This is interesting. Excerpt:
The controversy follows the publication by Science in December of a paper which claimed to have demonstrated complete agreement among climate experts, not only that global warming is a genuine phenomenon, but also that mankind is to blame.
The author of the research, Dr Naomi Oreskes, of the University of California, analysed almost 1,000 papers on the subject published since the early 1990s, and concluded that 75 per cent of them either explicitly or implicitly backed the consensus view, while none directly dissented from it.
Dr Oreskes’s study is now routinely cited by those demanding action on climate change, including the Royal Society and Prof Sir David King, the Government’s chief scientific adviser.
However, her unequivocal conclusions immediately raised suspicions among other academics, who knew of many papers that dissented from the pro-global warming line.
They included Dr Benny Peiser, a senior lecturer in the science faculty at Liverpool John Moores University, who decided to conduct his own analysis of the same set of 1,000 documents – and concluded that only one third backed the consensus view, while only one per cent did so explicitly.
Dr Peiser submitted his findings to Science in January, and was asked to edit his paper for publication – but has now been told that his results have been rejected on the grounds that the points he make had been “widely dispersed on the internet”.
Well, they will be now.
I have for a long time wanted to know not just about global warming itself, but about the alleged expert consensus concerning its man-madeness. This should stir up a good discussion.
There is a tendency among free marketeers to say that global warming is all nonsense, not for the good reason that they actually think it all nonsense, but because they see it being used to establish a world government, which they oppose for other reasons. And I am sure that many who insist on the reality of global warming and of its man-madeness do so because they want a world government, which they favour for other reasons.
Yet there is no logical reason why one should not be a free marketeer who believes in the reality of man-made global warming, or a world governor who thinks it is all hooey.
Personally I am a free marketeer, and a sceptic on global warming, in the sense of not being persuaded that it is happening catastrophically, or that it is man-made. Note: a sceptic, rather than a disbeliever. I am a global warming agnostic rather than a global warming atheist. (And I think the religious vibes of this debate are all too real. The Environment seems to have replaced God for a lot of people.) I genuinely want to learn more about this alleged horror, on the off chance that I might be able to climb down off the fence, in one direction or another.
Question, what measures should a free marketeer who believes for sure that global warming is taking us all to catastrophe, is man-made, and is reversible, favour?
I say: develop technology more. Let us all get a lot richer. Meanwhile, devise a technical fix for the damn thing. And then rattle a big tin and do it. All the while arguing about it in forums like this one, and on the internet generally. (Interesting how the internet is undermining unacknowledged bias in the specialist science media as well as in things like CBS.)
But then, I favour most of that anyway, even if global warming and its man-madeness are hooey.
I don’t think there is scientific consensus at all on global warming.
The most scientists I have ever heard that support the global warming theory is 2500.
Two years ago, President Bush received a petition signed by 17,000 scientists questioning the validity of the global warming theory.
Yeah and they all worked for EXXON!
It’s not that the situation is quasi-religious, per se, it is the fact that force enters the picture so easily. Libertarians aren’t completely anti-force or anti-state, it just has to be so compelling an argument before force is used. Too much force is used willy nilly based on abstract belief systems. The names might be different, but the outcome is the same – use force on other people to change their behaviors and how they inter-relate with the material world. Call it a religion, or call it something else, but it is the easy defaulting to force that is the issue.
“Question, what measures should a free marketeer who believes for sure that global warming is taking us all to catastrophe, is man-made, and is reversible, favour?”
I think the only real solution is technological. Any State action should be directed towards basic research to create non-Carbon emitting energy generation, transportation and work conversion technologies.
Political solutions like Kyoto will fail. There does not exist the type of planetary central authority necessary for a command and control regulatory solution. More market oriented solutions like emission-rights trading will also fail because the planet lacks even the minimalist legal framework needed to secure such property rights. Most of the world doesn’t even have a functioning property system for land, much less a highly abstract property like emission rights.
Absent government interference, both pro and con, nuclear power would be much more commonly used source of power. The technology would be much more advanced and much cheaper and safer. One could argue that we could try to use state support of nuclear power research (and perhaps even funding of new plants) as a means correct the harm done by state intervention to date but doing so is very risky. Just because the State gets behind a technology or enterprise doesn’t mean it will manage it well. We ended up with giant water-cooled reactors in the first place because nukes because a national prestige technology in the 1950’s and governments rushed to try to be the first to make wide use of the technology without getting all the kinks worked out first.
I think the safest course might be to fund basic research and then establish a bounty system for reactor designs that meet general criteria and then let the market evolve the technology. Of course, we should pursue multiple technological avenues in addition to nukes but at this point they will have to be the core of any serious non-Carbon emitting energy system.
http://www.junkscience.com
is a good repository of sense on the issue
Here are a couple of more;
http://www.oism.org/pproject/s33p36.htm
WARNING, the Above Link contains MATH! There, a disclaimer to make the greens happy.
http://www.crichton-official.com/speeches/speeches_quote04.html
Don’t be put off by the title of the second one. It is a technique used by Writers to grab attention. It was a loss for science when Michael decided to make zillions writing books instead of being a lab slave.
This topic has come up a few times before on this blog, and I don’t think a clear solution has ever emerged. The usual idea seems to be do nothing and hope technology emerges that makes the problem go away by itself.
Damaging someone else’s private property is coercion. If carbon emissions are casuing damages via global warming, then for there to be a free market there has to be a way of ordering them to be decreased.
There needs to be an exchange forum for polluters and property holders or governing institutions (which I suppose could be worker syndicates or insurance companies aswell as states), which can force compensation payments or cease and desist orders. Can this exist under anarchy?
Reagradless, if absolutist in protection of private property iy may cause a lot of businesses into bankruptcy, which may be unacceptable to liberals and social democrats alike.
A more orthodox (neoliberal?) solution might be a high tax on fossil fuels, with all revenue redistributed in the form of a basic income across the globe. That or use tradeable credit with the price set by the market. How does one set the supply of credits though?
I think these enquiries tend not to go anywhere because a lot of liberal commentators favour revolution over mixing a bit more market and a bit more state into the mixed economy.
As suggested, a less dramatic form of intervention would be government funding for research.
The trick is to get the government, which is can seem more interested in picking winners, to fund research into multiple competeing technologies, creating a sort-of-market to pick the best technologies instead. It prolly won’t work otherwise.
“Question, what measures should a free marketeer who believes for sure that global warming is taking us all to catastrophe, is man-made, and is reversible, favour?”
Stop subsidising the production of children…
Great topic Brian. I think this one has legs.
My position with regard to all this is pretty much the same as the position I had regarding tobacco about 5 years ago. I tended to accept health warnings that claimed tobacco may be harming my health. It seemed logical and I had no reason not to accept it. Then I had my first daughter and decided to take a good look the issues to find out just how much harm there may be and what could be done to mitigate it, or if there was such a great degree of damage that it would make sense to just quit smoking.
I discovered there were more or less only two types of sources of information about the dangers of tobacco. The first came from the likes of ASH and the second was quite patchy but came from the likes of FORCES.
I wasn’t interested in doing a definitive absolute study as it wasn’t for any kind of academic purpose. So I decided to go to ASH for most of my research. You might ask why go to a rabid anti tobacco group to get supposedly honest material about tobacco? The idea was that ASH was, and probably still is in the UK, the most respected of the anti tobacco groups. If I found them to be totally straight and honest with all their claims easily backed up by research studies that were easy to find and legitamate then I need go no further. They and their ilk routinely use phrases such as “the weight of evidence about (a tobacco nasty) is overwhelming”. So my approach was to find out just how overwhelming it actually was. To cut a long story short, what I found to be overwhelming was the weight of claims and the evidence to back them up is not quite of the quantity or quality that you would expect if you regarded them as honest people.
I expect the same is likely to be the case with global warming but I do not know for sure as I have not looked into it very much.
I’d very much like to see some websites where the creators do believe the horror stories but have a libertarian bent in their proposed solutions. I strongly suspect there will be few of such sites, if any. This is because global warming is to environmentalism what second hand smoke is to the anti tobacco crowd. An idea that can be pushed that, if accepted, will make the “solutions” as “vital” as the NHS.
My reading:-
1) Are we in a warm spell? Very likely.
2) Hottest ever? Pull the other one.
3) Man-made via Greenhouse Gases? Evidence thin.
4) Kyoto a sensible response? Not on your nelly! Absurd and brings the whole idea of international treaties into disrepute.
One of the things that there is not only no consensus, but no tested hypotheses on is – solutions.
If the global warming is man-made, how can it be reversed or limited? Research goes on, but the models cannot even accurately account for what has happened, let alone predict what changes in human society could be made ameliorate it.
I prefer the common sense approach. Since ‘global warming’ predates humans by a million years or so that can be proven, it makes no sense to credit humans with creating conditions before they(humans) existed. Maybe the dinosaurs drove SUV’s?
Global warming arguments usually cover one or all of three topics.
1. Have temperatures been increasing over the past x years ? This gets more controversial as x gets larger. If x is small (<20), there is no controversy that I'm aware of. Once it grows to 100 or more, you get into more heated debates.
2. Is the temperature increase man-made ? This is definitely still controversial. For instance, the planet warmed significantly from 1900 to 1940 and cooled over the following ~40 years - hence the early 70s headlines about the coming ice age - which is the opposite of what you'd expect if human activity and CO2 emissions were the main cause.
3. What happens tomorrow ? This is where most of the controversy - and the bogus claims - reside. The IPCC scenarios are misinterpreted as predictives, or as a range of predictions. They aren't. At the very least, our own ability to make 100-year prediction is very, very questionable.
Oops. Little mistake above….If x is small i.e. less than 20 years, arguments are much more limited and technical than when it’s 100 years or more.
As someone who comes from a desert climate and gets uncomfortable when the temperature drops below 70, my response to global warming is, “more, please.”
One of the most interesting expert commentators I’ve encountered on this topic is Professor Philip Stott. His EnviroSpin Watch is at (Link)
What makes his contributions to the debate unusual are that A/ He is an eminent academic with excellent scienftific credentials and, B/ he’s on the Left – which makes his rants against the Independent and Grauniad doomsayers all the more poignant.
Many here will know of his site, I’m sure, but for those who don’t I heartily commend it.
There are two issues here I think. One is whether we can oppose global warming caused by humans. That naturally assumes that there is such a thing. But the other thing we can do is prepare for when it happens, and human-provoked or not we know it will happen. And of course, when it does the solution won’t be to buy a warmer coat.
I am firmly in the camp of there being no good reason on earth NOT to recycle, clean up one’s trash, don’t let the faucet run, drive the most fuel efficient car one can afford, on and on, ad nauseum. With everyone doing their little part to make the mothership a cleaner, brighter place, resources conserved will see us all through. That having been said, I am also firmly a sceptic about the coming death and destruction foretold by the Kyoto supporters. There hasn’t been sufficient modeling done on significant enough periods of time. While the last 150 years looks bad temp wise, placed in the context of a 1000 year spread or better, we are actually in one of the lesser burps. It would also help if more of the actual findings being reported from research intended to bolster the doomsayers made it out to the general public. Quite a good example of this is on techcentralstation.com right now: (Link)
Things don’t seem so dire when prediction is placed against fact.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_opinion_on_climate_change
some more surveys that were published are discussed here.
tree hugging sister, I agree with your general point; things do, however, get quite twisted as soon as you are willing to look at all the details. Example: thousands upon thousands of acres of trees are no longer planted thanks to our recycling paper and cardboard. Which implies thousands of tons of CO2 are not absorbed by the growth of all the trees we no longer plant to make the planet cleaner…
Given the success of paper recycling in the very countries who tend to emit a lot of the CO2 around, you’d think issues as obvious as this should be part of the public debate. Instead we are essentially told that Kyoto is a gospel of the Bible and George Bush is the Devil incarnate.
I had a post almost finished this afternoon and the machine burped and ate it so I will be brief. (applause from all concerned)
The earth and sun are apparently in a long cycle of warming and cooling which we have only begun to understand. Man’s contribution is debatable, but the concerted effort to assert a need to “control” the economic functions of the major industrialized nations is a transparent attempt to achieve a command economy by the back door.
The latest reports I have heard and read now can’t decide if the result of warming, regardless of its ultimate causality, will be increased temperatures or a new ice age. The latter scenario has to do with the disruption of the ocean conveyer which cycles warm and cold water across the oceans.
I think we need to know a lot more before we go into a panic mode and disrupt the economies and lives of billions of people.
I don’t see any reason why specialist commercial courts or arbitrator organisations within a common law justice system couldn’t develop new ways of dealing with disputes or potential disputes/claims – including operating or having jurisdiction over exchange forums. And in the market there’s more incentive for expert evidence to be independent and accurate (so if there’s no real threat…)
Brian, I agree with technology to combat it, if it exists. And the most effective drive for technological development is the power of individual action. IF PEOPLE DIDN’T SIMPLY EXPECT GOVERNMENTS TO FIX IT – which they couldn’t in the absence of a state presuming to deal with it – then if they think the threat is real they’d be much more likely to bother to make some small (and immediate!) change to their consumer/activist behaviour – and we’re not just talking tree huggers here but the minor actions of millions. And of course now with plenty of information and discourse on particular issues, aggregate individual action and pressure is likely to be much more senstive to the real truth as far as we currently know it than any governmental action. I always like to remember that TV ad when I was a kid, campaign to save electricity “Switch off something now”. I always used to switch something off immediately! [or was I just subliminally trained in following orders…]
I believe the biggest problem with the whole issue are the terms being used and what we should be concerned with.
Global “warming” happens every day. When the sun rises, that side of the planet warms up. No debating that fact. How much it warms the planet is dependant upon such an enormous amount of factors that the majority of climatologists seem to agree that there isn’t a consensus about anything one way or the other. The sun could have one bad day and the entire earth would be roasted alive like BBQ. It could have one not so bad day and still violently upset the equilibrium of the earth. I agree with the skeptics that one should tread lightly around those that claim “they know exactly” what’s going on. Chances are when you pull back the curtain, they don’t really know all that much beyond their limited field.
On the other hand, one doesn’t have to look very far to see that the air which we breathe is getting polluted in such a way that certain areas of the globe are literally choking themselves to death. Mexico City is in such horrible shape in terms of air pollution that all of their autos are unable to drive at the same time. China and India are beginning to come to terms with a regulation system that has no regulations in terms of emissions.
Had the argument been framed that the earth is becoming more polluted due to fossil fuels being burned -global “pollution” not global “warming”- one wouldn’t need to get 17,000 scientists to agree with you. You could just take a picture of the skyline around LA or Mexico City on a hot day. We do need to improve the air quality of the planet, but now because the earth is getting too warm, but because we need to breathe.
In the US, we have initiated clean skies programs that have reduced the pollution in our cities, to some degree. We could and should do more. But we were able to do this in a decentralized economy that let the market help dictate the outcome. Places like Mexico and China don’t have this option. The DOE in the US is already trying to help Mexico (Link)because as you can see, we all breathe the same air…..
It seems one could spend the whole day reading the comments section here for interesting pieces of information.
Sylvain, I had never even thought of the second order effects of recycling paper, like less trees being planted…Interesting…
Anyway, being a bit of an agnostic myself, I am sceptical of the claims made by both sides in the argument as, as mentioned before, there seems to be a religious side to it, and the atheists can be just as bad as the believers in their vehemence.
My own personal take on it, based upon my very limited exposure to the literature surrounding this is that a) we don’t know the global implications of pollution and CO2 emissions but b) there are strong indications of localised effects of air pollution, such as increased incidence of childhood asthma in cities (please don’t ask me to provide the source, but I recall reading a study about this somewhere, which did not directly blame air pollution, but listed it as a possible culprit).
And I find it much easier to breathe the air outside of London than the air in London…
“Question, what measures should a free marketeer who believes for sure that global warming is taking us all to catastrophe, is man-made, and is reversible, favour?”
Err? Try to make money out of it?
To the free marketeer whether something is true or not is not actually all that important. It is whether the other participants in the marketplace believe it is or not. People in general appear to believe in man made global warming. There is therefore money to be made in developing technology(ies) to ameliorate or reverse it (either ameliorate the effects or reverse the actual warming).
What is actually happening? Private companies are throwing billions at developing a variety of technologies (and governments are subsidizing some of this research) that are non emitting.
The free marketeer should be trying to pick which of these companies/technologies to invest in, whether it be motivated by an actual belief in climate change or a desire to take advantage of the gullibility of those who do.
You could also send me money to invest in my plant to extract a compound required for a certain type of fuel cell but that is only one of many options.
Climate Audit
My impression from this blog is that some of the leading global warming proponents are resistant to having others verify their studies.
What can a free market environmentalist do?
1) Work on your own environmental footprint where it’s in your self interest. Replace your incandescents with fluorescents, consider an efficient vehicle the next time you buy one (VW TDI, Smart, Toyota, Honda, even Ford has a hybrid Explorer), and so on.
2) Insist that your government follow the greenies advice where the cost/benefit makes sense. For most people, things like solar and wind power are hard arguments to make because the payoff takes so long (10, 20, perhaps 30 years), but the government will probably still be occupying its buildings and conducting business as usual 30 years hence. Also, Amory Lovins’ research for the DoD’s use of fuel seems to me to be correct: it takes 9 gallons or so of fuel for every 1 gallon delivered to a weapons platforom. Therefore, the DoD should invest heavily in lightweighting and alternate power systems for its vehicles, vessels, and aircraft.
3) This is more controversial, but here goes: insofar as you think Coase was correct, someone has to enforce tradable emissions permit rules. Therefore, you should support well-designed cap & trade programs.
Those steps, though not consistent with a night watchman state, are consistent with a libertarian ideology.
From Wired magazine…
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/8.11/ecohacking.html?pg=1&topic=&topic_set=
Money Quotes…
“Given 200 boats, 8.1 million tons of iron, and 16 million square miles of HNLC ocean – just over 11 percent of all the water in the world – Markels says his flotilla could zero out 8 gigatons of CO2 each year, the entire global fossil-fuel emissions enchilada, all for an annual cost of around $16 billion. Crisis over. Next question? ”
“I have a friend in the Office of Science at the Department of Energy,” Markels says. “I said to him, ‘It looks to me like you don’t want to solve the problem.’ You know what he told me? He said, ‘No, absolutely not! We want to study it! If we solve the problem, then everybody’ll be out of a job!'” Markels leans forward and grins broadly. “Nobody wants to fix it!” he says. “Nobody.”
TJ
THANK you! When I said technical fix I didn’t mean cuddly kitten stuff that was less productive of the wicked gasses in the first place, I meant how do you reverse global warming, globally, with, you know, giant machines pumping out different and virtuous gasses, or whatever. And now you tell me someone reckons it can be done. Hurrah!
A really clever free-marketeer, the best kind, would have started dealing with the environmental issue twenty five years ago. When Mother Earth News started doing writeups on hybrid automobiles (first one had a hydrostatic drive and pressure accumulators) the true potential should have been obvious. Surely someone was clever enough to see that even tho hybrids are inescapably thermodynamically inefficient they could produce impressive mileage improvement in a car which spent alot of time at rest. If you were slick enough to optimize the system to the EPA mileage tests you could sell boatloads of them above true market value. Typical clever free-marketeer exploitation of government-created market conditions, right?
I like the (SciAm) article that suggests we should already be in an ice age; it has been methane from rice farming & cow farts that has kept the globe warm and unfrozen for the last 500 years or so. The downside? We only have another 200 years of petroleum reserves left.
Like gun control and social welfare, global warming is a religious debate, and has little meaning outside the congregation of converted.
Rob Read,
Children are relatively small consumers.
We must stop subsidising the production of adults.
tritacale,
The difficulty is always economics. The cost and weight penalty for energy storage.
u are all stupid
I see, whereas you, with your well argued rebuttal and scientific insights are clearly a genius.