Repenting recidivists

The well-known sceptical environmentalist, (as he calls himself,) Björn Lomborg, is marketing his new book “Cool it”. He does so in an article with the witty title “Global Warning” in which he repeats his arguments that there are other issues more pressing and important to deal with than the global warming.

As in earlier articles, the stories told are anecdotal and fragmented, and often seem to be taken out of context. It is true that many of us have, in many respects, a better life today than decades ago, but that is certainly not evidence of a continuous development for the betterment of all, worldwide.

Polar bears, too close for comfort

He claims that the polar bear, an oft-used indicator of global warming hazards, is a growing population, and the hunting in Hudson Bay is more dangerous to these animals than global warming. The truth seems to be that the reason for the hunting in Hudson Bay is that polar bears have to retreat and find new habitats when the ice melts. They then come “too close for comfort” to humans in the villages who sometimes have to give an armed response.

In the New York Review of Books, Bill McKibben has reviewed both this piece of Lomborg’s and a few other books that deal with various aspects of climate change, and have various attitudes to the problem. In his review, he shows the fallacies of the arguments very well, but also adds that scientists will spend many hours flagging the distortions and half-truths that Lomborg offers.

If Lomborg is a recidivist in his trade, he shows little repentance. For a while, it looks as if he subscribes to some of the findings and claims of the IPCC, but McKibben assumes that he does so only to put himself in a position to take another blow at Al Gore! If so, it is political positioning rather than a scientific statement

Be nice, retaliatory, forgiving and clear

In a totally different piece of work, “New Energy Finance” shows a very interesting application of game theory for climate negotiations. Their starting point is the well-known prisoners dilemma. The problem is, whether I, as a prisoner with my accomplice in another cell, should plead guilty and reduce my sentence, or keep my mouth shut and either face a release, because my partner also is silent, or face a more severe sentence because my partner has squealed.

In this article, they show that this game setting is unrealistic for climate negotiations, but can be applied when the game is played over and over again. The players then learn lessons of best practice in order to win! From this sort of gaming, they come up with the advice (to climate negotiators) to be:

· Nice: Cooperate and do not defect.
· Retaliatory: and inflict punishment to defectors.
· Forgiving: to the sinner and restore co-operation.
· Clear: that you will apply these three rules, and thus that there is an incentive to join you.

So, climate negotiations from this perspective might best be played by hardened, repentant criminals?

These rules, however, make a lot of sense. Don’t they?