But if its real…
Anne Jolis of the WSJ documents how the IPCC conveniently forgets to properly document the possible benefits of any future global warming.
According to a 2004 paper by British geographer and climatologist Nigel Arnell, global warming would likely reduce the world’s total number of people living in “water-stressed watersheds”—that is, areas with less than 1,000 cubic meters of water resources per capita, per year—even though many regions would see increased water shortages. Using multiple models, Mr. Arnell predicted that if temperatures rise, between 867 million and 4.5 billion people around the world could see increased “water stress” by 2085. But Mr. Arnell also found that “water stress” coulddecrease for between 1.7 billion and 6 billion people. Taking the average of the two ranges, that means that with global warming, nearly 2.7 billion people could see greater water shortages—but 3.85 billion could see fewer of them.
Mr. Arnell’s paper, funded by the U.K. government, was duly cited in the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s supposedly authoritative 2007 assessment report. But the IPCC uses Mr. Arnell’s research to give the opposite impression, by a form of single-entry book-keeping. While it dutifully tallies the numbers of people he predicts will be left with less water access, it largely ignores the greater number likely to see more water courtesy of climate change
In any climate debate, the alarmists must first reasonably show that warming is real. Then they must show that the costs of warming are more than the benefits of warming (If its the other way round, should we be subsidizing global warming….you know externalities?). Then if global warming is real and net bad, then the costs of preventing/mitigating must be lower than its net bad effects.
Only then, one can begin to make a case for something like Kyoto or Copenhagen. Even then, if the difference between the net benefits of policy action and net costs of policy action are not too high, it might still make sense to do nothing because globally coordinated regulations and taxes (needed to fight warming, and to prevent protectionist wars in the name of green-ism) will create a dangerous precedent for global government.
Therefore, the alarmists have to do a lot of explaining. The onus of proof lies on their side.
