In the early 1960's, President Kennedy set out two major goals for the decade - to put a man on the moon and to end poverty as we knew it.  In 1969, Neil Armstrong set foot on the moon's surface, but not much of a dent had been made in poverty.  We solved the easier problem. 

In 1977, Richard Nelson an economist specializing in innovation wrote a book titled "The Moon and the Ghetto" that examined this phenomenon.  As technically complex as space travel was, it was and is an engineering problem with a well-defined goal and well-defined means.  Enough brainpower organized effectively around a single goal with strong backing can achieve remarkable things.  Still, nine years  from proclamation to success? This was certainly one of the amazing feats of human history.

Ending poverty would be an even more amazing and socially redeeming feat, but the roots of the problem are behavioral, sociological, and institutional.  These are not as well-defined systems as math, physics, and mechanics, as hard as my economics profession may try to make them so.   As such, solutions to these complex social problems remain elusive despite advances in some areas.     

So if we can put a man on the moon, why are we having such a hard time forging an agreement on how to deal with climate change?  The problem lies somewhere between the moon and the ghetto.  We have the technological knowledge to decarbonize the economy now and, arguably, the scientific foundation to find even better ways to do so in the future. That's the easy part.  As with poverty, the nut of the problem is behavioral, social and institutional - the hard part.  Why?

For one thing, the public consensus to act on climate is not unchallenged. While no doubt there were some in the 1960s who wondered whether going to the moon was a very good way to spend the public's money, no one felt deeply threatened that moon travel would adversely change their economic way of life, as do those with economic interests tied to current forms of energy production and use find with climate action.  Moreover, for every IPCC or National Academy of Sciences report communicating a strong case that the earth is warming and humans are changing it, there are skeptical retorts aimed at undermining confidence in those findings. Indeed a couple of blog posts on the National Journal this week are aimed at this effect. The science, sociology, and economics behind that movement will have to be the topic of another blog post.  Suffice it to say, though, that scientific confusion - and the lingering recession - have softened resolve for action in some corners. 

What if the scientists and engineers were in disagreement about how to build the Apollo spacecraft and get it to the moon? Suppose there were 200 different engineers charged with designing the command module "by consensus" and they were deeply divided on what to do, how to do it and whether or not one of their fellow engineers would undo what they decided on when they left work for the day? The module would never get built. And even if it did get built, what if the scientists charged with determining where to land on the moon and what route to take were deadlocked by deep disagreements on the proper target and trajectory to get there.  The rocket ship would never leave the ground. 

My friend Jonas is building a house. He is working hard to get the roof on now so that he can do the inside work during the dead of winter.  He is living in a glorified storage building on his property so he is understandably anxious to get the house to where it is habitable as soon as possible.  He will move in when at least part of the house can serve the basic functions of shelter and comfort, but before the house is complete.   The basic framework and necessary protections will be in place when he moves in, but it will take time to build the edifice of his dreams.  

So in the next day or so, the world's leaders will need to decide whether to treat the climate agreement as a rocket ship or Jonas' house.   Must every item in the agreement be perfected? Must all of the agreement's components be complete?  Do we need to know exactly what atmospheric concentration we are shooting for and when that needs to be achieved? Or can we accept that pointing in the general direction of deep reductions over time, with modifications to the plan as we know more and conditions warrant it is the right path forward?  Why not build the bedroom and kitchen first, the den, the dining room and deck later?