SuperFreakonomics or Our Choice

Two books have come out recently that address solutions to anthropogenic climate change. SuperFreakonomics by Steve D. Levitt and Stephen J. Dubner is the sequel to the authors’ multi-million selling Freakonomics whose aim was to teach us that everything can be understood if we just look at the numbers. Our Choice by Al Gore is the sequel to his multi-million selling An Inconvenient Truth whose aim was to teach us that global warming was a much more urgent problem than we had realized.


I could never attempt a better take on SuperFreakonomics than Elizabeth Kolbert’s review in the New Yorker this week entitled “Hosed .” Also an open letter to Steve Levitt from Dr. Raymond T. Pierrehumbert, a professor of geophysics at the University of Chicago provides a critique of one argument presented in SuperFreak that is worth reading. As far as Gore’s book is concerned, Newsweek has put him on their cover this week with the title “The Thinking Man’s Thinking Man.” Their review of Our Choice is downright glowing – especially as it relates to the work Gore did to gather the information for the book and his knowledge of minutia related to climate change science and engineering issues around renewable energy.

Ultimately the message of SuperFreak is that we can best address climate change through geoengineering – large planet-wide initiatives to address the symptoms of climate change. Geoengineering is about changing the planet to align with human needs. Gore on the other hand does not believe geoengineering is the right approach. “We are already involved in a massive, unplanned planetary experiment,” he writes. “We should not begin yet another planetary experiment in the hope that it will somehow magically cancel out the effects of the one we already have.”

From my perspective, climate change is the consequence of a misalignment between two very powerful systems – the earth and the global economy. A system is a grouping of interrelated and interdependent components in the service of an aim. Every component within a given system must in some way align to the aim of the overall system. The consequences of misalignment are sub-optimization, decay and the potential destruction of the system. In the case of climate change, the system is the earth and embedded within that system is a powerful sub-system called the global economy. Climate change is a symptom of the lack of alignment between the global economy and the earth of which it is a part and on which it completely depends.

Instead of aligning the global economy to how the earth works, geoengineering tweaks the earth to accomodate the global economy. For example one geoengineering solution to climate change is to change the composition of the earth's atmosphere by adding more SO2 in order to bring down global temperatures. But such action only further increases the variation in the system - acidifying the oceans and adversely affecting weather systems. It doesn't stop the increase in CO2 which means more and more SO2 will be needed, bringing more and more acidification, and more and more variation and instability within the system.

A long-term solution to climate change will only come from an appreciation for the earth and the global economy as one system. Understanding nature’s example of self-organization, interdependence and diversity will provide the basis for solutions. Nature is information intense and energy efficient and there are great opportunities for the global economy to move in this direction. Nature gets its current energy income from the sun – and the global economy has underutilized this resource – enough solar energy hits the earth's surface every hour to power the entire economy for a year. Nature sees waste from one process as a resource for another – this is also an important lesson for a 9-billion member (by 2050) human economy to learn.

SuperFreak is written by an economist who breaks things apart and starts measuring everything hoping to find answers in the disparate pieces. Our Choice is written by someone who has consulted with hundreds of the world's experts on science and engineering in addressing this one problem (the book's dedication is four pages long single-spaced.) While much can be learned by breaking things apart as economists do, what is lost is the system-ness of what is being studied. Addressing climate change is all about an appreciation for system-ness. On that basis, Our Choice is a well thought out resource for addressing climate change while SuperFreakonomics is way out of alignment.

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