Here are my sources:

• All the 2010 weather information was compiled from official/reputable sources by meteorologist Jeff Masters
• Minot evacuation (Jeff Masters)
• Tornado damage estimates (AIR Worldwide)
• Nuclear regulator investigation (AP)
• Radioactive tritium leaks (AP)
• Government response to leak investigation (GAO)

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– Grover Norquist (Americans for Tax Reform)

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In his latest book, Keynes’s biographer Lord Robert Skidelsky argues that you just can’t insure against some risks. In fact, some expectations shouldn’t be called risks at all. One of Keynes’s least appreciated contributions, also voiced by his contemporary Frank Knight, was the importance of uncertainty, events in the future that we can’t measure or predict because we don’t have enough information or computational capacity.

Markets depend on prices, and prices depend on information, rational behavior, and predictable distributions of random shocks. When those foundations break down, governments are the only institutions that have the ability to restore order, from central banks injecting liquidity during credit crunches to regulators preventing or monitoring new innovations (be they financial derivatives or oil rigs) with uncertain social costs.

One important example that I haven’t spent enough time talking about is…  

Earthquakes and oil spills are rare, but at least we can estimate how many to expect. Fair enough, but what about climate change?

With record-breaking ocean temperatures this year, climate scientists expect an active hurricane season. [S]houldn’t the government do its part to prevent greenhouse gases from clouding insurers’ ability to predict weather disasters?

Now economists Simon Dietz, Geoffrey Heal, and Antony Miller have joined the club with a new paper showing how standard probability theory doesn’t account for uncertainty properly and how many economists therefore underestimate the need for “immediate, rapid cuts in greenhouse gas emissions.” They list 3 important reasons for uncertainty (a.k.a. 3 assumptions that standard economic theory ignores):

The first is futurity, in particular the uncertain future socio-economic trends that determine the path of emissions, as well as how numerous and well off we will be when the impacts of today’s emissions occur.

Second, there is the considerable complexity of the climate system, not to mention its linkages with ecosystems and the economy, which means that it is hard to know whether our models are a reasonable simplification.

Third, there is the fact that the system is non-linear. This greatly increases the significance of model misspecification.

Other economists’ predictions, when compared as a group, confirm these weaknesses:

First, notice that, irrespective of what model is applied, the distribution is wide, and skewed to have what we might loosely call a “fat tail” of low-probability, high-temperature outcomes. This means that any cost-benefit analysis of emissions cuts that abstracts from uncertainty by working solely with a best guess of the climate sensitivity is likely to be misleading.

Second, notice the obvious fact that the various models disagree on what the distribution looks like precisely and that the spread between some sample pairs of models is wide.

They go on to explain that seemingly “irrational” behavior is actually the correct response to uncertainty. But that’s a conversation for another day…

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One trend that seems to be applied to more and more problems today is underestimation. We as Americans seem to want to deny most of our large issues. Climate change, oil spills, deforestation of rain forests, many environmental conflicts and issues fall into this category, along with the most recent British Petroleum oil leak in the Gulf.  

When the initial explosion occurred off the coast of Louisiana, rough estimates and conjectures determined that the leaks weren’t concerning and it would be fixed promptly. More than a month later, we’re seeing the serious environmental impacts of the oil as well as the efforts used to stem its spread. From 5,000 barrels a day to more than 25,000, the course of time has only underscored the fact that people are willing to overlook serious factors in order to maintain a more optimistic outlook for a very serious problem.

While the timeline is much different, similar problems have plagued the movement against climate change. Though the issue is much more complex, the dilemma has only been hindered by controversial science, calculations, and estimates. The real problem is our own inability as a society to take responsibility for the full brunt of any given complication.

As I’ve stated in the past, to get American citizens to take charge of their own impact on our environment is hard enough, but to take responsibility and be honest about an issue that could potentially change a small economy, entire industries, the survival of dozens of species and ecosystems is hard to imagine — let alone our entire planet and global society.

While animals and plants are dying, people losing their jobs and entire regions being impacted in the Gulf, I think each and every one of us needs to consider what a difference each one of us can make. By simply taking responsibility for our own choices and actions, we can all determine our own futures, including that of our planet.

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Today, you can check out my column explaining what that next challenge should be. (Yes, I’m back at the Hazleton Standard-Speaker, but only once a month.)

The challenge is energy reform. We need to be clearer about the words we use for this debate. When we talk about cap-and-trade or climate change, it tends to scare people away. It sounds big and complicated, and it gives the false impression that global warming is the only motivation for such legislation. But as my column explains, climate change is only half the problem. We also need to raise the price of carbon because of the economic and national security drawbacks of our dependence on foreign oil. And just like health care, the energy market has negative externalities that the government can reduce. Hence, energy reform.

If you follow the links in our “What to Read” series, none of the column should surprise you. If, on the other hand, you get most of your news from the mainstream media, it probably comes as a bit of cognitive dissonance. (That’s what I aim for. If I didn’t teach you something new, there wouldn’t be much point to writing my op-ed, would there?)  

Here are my main sources:

• Massive moisture-driven extreme precipitation during warmest winter in the satellite record — and the deniers say it disproves (!) climate science
• Global boiling: Freak storms on every continent
• We get more snow storms in warm years!
• Groundhog decade: We’re stuck on a bad movie, where it’s always the hottest decade on record
• Global cooling bites the dust: Hottest January followed by second hottest February. Now March is busting out.
• Red River rising: 18th consecutive year of flooding–why?
• The challenges ahead for world oil
• The future of intense winter storms
• A very productive Congress, despite what the approval ratings say
• Working harder and hard to keep oil production from falling
• Oil companies look at permanent refinery cutbacks

Some links are buried within those links. If, for example, you want to see exactly what the NOAA or NSO said, you’ll find links to their reports within the Climate Progress posts above. And if you have no idea what the NOAA or NSO are, read the column!

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