Review of ‘Introduction to Modern Climate Change’ by Andrew Dessler (Part II)

This continues my two-part review of Andrew Dessler’s primer on the physical science and political economy of climate change, Introduction to Modern Climate Change (2nd edition: 2016).

Part I, “Suggestions for More Interdisciplinary Scholarship, Less Advocacy,” brought attention to the uneven treatment of issues in science, economics, and public policy that tainted the primer. I questioned the Deep Ecology assumption of optimal nature, wherein, according to Dessler, “any change in climate, either warming or cooling, will result in overall negative outcomes for human society” (p. 146).

This seems exactly wrong in our interglacial period when climate-related fatalities have fallen dramatically and agricultural production has soared thanks to warmth but particularly to fossil-fueled capitalism. Incentives and wealth have proven more than a match for the vicissitudes of weather and climate. As Alex Epstein (The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, pp. 126-127) noted:

The popular climate discussion has the issue backward. It looks at man as a destructive force for climate livability, one who makes the climate dangerous because we use fossil fuels.

In fact, the truth is the exact opposite; we don’t take a safe climate and make it dangerous; we take a dangerous climate and make it safe. High-energy civilization, not climate, is the driver of climate livability.

Science Issues

Climate Sensitivity. Why is real-world warming lagging behind model-predicted? [1] Are climate models beyond reproach? Dessler mentions models as reliable for laboratory-like experimentation (p. 117), which is highly disputable given “fudge factors,” ex-post tuning, and validation limitations. The 3rd edition should examine the critics’ arguments (including from Dessler’s colleague Gerald North) against climate-model reliance and prediction.

Why might be responsible for lower climate-sensitivity estimates? Listing and discussing the possibilities is missing from the first two editions. Here are two:

1. Iris Effect Richard Lindzen’s Iris Effect is a mechanism for trapped heat to escape in the Tropics, reducing anthropogenic warming. Is this a physical impossibility? If not, does it have evidence to be partially right, a reason for global lukewarming?

This hypothesis has attracted support in mainstream science. Dessler has rejected it elsewhere as small. But small effects can scale back the alarm, and who dare say it cannot be more of a countervailing feedback than is known at present?

2. Indirect Solar Effects Dessler presents the direct and “highly uncertain” (p. 99) indirect effects of aerosol forcing (pp. 95–100). But when it comes to solar, he criticizes direct solar as a major source of forcing (p. 100–101; 113–114) but is silent on the ongoing debate over the indirect effects of solar forcing.

If this is a theoretical impossibility or without any evidence, Dessler should state so. But if it is an open area, and it appears to be (also see here), the hypothesis of indirect forcing (and thus a driver outside of the enhanced greenhouse effect) should be sympathetically presented and rigorously evaluated.

Warming Distribution. A long-time argument against climate alarmism was the distribution of the identified anthropogenic warming. Evidence was that minimum temperatures were increasing at twice the rate of maximum temperatures (a reduced diurnal cycle). Winters were warming more than summers, also reducing temperature variability.

Warmer winters? And not so much summer temperature increases? That all sounds good to a climate economist and to just about everyone else.

But this happy argument quietened among skeptics. I found out that the latest IPCC’s report (5th Ass., Working Group I: p. 188) walked back those findings.

But Dessler states all of these things (as if he did not review the 2014 report), concluding, “adding greenhouse gases to the atmosphere tends to reduce temperature contrasts” (p. 148). An indication where the IPCC will land in the future (the 6th assessment is due out in 2021) is another important area of unsettled science.

Positive Surprises

Dessler states: “The Earth is currently in an interglacial” (p. 36). This throw-away fact is actually pregnant with implication. If we are in a (lucky) warming period, might CO2 concentrations at some point forestall a natural cooling period for the benefit of mankind? This “surprise” would be a huge positive, a fat tail of joy and celebration.

Dessler is certainly thinking ahead. “Even after emissions cease, the temperatures do not significantly decline over the next 1,000 years” (p. 138). And more, “emitting large amounts of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere this century commits the planet to elevated temperatures for thousands of years” (ibid. 138).

If correct, this can be appreciated as an insurance policy against the next Ice Age/Little Ice Age. And given my disagreement with Dessler’s belief that “greenhouse-gas emissions [fossil-fuel combustion] will eventually cease because of concerns about climate change or because technological developments make fossil fuels obsolete” (ibid), I see this insurance policy for millenia. [2]

Saturation Effect: Log Forcing.
The forcing property of the enhanced greenhouse effect is not linear but logarithmic, meaning that the warming from a doubling of CO2 will not happen at a tripling but a quadrupling. Seen another way, the more the atmosphere contains CO2 (measured in parts per million), the less warming each addition creates.

This is a blow to Mitigation given that avoided emissions have less and less of an effect, requiring more and more cutbacks to achieve the desired effect.

The log-over-linear property of greenhouse-gas forcing receives nary a mention in the 2nd edition. It is part of the public policy argument of Mitigation relative to Adaptation and should be in the 3rd edition.

CO2 Fertilization: The Benefit Side of the Equation

Relatively settled science points toward the positive ecological effect of higher atmospheric CO2 concentrations. Dessler mentions photosynthesis (pp. 69–70) and the “missing carbon” (p. 79), but he buries a vital issue of the climate debate in a footnote on page 153:

One frequently hears that increasing carbon dioxide will be good for plants – i.e., “carbon dioxide is plant food.” Atmospheric carbon dioxide is indeed a key ingredient in plant growth and, everything else being equal, more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would be expected to increase the rate of plant growth. However, other changes, such as changes in temperature and precipitation, are expected to offset the benefits of increased carbon dioxide, particularly the warming of more than a few degrees Celsius.

How much benefit and for what plant types? For how long? And contra-Dessler, peer-reviewed research is that higher CO2 makes many plants adapt to higher temperatures and become more water-efficient (the CO2 Coalition has documented this and other benefits).

CO2 fertilization, as well as the positive effect of moderate warming and higher precipitation, impress climate economists of the benefit side of CO2 emissions. Dessler focuses on the social cost of carbon in this book (p. 171–174) but neglects CO2’s benefits that occur sooner and thus carry more weight in any cost/benefit exercise. (The Obama Administration unfairly assessed the social cost of carbon without including the benefit side of the equation).

Energy Density

Dessler’s Malthusian/Statism worldview utterly fails to confront what is arguably the most important climate statistic of all: the radical and continuing decline in human mortality from weather and climate (see here and here). Energy density explains both the great human progress in recent centuries and the promise and need for mineral energies in the future–think oil, natural gas, coal, and even uranium (the nuclear option).

Dessler deals with the problem of intermittency with solar and wind power. But this is only part of the problem. Energy density is a key concept that must be included in the 3rd edition to explain why renewables are site limited and infrastructure-intensive. And why it is simplistic to believe that “it is clear that we could build enough carbon-free energy if we chose to do so” (p. 240).

Historical Interpretation

Dismissing the positives of carbon dioxide allows Dessler to analogize CO2 to tobacco (pp. 11–12, 214–215, 221) and even terrorism ( pp. 232–233). This creates the narrative of bad/good with the likes of me and my colleagues being “deniers” and “anti-science” (to use Dessler’s Twitter terms).

Dessler’s “tobacco playbook” (p. 215) interpretation of climate skepticism is based on Oreskes and Conway’s Merchants of Doubt, a polemic rather than a real history of science-and-politics book. But if he chooses to simplify and homogenize his opponents this way, surely he must deal with Climategate and Michael Mann’s Hockey Stick trick, what Dessler labeled elsewhere “embarrassing and a public-relations disaster for science.”

The “tobacco strategy” (p. 220) certainly does not apply to me or many leading skeptics that I know and have worked with for decades. We are not faking it in the least. Dessler-qua-historian must explain why many of us sincerely believe that the climate issue is the latest (last?) verse of failed Malthusianism and, in fact, is a green road to serfdom. And Dessler’s historical review of the debate must surely comment on the litany of failed climate-doom projections that are a thorn in the case of alarmism.

Finally, if Big Bad Coal and ExxonKnew were the culprits of meaningful science understanding for climate action, why not examine Enron’s role in the climate debate in favor of the alarmist/statist view? (I was a bit of a whistleblower there–more to come. Chris Horner, another skeptic of climate alarmism/statism, was there too).

Why the global cooling scare of the late 1960s – 1970s by scientists such as Stephen Schneider and John Holdren? In 1988 (“The year that changed everything” p. 220), why did Richard Kerr in Science report the false-certainty opinion among many other climate scientists (“Hansen vs. The World on the Greenhouse Threat“) in 1989?

In short, Dessler engages in incomplete, biased history by universalizing one take and ignoring the rest of the story.

Air Pollution

Dessler states (p. 100): “But aerosols are not all good–they are also one of the main components of air pollution around the world, which kills millions of people every year.” This statistic should be parsed into industrial/power plant pollution and wood-and-dung pollution, the latter being a tragic consequence of not having electricity for as many as one billion people around the world.

Fossil-fuel plants are a large step up the health ladder in this regard, which again brings the primacy of energy density into play.

Judith Curry

Dessler directs the reader for “further reading” to SkepticalScience.com. Why not also mention Climate Etc. by Judith Curry? She is highly credentialed, traffics in peer-reiewed science, gives voice to important “skeptic” arguments ignored elsewhere, and calls out exaggerated and unfounded arguments.

The student should be exposed to the best arguments on each side. Is Dessler afraid that his readers cannot think for themselves?

Two False Alarms

Dessler’s primer will have to drop a few things, which should inspire the question: what might be dropped–and introduced–in the next revision?

The author mentions “the extinction of the polar bears” (p. 237), a seemingly appropriate example of the economic value of a threatened species from climate change. But the most recent evidence is that polar bear populations are increasing. Resilience and adaptation are major themes that this example (and another, the coral reefs in a warming world) need to be appreciated.

Dessler in the 3rd edition also needs to drop his peak-oil nostrums (“fossil fuels will be exhausted in the next century or so” p. 235) as a we-have-to-do-it-anyway argument. His lone reference to future oil supply is Kenneth Deffeyes discredited Beyond Oil (2006), which needs to be expunged.

No doubt Dessler will showcase Hurricane Harvey and climate change in the 3rd edition. One only hopes that in addition to warming, he explains the highly unique weather pattern that stalled the storm, the history of Houston flooding, and the very small loss of life due to fossil-fueled wealth-is-health.

Government Failure Too

Dessler mentions the hard problem of getting the many nations of the world to agree given their self-interest (p. 241). “There is no world government,” he laments (p. 241).

But even if there were one world government, imagine the compliance problems. And more fundamentally, Dessler does not consider the entire field of Public Choice economics to bring in government failure along side his well-described market failure.

Jumping from optimal policy (an ivory tower exercise) to real-world politics introduces a raft of distortions that must be factored in from the beginning. Perfect government addressing imperfect markets is a basic fallacy that Dessler does not seem to understand. (So is a third categorical failure, analytic failure, which accounts for expert mistakes in areas of unsettled, evolving knowledge.

Public Policy: The Carbon Tax

Dessler describes a carbon levy on each fossil fuel as “reasonably easy to implement” (p. 201). But his discussion fails to mention how a domestic levy must be joined by a global tariff system (“border adjustments”) to prevent gaming by industry in nations not subject to a similar tax.

And what about equity adjustments given the regressive nature of the levy–a “fairness” issue that he brings up as an argument against adaptation (pp. 180, 238)? A carbon tax is very complicated, indeed.

“Climate Safe” Energy

Dessler uses the term “climate safe energy” (p. 235) for non-carbon-based fuels. But as the last century has proven, fossil fuels are climate protecting energies.

And the dual problem of low density/intermittency makes wind and solar weather unsafe energies because reliability and affordability problems.

Conclusion: The Burden of Proof

An alarmist challenge to business-as-usual bears a burden of proof. The author must carefully consider counter-arguments, particularly given the litany of exaggeration and false climate alarms emanating from James Hansen, Al Gore, John Holdren, et al.

The falsified Peak Oil alarm, which enjoyed consensus-science support, should also encourage humility from climate activists who speak of tipping points, points of no return, and looming crises.

Dessler briefly describes Malthusianism (p. 168) but fails to consider the challenge to more people-more problems. The Julian Simon view of the world reverses the I = PAT equation to extol the benefits of more people, growing affluence, and greater technology, leading to a far different public policy program of dealing with climate change.

The burden of proof also rests with alarmists who beg us to believe that our personal and business choices must be coercively upended by government. Let the debate continue across the disciplines–and may Professor Andrew Dessler up his interdisciplinary game in the name of scholarship.

[1] The iconic graph below, updated as necessary, should be sympathetically presented and rigorously evaluated by Dessler in the 3rd edition–as if its author (John Christy) was in the room.

[2] My disagreement stems from the fundamental requirement of energy density in light of the open-ended mineral resource future. Geoengineering could well come into play, if needed, in a future century.