Tierney torment misses the point

John Tierney, the NYT science writer who "always wanted to be a scientist but went into journalism because its peer-review process was a great deal easier to sneak through," is again publicizing his view that the public should be skeptical about Obama science appointee John Holdren because of his participation in the infamous Julian Simon/Paul Erhlich bet about resource scarcity.

In a nutshell, in the early '70's, Simon, remembered most for his belief that human population could grow forever and never require controlling (documented in his book The Ultimate Resource), bet population ecologist Paul Erhlich, holder of the 100% opposite belief that population should and could be controlled immediately to husband scarce resources (in The Population Bomb), that his thesis was flawed.

Erhlich famously lost the bet, and this loss has been used (as if it were serious evidence) by neoconservatives against sustainability advocates ever since.

A deeper understanding of the bet is that it is a clash of economic ideology against physics and ecology.

Essentially, Simon bet that humans would find a way to adapt in each and every case of resource scarcity by substituting or innovating around problems because of the incentive to change provided by increased price. The free market would always win.

Erhlich, essentially, bet that some resources could not be substituted for. Physical resource constraints would limit global population, and Ehrlich wished to avoid the Malthusian crunch.

Simon invited Erhlich to pick any resource commodity to monitor to see who was correct. If the real price of the commodity increased after a certain time, Erhlich would win the bet. If not, Simon would win.

Simon won because the five commodity metals, which were picked by Holdren for Erhlich, all decreased in price.

Forensic reconstruction and deconstruction of this famous wager is a specialty obsession carried on by sustainability geeks and neo-conservatives around the world, as if it somehow mattered. I once took this stuff seriously enough myself to go interview Simon for my own research. It was easy enough to get an interview. Simon had an appointment in the UMD Business School, which was in the same building, Van Munching Hall, in which I spent the first four years of my PhD.

Simon was charismatic, lively, charming, and utterly conceited. It was easy to see why he relished the bet. Ehrlich and Holdren were foolish to take him on, inadvertently helping him publicize his views. In particular, back then in the early days of academic sustainability, few ecologists were studying economics, which was generally seen as part of the problem, not the solution, and so most of the early work was characterized by a reliance on ecology and physics, untempered by supply/demand and other economic theory.

The ecological economics movement would eventually emerge to begin to correct the trend. But that would be years later.

Tierney, it seems, is a Simon protégé. To the point of initiating a new bet, this time with peak oil guru Matthew Simmons.

Oy.

Imitation is the sincerest from of flattery, I guess. But again, both Simmons and Tierney are missing the point. And Tierney, to compound his Simon-like arrogance, is using the occasion to cast aspersions on John Holdren.

Whose career since the initial Simons/Erhlich bet has been stellar to say the least, blameless, and a serious contribution to world science. And peer-reviewed. Unlike Tierney's.

Jealousy.

What is the real point?

Of course humans, within reason, can find technical workarounds for any given resource scarcity. What the economists predict, the engineers usually deliver. With no help, I might add, from economists, ecologists or science writers. High price is often sufficient. No-one likes to leave 100 dollar bills lying in the ground. And we can likely find workarounds for our current scarcity-driven problems, particularly in energy. Some of us are even actually working on the problems, not just writing about them.

But the root of resource scarcity is population growth. And who really wants to live on a planet with 9.5 billion people? Especially one whose climate is changing unpredictably? All that concrete, all those cities, that much less space for wilderness, wildlife, farms and gardens? What Patrick Geddes called the "real wealth."

No-one.

Not even John Tierney!

And does John Tierney know for sure that free market high price is going to be sufficient incentive to control carbon emissions before a major feedback such as methane or albedo kicks in? Before we enter some accelerated phase of climate change.

Of course not. When Simon and Erhlich made their bet, abrupt climate change was barely known. If the planet decides to enter an accelerated warming or cooling cycle, all bets will be off. There won't be any time or ability for either unbridled market economics, or getting-the-price-right ecological economics, to do a damn thing.

Maybe Nick Stern is right. Maybe an insurance policy is the best way to look at carbon pricing. At least it gets us away from this forever debate between Malthusians and Cornucopians.