Saturday
Aug112012
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Quote of the day
Aug 11, 2012 Climate: WG2 Economics Who among us would choose to exchange modernity and its stupendous prosperity for whatever reduction in global temperature we’d enjoy had all the greenhouse gasses emitted over the past 250, 260 years never been released?
Don Boudreaux tries valiantly to bring a CBS radio host back to something resembling reality.
Reader Comments (14)
There are, however, those amongst us who would enforce an exchange of modernity and it's stupendous prosperity for ANY reduction in global temperature as long as only OTHER people were affected.
Envnironmentalism itself is a result of the huge increase in prosperity. I was working in a telecom research lab many years ago when one of my colleagues accosted me in the corridor and aasked, "WTF are we doing here trying to make bits go faster down pieces of glass, it all seems so pointless?" I had just read Arnold Toynbee's History of the World and was able to answer his question with one sentence.
"We're staying out of the way of the combined harvesters."
I went on to explain that Toynbee had traced the growth in prosperity back to improvements in farming techniques from when one family farmed a small area of land and subsisted on what they could get from that (aka "green heaven") but as improvements had been made in farming techniques the same farmer could now feed hundreds of people from the same piece of land, freeing up the rest of us to do things like build sewers, ponder the wonders of the universe, open restaurants and the rest of the whole panoply of the wonders of modern living. Of course the devil makes work for idle hands and when prosperity is reaching its zenith up pops the environmental movement, with for sure some important objectives in protecting the environment, but gradually its militant wing have taken over and identified the evil on earth as humans.
They are so used to the comforts of modern life that they imagine they came about naturally and that tampering with the social and economic structures that have given us this prosperity, unimaginable in the 1950s, will have no effect on them, their families, or indeed the environmental objectives.
When we're all poorer, as they want, we'll not have the money to spare to help Children in Need, or the NSPCC, or GOSH, or any of the other organisations that help people, and we certainly won't give a FF for animals, forests and polluted seas. We'll be concentrating on clothing, feeding and keeping warm during the winter.
Aug 11, 2012 at 8:32 AM | geronimo
Which lab ? Dollis, martle or Bell ?
I used to have BT as a customer and often had to travel to Martlesham near Ipswich.
I always came away from the place with the most shocking headaches and wondered if all this prosperity was worth having my brain fried.
Of course it sounds like a natural progression, but in fact there is a huge step betwen selling your surplus production and running a farm "as a business" - that was the Great Leap Forward in the 17th and 18th Centuries.
Geronimo; this is about all you need have said in answer: "They are so used to the comforts of modern life that they imagine they came about naturally and that tampering with the social and economic structures that have given us this prosperity, unimaginable in the 1950s, will have no effect on them, their families, or indeed the environmental objectives."
It tells the full story in one short, sharp paragraph.
Stephen, Martlesham.
Roger, much better and more erudite. Thanks.
A variation of this question: how many people would willingly exchange the present-day climate for the climate of the 1680s or 1840s even up?
We are just about to find out [by 2025]!
first world problems invented by the idle in the first world because the first world wealth has taken all the real problems away from them
Stephen, Martlesham.
Roger, much better and more erudite. Thanks.
Aug 11, 2012 at 11:35 AM | geronimo
Me too. Left in 97 . live the good life in france.
I wonder just how many of these people screaming for environmental justice would be able to survive in the world they envision.
Stephen, we may know each other, I left in '83 to go into product development. Think of all the Gerry's you know who whose name may sound like geronimo.
I can only remember 2 gerrys and then not very clearly. In '83 I had just got my BSc and think I was working in R2. Ion Implantation. I was there from '75 to 84.
A variation of this question: how many people would willingly exchange the present-day climate for the climate of the 1680s or 1840s even up?
Aug 11, 2012 at 3:02 PM | Steve McIntyre
Summer of 1976 in the UK would do it for me, these cold wet summers we are getting lately are depressing. The 1930's wasn't too bad either.