The whole book is a witty and quick 250 page read. I would even go so far as to say that it is probably the best, most witty and readable articulation of fundamental economics principles that I have come across. And while I enjoyed Steven Levitt’s Freakonomics book, this one was much better at articulating and detailing fundamental principles. Now many folks might be put off by that description, but trust me, the whole work is an engaging read with stories and anecdotes that relate the principles in the process, quite unlike any boring textbook on the subjects.

Here is a short excerpt from one of my favorite sections to give you a flavor for the rest. (As an aside, I’ve always been a little perplexed by the “carbon neutral” proponents which have proliferated at several recent meetings I have attended, but Harford’s exposition is way more articulate than I could ever be.)

“How did you travel here today?”

“I’m sorry?”

I’m puzzled. Here I am, going to a panel discussion organized by an environmental charity, and a very eager young member of staff is grilling me before I even get past the door of the lecture hall.

“How did you travel here today? We need to know for our carbon offset program.”

“What’s a carbon offset program?”

“We want all of our meetings to be carbon neutral. We ask everyone who attends to let us know how far they came and on what mode of transportation, and then we work out how much carbon dioxide was emitted and plant trees to offset the emissions.”

The Undercover Economist is about to blow his cover.

“I see. In that case, I came here in an antrhacite powered steamer from Australia.”

“Sorry, how do you spell anthracite?”

“It’s just a kind of coal–very dirty, lots of sulfur. OW!”

The Undercover Economist’s wife gives him a sharp dig in the ribs.

“Ignore him. We both cycled here.”

“Oh.”

Apart from being a good example of how irritating an Undercover Economist can be, this true story should, I hope, provoke a few questions. Why would an environmental charity organize a carbon neutral meeting? The obvious answer is “so that it can engage in debate without contributing to climate change.” And that is true, but misleading.

The Undercover Economist in me was looking at things from the point of view of efficiency. If planting trees is a good way to deal with climate change, why not forget about the meetings and plant as many trees as possible? (In which case, everybody should say they came by steamship.) If awareness-raising debate is the important thing, why not forget about the trees and organize extra debates?

In other words, why be “carbon neutral” when you can be “carbon-optimal,” especially since the meeting was not benzene neutral, lead-neutral, particulate-neutral, ozone-neutral, sulfur-neutral, congestion-neutral, noise-neutral, or accident-neutral? Instead of working out whether to improve the environment directly (by planting trees) or indirectly (by promoting discussion), the charity was spending considerable energy keeping itself precisely “neutral”–and not even precisely neutral on all externalities, nor even a modest range of environmental toxins, but preserving its neutrality on a single high-profile pollutant: carbon dioxide. And it was doing so in a very public way.

A kind view would be that the charity was setting a “good example,” if acting nonsensically can ever be a good example. An unkind view would be that it was indulging in moral posturing.

There is plenty more of that sort of thing on a wide range of topics…

Even if you never had any interest in economics micro or macro, go buy the book right now. In fact, you can get it here on Amazon right this instant.

[Update: For the record, I am in favor of establishing a market for Carbon credits which can address emissions just as the Sulfur market addressed acid rain so efficiently. I just tend to question misplaced emphasis and what may very well be PR-motivated grandstanding that has little real impact in return for so much attention and focus.]

From the Nat Geo page:

The general trend of recent news and data around the melting of the polar ice caps is not a good one. In fact, the recent data shows that the thinning and melting of the western Arctic sea ice in particular is progressing more than 3 times faster than even the most pessimistic of climate models projected. According to William Chapman, et. al. at the University of Illinois, this melting is progressing so swiftly now, that:

This new data, along with other similar results has led NASA’s notable head of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies, James Hansen, to conclude that the prevalent climate models fail to account for the self-reinforcing feedback cycle that ensues from the melting ice, and as such, underestimate the rate at which the melting will likely occur.

Hansen warns (read Hansen’s full article on Sea Level Rises at New Scientist) that the likely results of ice faster-than-expected melts are huge rises in Sea levels. Hansen notes:

“Sea level is already rising at a moderate rate. In the past decade, it increased by 3 centimetres, about double the average rate during the preceding century. The rate of sea level rise over the 20th century was itself probably greater than the rate in the prior millennium, and this is due at least in part to human activity.”

Worse yet, is the very real possibility of runaway collapse.

“..the primary issue is whether global warming will reach a level such that ice sheets begin to disintegrate in a rapid, non-linear fashion on West Antarctica, Greenland or both. Once well under way, such a collapse might be impossible to stop, because there are multiple positive feedbacks. In that event, a sea level rise of several metres at least would be expected.

As an example, let us say that ice sheet melting adds 1 centimetre to sea level for the decade 2005 to 2015, and that this doubles each decade until the West Antarctic ice sheet is largely depleted. This would yield a rise in sea level of more than 5 metres by 2095.”

Hansen seems convinced that the most recent data on historical temperatures is more accurate than earlier research, and places our current global temperature within 1 degree of its highest temperature in the past million years, making the horrific prospect of a 5 meter increase in sea levels seem much more ominous.

He concludes:

“The broader picture strongly indicates that ice sheets will respond in a non-linear fashion to global warming – and are already beginning to do so. There is enough information now, in my opinion, to make it a near certainty that business-as-usual scenarios will lead to disastrous multi-metre sea level rise on the century time scale.”

According to Jeremy Weiss and Jonathan Overpeck at the University of Arizona, here is what Florida and the Netherlands would look like within 100 years under this scenario.

One would think that large-scale government action should be inevitable at this point. How can we get our nation in gear?

This figure illustrates the extent to which Arctic sea ice is melting faster than projected by computer models. The dotted line represents the average rate of melting indicated by computer models, with the blue area indicating the spread among the different models (shown as plus/minus one standard deviation). The red line shows the actual rate of Arctic ice loss based on observations. The observations have been particularly accurate since 1979 because of new satellite technology. (Illustration by Steve Deyo, ©UCAR, based on research by NSIDC and NCAR. News media terms of use*)

For those of you new to the global warming debate, the extent of polar ice coverage is critical to keeping temperatures low, because the ice is more reflective than the Earth or ocean beneath it. If the polar ice melts faster than expected, the bare earth or liquid water will absorb even more solar radiation and global temperatures will therefore increase faster than expected as well. This, of course, will melt more ice even faster, creating a positive feedback loop that will even further accelerate climate change.

But since that time, additional evidence has been collected by Hansen and others that, to my mind, irrefutably demonstrates and validates the hypothesis that the industrial development and emission of greenhouse gases has contributed substantially to global temperature increases.

For a more detailed look at the most recent data compilations and analysis, check out the original scientific draft report from the International Panel on Climate Change, and the IPCC’s 4th assessment report. There’s a lot of good stuff in the latter, but my favorite chart from the presentation is the following.

And in the final version:

Subsequent edits are similar.

If you want more details on the political monkeying with the scientific reports, see these articles from:

The Associated Press:

and a more detailed report from the New York Times.

Which version do you all think the general public should be exposed to, the original scientific summary provided for policy-makers, or the watered-down version spun by the politicians?

I actually think it is important to show both, and not only get the proper technical and scientific message across, but also to expose the political maneuvering and agendas hampering action on important scientific issues.

Then it struck me. The cornerstone of political support for the Republican party lies in America’s breadbasket, the Red States. The following map from the BBC article says it all.

One would think think that such a clear and present threat to their core constituency would get a little more attention. But sadly, the Republican platform is currently opposed to both efforts at mitigating global warming AND genetic engineering which could develop more climate-proof crops. It is almost as if they are trying to guarantee the economic ruin of their constituency (and the rest of the US with them) within a couple of generations. Liberals take heart!

Check the Population Clock here.