Insurance for a Warming Planet

COMMENT BOOKS & ARTS V. Dithajohn/epa/Corbis V.

Rare but catastrophic climate events, such as drought, can have unfathomable costs.

CLIMATE CHANGE meaningful value to be assigned. And cost alone is not the best way to choose between options — geo engineering, for example, is expensive in terms of risk but may be Insurance for a necessary if we are faced with a disaster scenario such as runaway temperatures. It makes more sense to think of the solutions as making up a portfolio of options, includ- warming planet ing others such as nuclear power, guided by risk analysis. All of the cost/benefit estimates in Smart Climate policy should be viewed as protection against Solutions are based on deterministic mod- uncertain future risks, says Martin L. Weitzman. els — uncertainty doesn’t figure much in this book. The assessments rely on joint computer modelling of economic growth jørn Lomborg has been a lightning carbon sequestration by forests; market and and climate change rod for controversy since he pub- policy-driven adaptation to climate change; to examine the trade- lished The Skeptical Environmen- technology-led climate policy; and tech- offs: whether or not we Btalist in 2001. Yet in the time between his nology transfer. Each proposal is set out, incur the costs of miti- first book and this third edited volume, critiqued from two alternative perspectives gation now to benefit there has been a sea change in his attitude and summarized by an expert panel of five from less-severe cli- to climate change. Lomborg, director of economists. It is a constructive book that mate change in the the Copenhagen Consensus Center think focuses seriously on finding effective ways future. Key param- tank, now characterizes the fundamental to combat global warming, and the differ- eters are approxi- question as “not if we should do something ences of opinions it expresses are stimulating mated by firm values, about global warming, but rather how best and enlightening. But the book falls short in Smart Solutions to such as the median or to go about it”. its treatment of risk. Climate Change: mean, rather than a Smart Solutions to Climate Change To help prioritize the proposals, each Comparing Costs probability distribu- and Benefits presents economic analyses of eight analysis calculates a cost/benefit ratio. bjØrn Lomborg tion. The modelling proposed solutions to climate-related prob- However, the estimates used are of uneven Cambridge University thus becomes a knob- lems: climate engineering; mitigation of quality. Some solutions, such as tech- Press: 2010. 432 pp. twiddling exercise in carbon dioxide, methane and black carbon; nology-led policy, are too vague for a $29.99 optimizing outcomes,

784 | NATURE | VOL 467 | 14 OCTObER 2010 © 2010 Macmillan Publishers Limited. All rights reserved BOOKS & ARTS COMMENT where it is easy to flirt with high carbon dioxide concentrations. Such modelling breeds complacency — Books in brief temperature targets can be hit exactly, economic and ecological damages from high Choke: What the Secrets of the Brain Reveal About Getting It Right temperatures are low to begin with, and When You Have To the pain of action now is greater than the Sian Beilock fr e e Pr e s s 304 pp. $26 (2010) pain of damages in a century or two when When the pressure’s on, we’ve all ‘choked’ — hit the wrong discounted at current interest rates. But in note, flunked an exam or messed up an interview. Cognitive reality, there is no such thing as hitting a psychologist sian beilock explains why. Describing how memory target of 2 °C, 4 °C or any other temperature works, she shows that experts whose minds brim with facts are change. Everything is probabilistic. more likely to freeze than novices. social stereotyping also leads The economics of climate change is us to underperform. beilock’s solutions for big occasions are mainly about decision-making under simple: reaffirm your self-worth, write away your worries and keep extreme uncertainty. Climate-change practising. if the worst happens, pause and refocus. analysis is hampered by many unknowns in the science combined with an inability to evaluate meaningfully the welfare losses Genetic Twists of Fate from increased global temperatures. The Stanley Fields and Mark Johnston Mit Pr e s s 240 pp. $24.95 (2010) values of key future parameters — global minuscule inherited changes in our Dna can have major effects and regional average temperatures, dam- on our lives. geneticists stanley Fields and mark johnston explain ages to the world’s economy and ecology, how genes affect our health, from conditions such as alzheimer’s welfare, costs of unproven technologies and disease, cancer, diabetes and depression to rare genetic disorders. so forth — cannot be known now. Instead, giving the science a personal twist, they relate how a mother was they must be treated as random variables, yet wrongly accused of killing her son when the cause of death was to be drawn from some probability distribu- in fact a rare inherited condition, and how former Us president tion that itself is uncertain. Dwight eisenhower’s hereditary heart disease was treated with an A striking feature of the economics of anticoagulant derived from rat poison. climate change is that rare but catastrophic events may have unfathomable costs. Deep uncertainty about the unknown unknowns Science is Culture: Conversations at the New Intersection of of what might go wrong is therefore cou- Science and Society pled with essentially unlimited liability. The Edited by Adam Bly Ha r P e r Pe r e n n i a l 368 pp. $15.99 (2010) resulting battle between declining prob- science is often divorced from mainstream culture. this collection abilities and increasing damages is difficult of conversations between 44 top scientists and thinkers from to resolve. Alas, this uncertainty can figure the humanities, first published in Seed magazine, aims to blur prominently in evaluations of climate- the boundaries. entomologist e. o. Wilson discusses evolution change policies. Its absence in a book dealing with philosopher Daniel Dennett; linguist noam Chomsky with economic comparisons of smart solu- and sociobiologist robert trivers debate war and deceit; and tions is a serious omission. astrobiologist jill tarter muses on alien life and reality with Will When confronted with the possibility of Wright, designer of the computer game Spore. extreme damages at low probabilities, most people do not look to averages. Instead they think about how much insurance Neutrino they need, and can afford to buy, to survive Frank Close Ox f O r d University Pr e s s 176 pp. £9.99 (2010) those events. Climate policy is better viewed by the time you have read this paragraph, some 50 trillion neutrinos as buying insurance for the planet against will have passed through your body. Formed in stars and through extreme outcomes than as the solution to radioactivity, these enigmatic particles rarely interact, travelling a multivariate problem over which we have through matter almost unseen. particle physicist Frank Close control. To analyse policies in terms of explains how it took 26 years for the neutrino — ‘little neutron’ in deterministic cost/benefit ratios is to mar- italian, as named by enrico Fermi — to be detected in the lab after ginalize the very possibilities that make its prediction by Wolfgang pauli in 1930. Close describes ongoing climate change so grave. attempts to capture neutrinos, to determine their mass and to Lomborg concludes that, if we value our understand their significance in the Universe. planet’s future, we must “start seriously focusing, right now, on the most effective ways to fix global warming”. Despite Gay, Straight, and the Reason Why: The Science of Sexual Orientation its limitations, Smart Solutions marks Simon LeVay Ox f O r d University Pr e s s 432 pp. $27.95 (2010) symbolically the end of one stage of think- the theory that sexual orientation has a biological basis receives ing about climate change and the beginning support in neuroscientist simon LeVay’s book. relating evidence of another. ■ from genetics, neuroscience and developmental biology, he suggests that prenatal interactions between hormones and the Martin L. Weitzman is professor of developing brain influence adult sexuality. LeVay, who published economics in the Department of Economics, a 1991 Science paper on brain differences in gay and straight Harvard University, Cambridge, men, believes we should accept that homosexuality in humans is Massachusetts 02138, USA. biologically hardwired, as it may be in other species such as geese.