climate change solutions – on the cheap
I finally got around to reading Superfreakonomics, the economics book for people who never took an econ class in college (the book is equally useful for econ majors, btw). I finished it last night and it was well worth the read; better than the first book, I’d say.
In Freakonomics, the central theme was that people are motivated by incentives. In Superfreakonomics, they also introduced us to the idea that most innovative ideas—ones that actually work well—are relatively simple and cheap. Their examples include hand-washing (in a hospital in the 1800s, before germ theory), seat belts, and, of course, innovative ideas to reverse global warming and actually cause global cooling.
That last point intrigued me. They pointed out that scientists converge their results in order to procure additional funding (they’re capitalists, it seems, and they’re giving their “customers” the results they want). They also compare climate change zealots to religious fanatics, a comparison I’ve made myself (not for moderates, but for people who are truly obsessed and blinded by ideological zeal).
More importantly though, they pointed to some solutions to global warming. On the assumption that (man-made) global warming is indeed as dire as is projected (and I don’t think it is, but who knows?), there are solutions that are… simple and cheap! They cost in the millions rather than the trillions that are often proposed by editorialists when discussing this topic (note that much of that cost is due to externalities of regulation rather than direct).
It seems that, perhaps, human ingenuity and innovation—namely by private individuals—might be the cure for human waste and over-consumption. In fact, that fits neatly with the historical record.