Dirty Little Secrets

Dirty little secrets
Dirty little lies
We got our dirty little fingers in everybodys pie
We love to cut you down to size
We love dirty laundry

We can do the innuendo
We can dance and sing
When its said and done we havent told you a thing
We all know that crap is king
Give us dirty laundry!
(Don Henley, Dirty Laundry)

Bjorn Lomborg, who does believe that humans cause global warming, but who does not believe in the foolishly expensive quick fixes being touted by the true believers airs a bit of dirty laundry today. The much ballyhooed European agreement to cut CO2 emissions by 20% is actually worse than useless.

But nobody sees fit to reveal the agreement's dirty little secret: It will do next to no good - and again at very high cost. According to one well-established and peer-reviewed model, the effect of the EU cutting emissions by 20 percent will postpone warming in the 21st century by just two years, yet the cost will be about $90 billion annually. It will be costly, because Europe is a costly place to cut carbon-dioxide, and it will be inconsequential, because the EU will account for only about 6 percent of all emissions in the 21st century. So the new treaty will be an even less efficient use of our resources than the old Kyoto Protocol.
http://www.dailystar.com.lb.

It is important to learn from the past. We have often been promised dramatic cuts in carbon-dioxide emissions far into the future, only to see the promises vanish when we got there. In Rio de Janeiro in 1992, the West promised to stabilize emissions, but overshot this by 12 percent. In Kyoto, we were promised a 7 percent reduction in world emissions, but will probably achieve only 0.4 percent. Of course, such promises are made by politicians who in all likelihood are no longer in office when the time comes to fulfil them.

Things like this cost inordinate amounts of money and yet do virtually nothing to actually fix the problem. Lomborg says there are real strategies, but not these quick fixes that cripple economies:

We will not be able to solve global warming over the next decades, but only over the next half or full century. We need to find a viable, long-term strategy that is smart, equitable, and doesn't require inordinate sacrifice for trivial benefits. Fortunately, there is such a strategy: research and development. Investing in the research and development of non-carbon-emitting energy technologies would leave future generations able to make serious and yet economically feasible and advantageous cuts. A new global warming treaty should mandate spending 0.05 percent of GDP on research and development in the future. It would be much cheaper, yet do much more good in the long run.

I do not completely agree with Lomborg. Yet he's right that the Gorezilla approach is worse than useless. Because it makes people think something is actually being done while accomplishing no good worth mentioning. It does, however cost a lot and causes real economic damage. (But it sure will enrich some folks like Gorezilla, the strip-mine king). Dirty little secrets, indeed.