All (climate) politics are local

Roger Pielke Jr. has an interesting take on a point I've made many times at Energetics: that the justification for decarbonization is not advanced by more accurate or voluminous climate science, but by a campaign based on transitioning to a cleaner, safer, cheaper and more accesible energy economy.

Consider the following thought experiment. Divide the world up into 1,000 grid boxes of equal area. Now imagine that the temperature in each of 500 of those boxes goes up by 20 degrees while the temperature in the other 500 goes down by 20 degrees. The net global change is exactly zero (because I made it so). However, the impacts would be enormous. Let's further say that the changes prescribed in my thought experiment are the direct consequence of human activity. Would we want to address those changes? Or would we say, ho hum, it all averages out globally, so no problem? The answer is obvious and is not a function of what happens at some global average scale, but what happens at human and ecological scales.

Pielke here echoes the famous axiom "all politics are local." His thought experiment also calls to mind the debate over the terms "global warming" versus "climate change," both of which are accurate but the latter of which is vague enough to make the science harder refute with a particularly intense snow storm. The point is, all politics are local, and ecosystems are even more local*. Calculating the need for decarbonization as a function of global average surface temperature increases makes less sense than using more local, more intense and more observable climatic effects.

Of course, this discussion proves Pielke's larger point. Whether we call it "global warming" or "climate change," whether we're on track for 600 ppm CO₂ or 615, whether my locale experiences any noticeable climatic changes or not -- these questions do not affect my personal advocacy for decarbonization in the slightest.

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*Can I say "more local"? Get back to me wordsmiths.