Schneider er død,
Stanford climate researcher Stephen H. Schneider, a long-time friend, colleague and Edge contributor, died last month at the age of 65 of a heart attack while on a flight to London.
og i den anledning har Edge en nekrolog hvor de blant annet reposter en video av et intervju fra 2008.
Videoen er 20 minutter lang og svært severdig.
Det mest interessante var der han beskriver et prosjekt hvor han og studentene hans kobler sammen en "enkel" klimamodell og en "enkel" økonomisk modell:
It turned out that all those parameters that mattered to the climate model, and all those parameters that mattered to the economics model, while they still mattered a bit in the coupled model, were completely trumped by two parameters that controlled the behavior of the coupled system. Climate sensitivity was the big gorilla from the climate side, and the discount rate—how much we value the future—emerged as dominant from the economic side.(mine uthevinger)
Klimaets følsomhet er det neppe mye vi får gjort med, men hva med vår discount rate? Her er et av Nate Hagens essays om temaet:
Living for the Moment while Devaluing the Future
(Jeg må le litt av Hagens innimellom, for eksempel når han skriver at
Everyone is familiar with the 'discount rate' in the financial markets.
Øøøh alle som har en finansbakgrunn som Hagens, sikkert, men ellers en ørliten overdrivelse kanskje? Vel, han forklarer begrepet, så han mente det vel ikke helt bokstavelig 8-)
Uansett,
The original neoclassical assumption was that the discount rate curve was exponential, meaning that we discounted the same from period to period. Actual economic experiments however show that the shape of the discount curve is hyperbolic, or as Harvard economist David Laibson prefers quasi-hyperbolic. This means that the early periods have much steeper discount rates than later periods. Laibsons research indicates that peoples discount rates are 12% during days 0-5 but drop to 4% in days 20-25. We REALLY prefer the present.
og til slutt
Understanding that stress increases peoples discount rates suggests to me that the events surrounding peak oil (and perhaps climate change) will reach an inflection point. We need to hit the emotional triggers well ahead of peak oil. Once people are stressed and things become difficult, accessing peoples rational minds will be all the harder.
Dersom dette skal gå bra må vi ("vi" = verdenssamfunnet) tilskrive fremtiden større verdi. Det er en vanskelig nok ting å oppnå i seg selv.
Det blir ikke lettere av at vi har dårlig tid.
Innlegg
