首先转载今天FT上一篇很不错的关于气候变化的文章。

 

Published: February 28 2008 18:38 | Last updated: February 28 2008 18:38

 

Al Gore says the science on global warming is clear and there is a major problem. Vaclav Klaus, Czech president, contends that climate change forecasts are speculative and unreliable. Whose claims are scarier?

 

Of course, Mr Klaus exaggerates (he is a politician) but if he is partly right, we should be more concerned, not less. Consider an analogy. If, like many of my neighbours in Oxford, you believe that new building exacerbates flooding, how would you feel if models that predicted bad news were discredited?

 

It depends. If the original models were biased, your best guess of the height of future floods is now lower. But if the models merely underestimated the uncertainty, the range of plausible outcomes is now greater, so flood defences would need to be higher for us to feel safe.

 

Likewise, if our understanding of climate systems is flawed, our best guess about the dangers we face may be less pessimistic, but extreme outcomes are more likely.

Mr Klaus is probably right that there are fewer certainties than many claim. Even commentators who support the conclusions of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change point to methodological weaknesses in its economics. A UK High Court judge recently required that a list of “scientific errors” be sent to schools that show Mr Gore’s remarkable polemic, An Inconvenient Truth – confirming the impression that the film goes some way beyond established facts (Mr Gore is also a politician).

 

But we hardly need Mr Klaus to teach us that experts’ models can be incomplete and a strong consensus can be badly flawed. Financial Times readers do not need reminding that, only last summer, hedge fund managers found their stock market models’ predictions were, in their own words, “25 standard deviations” from the outcomes; that, less than two years ago, a new drug nearly killed six human volunteers in tests in London, even though the dose was 1-500th of the amount administered to animals; or that it was a complete “out of model” surprise to biologists that feeding bonemeal to cattle would cause an epidemic of mad cow disease.

How confident can we be about the way a system as complex as earth will respond to conditions it has never encountered before? Although greater uncertainty means climate change might be less bad than we fear – for example, an “iris” effect means increases in cloud cover may slow global warming – it also means it might be much worse. While the central predictions of climate change models are arguably not so much worse than many other difficult problems the world faces, the worst possibilities are far, far nastier.

 

Consider the “clathrate gun hypothesis” that warming seas could lead to clathrates (the frozen chunks of methane at the bottom of the sea) exploding into the air, which is what might have caused mass extinction at the end of the Permian era. Or the concern that the carbon dioxide could cause hydrogen sulphide gas to build up first in the oceans then in the atmosphere, exterminating most of life (and potentially also attacking the ozone layer, permitting the sun’s ultraviolet radiation to kill remaining life) – this, too, has been blamed for previous mass extinctions.

 

I am not losing any sleep about these specific scenarios. In part that is because they seem so improbable (in spite of Mr Klaus’s eloquent expositions of how little we really know). But it is also because the fact that we have already thought of these risks means that, if it becomes necessary, we probably have time to organise a last-ditch geoengineering solution (seeding the ocean with an antidote, for example) that would at least mitigate the very worst consequences.

 

But what of completely unanticipated possibilities? Even Donald Rumsfeld, former US defence secretary, understood that it is the “unknown unknowns” that should really worry us. Serious scientists worry that feedback effects such as release of methane from the Siberian permafrost (or those underwater clathrates), or reductions in the earth’s reflectivity due to polar ice loss, could cause runaway greenhouse warming, with unforeseeable outcomes that would look like bad science fiction from today’s perspective.

 

The continuing scientific uncertainty about the pace of climate change should make us more concerned, not less. And it is those who doubt the climatologists’ models who should be the most frightened.

 

The writer is Oxford university’s Edgeworth professor of economics

 

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俺同事甲对于这篇文章的很正常的反应：

 

Interesting.  I take issue with the main premise:

 

"The continuing scientific uncertainty about the pace of climate change should make us more concerned, not less. And it is those who doubt the climatologists’ models who should be the most frightened."

 

Unless I have misunderstood some of the message, I find it hard to fathom that the inaccuracy of scientific models should be more threatening than the expected consequences of climate change.  In fact, I find the claim ridiculous.

 

Colleague A

 

俺老板对于这篇文章很酷的回应：

 

Klemperer is mistaken (though FX would doubtless agree with him), because he neglects the argument from induction.  In situations in which we don’t have reliable out-of-sample models of the future it does not follow that we have high uncertainty concerning the future.  For example, I contend that models of neuroscience and psychology are inadequate to predict my wife’s future behaviour with any great certainty.  Does that mean I should worry that she might behave in a way radically different from the past – e.g. by poisoning me or stabbing me in my sleep?  No.  For where we lack robust out-of-sample models, we are ill-placed to predict radical departures from past experience – we are ill-placed to say anything at all.

 

If our climate models are poor, all that means is that we cannot rely on predictions from them that the earth’s climate will change markedly.  It does not follow that we should therefore think it more likely that the world might end.

 

Boss

 

俺对同事甲和老板就事论事的回应：

 

Honoured to see my named mentioned so obliged to answer.

 

Response to Colleague A: our proper reaction in such situations depends not on the central most likely prediction, but the range of plausible outcomes.  A simple example: if I have less faith in weather forecast for the place I'm travelling to, I would be prudent to prepare a wider range of clothes to cope with the potentially hotter or colder weather than the central estimate.
 
Response to Boss: I would avoid the word or judgement on "right" or "wrong" - we cannot prove or disapprove whether he is wrong deductively while "wrong" is ill-defined inductively.  I fully agree we are ill-placed to say anything, and that's pretty what my position towards the scientific basis for climate change is.  But I think Klemperer's thought is reasonable: the less I'm sure of something potentially catastrophic, the more I may want to seek insurance.  That's why I'm supporting sensible anti-climate change measures - they could prove inadequate ex post, but we never know ex ante.  Note I'm only saying reasonable.  It's reasonable to say let's not worry about them and don't do anything at all - we are not worrying about the falling sky or invading ET anyway - but it's also reasonable to argue for and act according to the opposite.  It's pretty down to perceptions and belief.  And at the end of the day, survival may matter more than being "right", whatever that means.

FX

 

最后，俺同事乙对老板很帅的回应：

 

If I were you I would certainly worry that your wife might poison you or stab you in your sleep.  Not just your wife, either.
 
Have a relaxing weekend.
 
Colleague B

 

无敌了，尤其是最后一句

古人梦想点石成金，现代人琢磨着怎么把二氧化碳变成汽油。不过故事的主角从炼金师变成了科学家。

 

这事听起来too good to be true。的确是这样。就像文章里所说的，把二氧化碳变成汽油需要大量的能量。多大呢？中学物理和化学会告诉我们把二氧化碳变成汽油所需要的能量不会少于燃烧汽油所放出的能量。说白了，免费的午餐也许是有的，但是永动机是没有的。把二氧化碳变成汽油需要额外的能量来源，比如说核能。这就是为什么我下意识的不看好这个主意。

 

如果这个主意的主要目标是减排，那么这是典型的把简单的事情弄的不必要的复杂——把那些用于转换二氧化碳的能量（比如说核能）直接用来替代煤电可以减少更多的排放，因为产生同样的能量煤比油产生的二氧化碳要多。

 

如果这个主意的主要目的是提供运输燃料，那么我觉得电力驱动的汽车（比如说Google的这个项目）在长期很可能是更好的选择。第一，电力在人类社会的广泛应用说明了它是一个几乎没有对手的万能的能量载体，从长期来看二十世纪对于石油作为运输能量载体的依赖可能只是电力汽车广泛应用之前的异常现象。第二，可以提高能源利用效率，比如帮助电网削平峰谷（在夜间充电而白天电网负荷高的时候反输电网）。第三，可以减少车体的复杂性（不再需要内燃机）和提高可靠性。

首先的首先，清洁技术（cleantech）行业不是造洗衣粉的。。。Cleantech涵盖了能源，交通，水以及很多相关的行业，广泛的说，凡是能够减轻人类活动于环境影响的技术都可以包括进来。有些是直接的，比如说水净化和废物循环利用；有些是间接的，比如说可再生能源（renewable energy）能够减轻对于化石燃料的依赖。

 

之所以谈论这个是因为偶决定将这个行业作为俺将来的首选投资领域。想做VC不是一天两天了，但是很久一来一直没有定下来focus在哪个行业。似乎对什么行业都有点兴趣，as far as it could provide me with money, glamour, and the feeling good factor。直到前段时间被Grace教育了之后才醍醐灌顶，发现做了这么久top down的deductive analysis，是时候选一个行业trial and error了。

 

为啥选cleantech呢？说实话我也不知道我怎么想到选这个的就像很多好idea一样，一直一直都没想到，然后突然想到的时候会觉得自己很蠢，因为这么明显的idea怎么一直都像不到。。。但是既然决定了，总得找点理由来back up。

 

 

第一，经济趋势。偶个人觉得世界经济在这个世纪最初的二十年的一个主要趋势是the re-discovery of physical assets。经过了上世纪70年代的滞涨和石油危机，世界经济在80和90年代伴随着全球化迅速发展。与此同时软因素，尤其是经济制度，人力资源，和管理best practice在经济发展中开始占据中心地位。一方面，在西方国家，服务业，尤其是金融服务业，快速发展（金融服务业的利润如今占全美企业利润的40%），而制造业相对停滞（但不是完全消失，我记得看过数据表明美国至今仍然有这世界是最大的制造业）；另一方面，苏联的崩溃使得市场经济成为主流的意识形态，大量的研究投入到了经济和社会制度对于经济发展的作用上。物质资产，比如矿产和能源，价格长期走低（oil price从80年代中到本世纪初一直徘徊在10美元到30美元一桶之间），越来越被边缘化，从石油公司到矿产公司到电力企业纷纷的减少投资。到了这个世纪，风水轮流转了。中国和印度的崛起导致对能源和原材料需求的激增，而长期投资不足和地缘政治的动荡导致了供应瓶颈。突然之间任何跟commodity有关的东西就火了起来，不管是开采，运输，还是交易。GS刚预测$100 oil的时候还被嗤之以鼻，现在已经有人开始猜测石油什么时候会到200美元了。高企的能源和原材料价格以及有限的供给使得替代能源以及新型材料更加有利可图。

 

第二，环境趋势。一方面，越来越多的人开始相信到全球变暖的严重性。我到一直不相信全球变暖（其中的政治因素太多而科学界的争议太多），但是在面临不确定性的时候，我同意买些保险还是明智的选择。另一方面，极端气候现象的增多和经济发展给环境造成了更大的压力，使得很多人开始预言对水资源的争夺会像现在对石油的争夺。

 

第三，社会趋势。民众对于环境的重视以及对极端气候现象的亲身体会（比如说Katrina）使得green一时之间成为政治家很posh的选择。

 

 

一方面，政府，尤其是世界最大经济体——美国的政府，不论出发点是对环境还是能源安全的忧虑，开始慢慢重视到cleantech的重要性（现在领先的三个总统候选人对于替代能源的发展都远比布什积极）。未来世界最大的经济体——中国，也越来越认识到自然资源的限制和保护环境的重要性。所以，政府的激励措施在可预见的将来只会越来越多。另一方面，这还是一个相对under-invested的行业。

 

结论：俺要投身到cleantech拉欢迎对这个感兴趣的朋友同行多交流

 

OK，说完我为什么选择cleantech，说一些关于环保的话。很多人觉得环保特别高尚，跟环保相关的行业也特别高尚。我到不这么觉得。Business is business。只要是满足人类正当需求的行业（也就是绝大多数行业）就是好的高尚的行业。环保业不比农民伯伯更高尚，也不比posh的banker更高尚（as far as they don't screw up clients）。有需求，有商业机会，that's it。为人类做贡献是好的，但是挣钱是必要的。所以我一直对某些打着环保旗号做无意义的浪费资源的损害他人福利的极端组织很反感。