissioning of Federal plants.

IV. The United States Department of Defense [hereafter, "DOD"] shall promulgate national security regulations to ensure the safety of all nuclear power plants, nuclear materials, and nuclear waste, whether or not the nuclear power plant elects to operate under the provisions of this Act.

V. One new federal district court shall be established at [Kansas City, Missouri] with exclusive original jurisdiction over all challenges to the construction, operation, or decommissioning of a Federal Plant. This court shall be provided with enough judges and staff to decide the average case within one month or less. Appeals shall be made to the D.C. Court of Appeals.

VI. Federal Plants are hereby authorized to sell tax-free construction bonds. The United States Treasury shall guarantee each individual investor the first $10,000 of investments in such bonds for any given Federal Plant. Corporate investors, including money market funds, shall not receive guarantees.


VII. Federal Plants may elect to opt out of this program if their State (or tribe, if the plant is located on a Native American reservation) enacts a specific procedure for doing so.

VIII. All individuals with a primary residence within ten miles of an operational nuclear power plant that was constructed as a Federal Plant shall be exempt from personal federal income tax, whether or not the plant opts out of the federal program at a later date. All individuals with a primary residence in a county that agrees to and is approved to accept nuclear waste shall be exempt from personal federal income tax.

Post-Normal Science

I've just discovered "Post-Normal Science" [hereafter, "PNS'], thanks to this essay by Jerome Ravetz at WattsUpWithThat. On the one hand, it's a lovely discovery--I finally have the categories I need to describe the politico-scientific maelstrom of Global Warming. Wikipedia defines it thus:

Post-Normal Science is a concept developed by Silvio Funtowicz and Jerome Ravetz, attempting to characterise a methodology of inquiry that is appropriate for cases where "facts are uncertain, values in dispute, stakes high and decisions urgent". It is primarily seen in the context of the debate over global warming and other similar, long-term issues where we possess less information than we would like.

On the one hand, we desperately need a well-thought out, mutually agreed-upon approach to such cases. On the other hand, Ravetz seems to be working hard to justify action in the absence of certainty--and since his primary example of post-normal science is the global warming debate, it's hard to tell whether PNS is a real step forward in the sociology of science or just another skirmish in the global warming wars.

Ravetz makes one suggestion that seems very useful--he calls for an "extended peer review system" that includes all "stakeholders" in the process, whether or not they share the dominant scientific paradigm. This is a timely suggestion, given the growing power of the "blogosphere." A mob of "bloggers in pajamas" exposed forged political documents in 2004 and quickly picked apart the mass of "Climategate" emails. This "Army of Davids" (to use Glenn Reynolds' phrase) is here to stay. We may as well build them into any future plans for science and public policy!

No Taxation with Radiation Act of 2010

Everybody complains about the weather, but nobody does anything about it. Here's a modest proposal for change.



Executive Overview: fast-track nuclear power plant construction by

1. giving the US Department of Energy exclusive regulatory power over plants that choose to operate under the provisions of this act,
   
2. giving a single "rocket docket" court exclusive original jurisdiction over all nuclear claims,
   
3. creating a ten-mile tax-free zone around all operational nuclear power plants and a tax-free zone in each county that agrees to and is approved to accept nuclear waste, and
   
4. providing for tax-free nuclear bonds and a $10,000 guarantee for individual investors.

I. The name of this Act is the "Climate Change Security Act of 2010."

II. All current and proposed nuclear power plants in the United States may elect whether to operate under the provisions of this Act [hereafter, "CCSA Plants"]. Plants that choose not to operate under the Act shall be subject to all relevant state and local laws but shall be exempt from all requirements of this Act other than the national security regulations promulgated by the Department of Defense. CCSA Plants are hereby exempt from all state and local environmental, labor, and public utility laws and regulations.

III. The United States Department of Energy [hereafter, "DOE"] shall promulgate comprehensive regulations for the construction, operation, and decommission of CCSA Plants. The DOE shall issue all necessary permits for the construction, operation, and decommissioning of CCSA plants.

IV. The United States Department of Defense [hereafter, "DOD"] shall promulgate national security regulations to ensure the safety of all nuclear power plants, nuclear materials, and nuclear waste, whether or not the nuclear power plant elects to operate under the provisions of this Act.

V. One new federal district court shall be established at [Kansas City, Missouri] with exclusive original jurisdiction over all challenges to the construction, operation, or decommissioning of a CCSA Plant. This CCSA Court shall be provided with enough judges and staff to decide the average case within one month or less. Appeals from the CCSA Court shall be made to the D.C. Court of Appeals.

VI. CCSA Plants are hereby authorized to sell tax-free construction bonds [herefter, "CCSA Bonds"]. The United States Treasury shall guarantee individual investors the first $10,000 of investments in CCSA Bonds.

VII. All individuals with a primary residence within ten miles of an operational nuclear power plant that was constructed under the CCSA shall be exempt from personal federal income tax. All individuals with a primary residence in a county that agrees to and is approved to accept nuclear waste shall be exempt from personal federal income tax.

VIII. CCSA Plants may elect to opt out of the CCSA if their State enacts a specific procedure for doing so. Opting out of the CCSA shall not affect the federal income tax liability of persons within a ten miles radius.

Global Warming and Global Politics

China Daily, the offical English language paper of the People's Republic of China, has published an article that urges scientists to critically review the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Given that China Daily is pretty much a house organ for the Communist Party, I take this as a major development. India has already dumped the IPCC and is setting up its own alternative. With populations of 1,284M and 1,045M respectively, China and India account for 34% of all humans. The IPCC has lost the confidence of one third of the planet.

Russia is a major oil producing nation with a history of "not playing nicely with the other children." A number of skeptics have drawn attention to the questionable data from Siberia. At least one Moscow-based think tank argues that the Climate Research Unit (CRU) in East Anglia has skewed the Siberian data. Given Russia's past, pride, and petroleum, it may well follow India's lead in the near future.

Global warming is not a hot topic in the United States right now. With 41 Republican Senators ready to block any unpopular proposals from the Obama administration, the prospect for environmental "change we can believe in" is low. While we can expect plenty of official pronouncements from the US over the next ten months, there is close to zero chance of the kind of action that "warmists" have been urging.

The British media has finally caught on to the "Climategate" scandal and major papers are switching from "warmist" to "skeptical" positions overnight. Polls show that British belief in global warming has plummeted over the last few months.

Based on these facts and current trends, I think the prospects for meaningful international limits on CO2 emissions are fast dropping to zero. I never thought a command-and-control approach to greenhouse gases would really work, but now I think it won't even be tried.

That doesn't mean that "warmists" must sit by while a planet full of morons cooks itself to death. It just means that people who truly believe in man-made global warming must adjust their approach. The free market drives human behavior at least as much as governmental control does. It's time for a free market solution.

The fast track to carbon neutrality is nuclear power. We've had the basic technology since 1942. Prudent capitalists are not investing in nuclear power in the US at present because our legal system allows environmental activists to prevent new plants from getting the permits they need to operate. Those laws would have to change to make a new generation of nuclear plants feasible--but "warmists" should be willing to change those laws to save the planet, while most "skeptics" have been eager to change them all along.

A State of Uncertainty: My Current Thoughts on Climate

We live in interesting times. Global warming has become an issue that appears to demand action--but it's an issue that dramatically depends on a very complex kind of science that very few people can master. To make things worse, some of the people who claim to understand the issue disagree about it in the most fundamental ways. That leaves the average 21st century person in a position a little like the average 16th century European, trying to choose between Catholicism and Protestantism with their eternal soul at stake.

I've judged a number of formal debates, and I like to analyze this problem in debate terms. The four "stock issues" of a formal debate are:

1. Topicality
2. Significance
3. Inherency
4. Solvency

Topicality is the definition of terms. The global warming debate involves some surprisingly slippery terminology. I've noticed a shift from "global warming" to "climate change" without any explanation. I'm going to define the term under debate as "catastrophic increase in atmospheric heat produced by human activities."

Significance: I define "global warming" as "catastropic increase in atmospheric heat" to nail down the second stock issue in debate. Anything less than a "catastrophic" increase is not a significant harm. "Lukewarmists" believe that human activity affects the climate, but not enough to worry about.

Inherency: In formal debate, the party advocating change must show that the significant harm can't be solved without adopting the kind of change that they propose. They have to show that the "harm" is "inherent" to the status quo--until we change the way things are, we can't escape the problem.

Solvency: The affirmative team in any debate has to persuade the audience that their proposed solution will actually solve the problem--without creating more problems that are even worse.

Scoring this debate

In any formal debate, the party advocating change bears the burden of proving all four stock issues. I've defined the terms to my own satisfaction, so I'll give the "warmists" the topicality issue. I have yet to be persuaded on any of the remaining three issues.

So far, I'm not persuaded that there is a significant harm. I've heard a lot of horror stories about how bad things could be, but some of those claims aren't well supported by the evidence. At present, I'd call myself a "lukewarmist." I think that human activity is causing some increase in atmospheric heat, but I am not persuaded that the rise in CO2 is more likely than not to cause a catastrophe.

I'm completely unpersuaded by the inherency arguments. The "warmists" seem to be arguing that humans must immediately apply governmental caps to CO2 emissions. Why not argue for a crash program to construct nuclear power plants? I think that putting massive amounts of cheap, clean, green, safe energy on the grid would reduce CO2 emissions more quickly and more reliably than any amount of coercive control.

I fundamentally disagree with the solvency arguments. The proposals on the table are pathetic! How can we save the planet from runaway CO2-induced heating unless we deal with the vast amounts of CO2 being released by the teeming billions of the developing world? The most advanced societies could cut their carbon emissions to zero but the levels of CO2 would continue to rise for generations under every current plan. To make matters worse, the most likely results of cap-and-tax type regimes would be a global recession and/or depression, resulting in even-deeper poverty in the developing and underdeveloped nations. That means more soot, more smoke, more deforestation around the word. Poverty is a cause of CO2 emissions, not a cure.

My own position

I would agree that we have a "global warming crisis," but I see it is a human crisis of collective decision-making--a political crisis, at the moment, not an environmental crisis. The human race has been presented with a problem that it must solve, one way or another, just as Europe was presented with the problem of Protestantism in 1517. How are we going to handle it?

I believe that "warmists" and "skeptics" can and should agree on an immediate course of action to reduce CO2 emissions. A crash course in nuclear power is the best solution to this political crisis. Warmists can sleep at night, knowing that we are finally DOING something that could eliminate the need for fossil fuels altogether. Skeptics would enjoy the benefits of cheap, clean, plentiful energy that doesn't depend on foreign (and often hostile) governments. The planet would be a safer and more peaceful place, whether or not the weather is warming.

I'd love to know if there's something I'm missing here. Feel free to straighten out my thinking in the comments!