The New York Times: It Just Can’t Stop Hating Success and the American Way of Life
To combat climate change, we need to break our addiction to consuming oil, while developing countries need to break their addiction to selling it. We need a different lifestyle model . . . . —Thomas L. FriedmanThe biggest problem with our bounty of coal is not what it does to our mountains or the atmosphere, but what it does to our minds. It preserves the illusion that we don't have to change our lives. Given the profound challenges we face with the end of cheap oil and the arrival of global warming, this is a dangerous fantasy. — JEFF GOODELL
The above two quotations are from side by side op-ed pieces in The New York Times of June 23, 2006. They read like an orchestrated effort to make people feel guilty about a way of life in which man-made power eliminates most of the drudgery of life and makes possible light, heat, refrigeration, air conditioning, television, computers, and high speed travel, among many other things. This power, of course, is derived mainly from oil and coal. Much of it could be derived from atomic energy, but that is denounced even more than oil and coal. Man-made power, and the Industrial Revolution that spawned it, is what the pleasure-hating crew at The New York Times wants us to give up, along with years of our lives.
There is more ignorant and destructive verbiage in the same issue of this newspaper, this time on The Times’ editorial page proper:
Yesterday, the House of Representatives passed an estate-tax cut that is a repeal in everything but name. The so-called compromise would exempt more than 99.5 percent of estates from tax, slash the tax rates on the rest and cost at least $760 billion during its first full decade. Of that, $600 billion is the amount the government would have to borrow to make up for lost revenue from the cuts, which would benefit the heirs of America's wealthiest families, like the Marses of Mars bar and the Waltons of Wal-Mart Stores. The remaining $160 billion is the interest on that borrowing, which would be paid by all Americans. — “A Look at Republican Priorities: Comforting the Comfortable�
The Mars candy company (Milky Way, Snickers, M&Ms, etc.) and Wal-Mart are great benefactors of mankind. The first provides the pleasure of delicious candy at a price practically everyone can afford. The second provides an enormous array of goods at the most economical prices possible. The owners of these companies, and of all others like them, deserve every penny they have made and the right to pass all of their wealth on to the heirs of their choice.
If their heirs are allowed to receive that wealth, it will most likely continue to be invested in the provision of excellent goods that people want and need. If, instead, the wealth is diverted to pay taxes to finance welfare-state spending, it will certainly not remain invested in the provision of such goods, because it will end up in the hands of welfare-state clients and in such things as “bridges to nowhere� and other ridiculous pork-barrel projects currently financed by taxes.
The heirs should not be blamed for budget deficits. All they want is what is rightfully theirs—wealth that has been earned by those eager to pass it on to them. The budget deficits are created by massive government spending. Whoever is concerned with budget deficits, must urge the reduction of government spending to eliminate them.
Whoever is concerned with the plight of welfare-state clients deprived of government support, must urge the freedom of the individual to find employment on the best terms the market has to offer and his freedom to be supplied by the most economical suppliers he can find. This means the wholesale abolition of restrictions on production and exchange, from agricultural subsidies to zoning laws.
But here again, The Times shows itself to be the enemy of human success. It urges a forty percent increase in the minimum wage, a measure that that will inevitably deprive large numbers of people of the possibility of finding any employment and thus of gaining the skills and experience that might qualify them for better-paying jobs later on. In its ignorance and moral pretentiousness, The Times declares:
At the same time that Republicans are fighting to exempt the richest estates from taxes, they are blocking a raise for the nation's poorest workers. . . . Senate Democrats tried unsuccessfully this week to raise the federal minimum wage, which stands at just $5.15 an hour. It has not been increased in nearly a decade, and at its current stingy level, the rate flies in the face of Americans' belief that those who work hard and play by the rules will be rewarded. — “A Look at Republican Priorities: Afflicting the Afflicted�
The Times (and the Senate Democrats who are its heroes), is apparently ignorant of the well-established elementary principle of economics that the higher the price of anything, the less of it that will be bought, and that the same principle applies to wages. The fact that the minimum wage has not been raised in almost a decade is one of the reasons that the United States does not have the unemployment rate of France or Germany.
If The Times understood the principle that the higher the wage, the smaller the number of workers sought, it might also realize that the way to raise the wage rates of low-paid workers, would be to repeal the laws and regulations that enable labor unions and professional organizations to obtain artificially high wage rates for their members.
The inability of more-skilled workers to obtain employment in jobs commensurate with their skills, because artificially high wage rates hold down the quantity of their services that employers seek to buy, is responsible for an artificially large supply of labor competing for lower-skilled and unskilled jobs. And this larger supply requires that wage rates in the lower end of the labor market be lower than they would have to be if the middle and upper portions of the labor market were free and could thus employ all the labor they should employ.
Wage rates everywhere are also needlessly depressed by all of the allegedly “free benefits� that employers are made to pay for. These alleged free benefits include employer contributions to Social Security and Medicare, providing maternity leave, holidays, and paid vacations, and meeting the requirements of job safety laws. Their cost is as much a part of the cost of employing a worker as is his take home wage. It would make no difference to employers if the workers received the cost of these “free benefits� as actual take-home wages instead.
The Times doesn’t care to know any of this. Instead, it prefers what it considers to be the “moral high ground� of everyday contemptuously looking down its long, supercilious nose and sneering at the capitalist economic system, those who make it work, and those who enjoy its benefits.
This article is copyright © 2006, by George Reisman. Permission is hereby granted to reproduce and distribute it electronically and in print, other than as part of a book and provided that mention of the author’s web site www.capitalism.net is included. (Email notification is requested.) All other rights reserved. George Reisman is the author of Capitalism: A Treatise on Economics (Ottawa, Illinois: Jameson Books, 1996) and is Pepperdine University Professor Emeritus of Economics.
Comments (24)
This IS the (new) American Way of Life.
Published: June 24, 2006 2:01 PM
As I previously have posted on Mises.org, the assertion that man’s activity will lead to a catastrophic warming of the earth is conjecture, more accurately, junk science and intellectual dishonesty. The statists have recently succeeded in greatly corrupting research in the natural sciences, just as many years ago they achieved the same results in the social sciences. For instance, the proponents of man-made global warming have little, if anything, reasonable to say regarding the following: It is scientific fact that roughly 10,000 years ago glaciers extended as far south in North America as Long Island, NY and northern NJ and covered a notable part of the Midwestern U.S. The reader can surmise for himself/herself what the vast majority of Canada looked like. Yet a major warming event took place in the following thousands of years, when man was emitting virtually no carbon gases (until 300 years ago) from his economic activity. Moreover, the 5 billion year old geologic record contains evidence of many episodes of significant climate change, virtually all of which took place before man had evolved.
As an undergraduate geology major in the mid-to-late 1970s, I have my own personal recollections regarding major climate change supposedly caused by the activity of human beings. In the 1970s, the consensus "scientific" opinion was that the earth was entering another ice age and that great national, if not supranational efforts were required to prevent this. Then, within a period of 10 to 15 years, the consensus had shifted to the global warming scenario. This quick 180-degree reversal occurred despite the fact that the earth is over 5 billion years old.
Put simply, to combat (alleged) man-caused global warming would require much greater government control of energy production and consumption than currently exists, which would give the totalitarian-minded even further control over economic activity than they currently possess. This is their goal, and the assertion of man-caused, catastrophic global warming is a convenient and fallacious excuse.
For years we were lectured by these same types about what a great economic success the Soviet Union was and that its (semi) socialist economy would eventually surpass the U.S. market economy in output. As we now realize, these were just mumblings of ideologically biased and inherently unscientific individuals masquerading as experts and scientists.
Published: June 24, 2006 6:19 PM
Interesting. The same can be said about the central banking system and paper backed money. I don't think it's a cooncidence. In order to get away with lying to people about the value of their money, it is absolutely imperitave that they attribute the skyrocketing price of gas and energy to something other than watered down money.
Published: June 24, 2006 6:45 PM
"This IS the (new) American Way of Life."
Uh, yeah. That's why the NYT hates it.
Published: June 25, 2006 5:55 PM
Prof. Reisman, you correctly skewer the NYT on minimum wage laws, which are actually counterproductive to advancing the economic interests of those lowest on the economic totem pole - by pricing them out of the market and inviting in illegal aliens who will work at below minimum wage (a pool of labor the Administration's corporate supporters have been reluctant to have restricted).
However, again you've taken a wrong position on the science and economics of climate change - even though I think you are correct to criticize Friedman for his call for a "different lifestyle model". It is clear that climate change is occurring - as Friedman's op-ed (excerpted here: http://www.b12partners.net/mt/archives/2006/06/the_world_is_hot.html) points out in Peru - but clearly we don't need to change our lifesyle, just as we didn't destroy our way of life in putting an end to the rampant air, ground and water pollution of the 60s and 70s.
Like pollution, climate change is an unintended consequence of our economic activities and arises because of lack of clear and effective proporty rights. Rather than questioning the bona fides of people who point to these problems (or farcically defining the problem away, as your other climate change posts also did - by claiming that the negative unintended consequences of our behavior should be considered "natural"), why don't you suggest meaningful solutions? Properly addressed, our economy will simply function more efficiently, with fewer costly, negative side effects. The real battleground is over the solution, and by failing to address this, you leave the field open to the Pigouvian taxers, such as those list recently at Greg Mankiw's blog: http://gregmankiw.blogspot.com/2006/06/pigou-club.html.
Surely you recognize that most climate skeptics are now abandoning their positions in the face of increasing scientific certainty and the untenability of denial Here are some long-time skeptics who have just changed their minds:
Gregg Easterbrook:
http://www.nytimes.com/2006/05/24/opinion/24easterbrook.html?ex=1306123200&en=a4df3b808f1716da&ei=5090&partner=rssuserland&emc=rss
Michael Shermer. "Because of the complexity of the problem, environmental skepticism was once tenable. No longer. It is time to flip from skepticism to activism.� http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?chanID=sa006&articleID=000B557A-71ED-146C-ADB783414B7F0000&colID=13
David Attenborough:
“we may be facing major disasters on a global scale.� http://news.independent.co.uk/environment/article570935.ece
Libertarian Ron Bailey, skeptic at Reason:
“Gore is correct that the scientific consensus is that humanity is causing global warming.� http://www.reason.com/hitandrun/2006/05/inconvenient_un.shtml#013924
“The question of how much danger the trend toward higher average global temperatures poses is still open, but that the earth’s temperature is going up is not. The debate now is how bad it might get.� http://www.reason.com/rb/rb040306.shtml
“So what about the future? According to an article last October, Michaels [a climate skeptic] seems unlikely to offer another bet on lower temperatures. "We already know that the world is warming and that it will continue to do so for the foreseeable future (with or without any greenhouse gas emission controls)," wrote Michaels. "Record temperatures will continue to be set every couple of years or so."� http://www.reason.com/rb/rb040306.shtml
“Anyone still holding onto the idea that there is no global warming ought to hang it up. All data sets—satellite, surface, and balloon—have been pointing to rising global temperatures. In fact, they all have had upward pointing arrows for nearly a decade, but now all of the data sets are in closer agreement due to some adjustments being published in three new articles in Science today.� http://www.reason.com/links/links081105.shtml
While there is much to respect in the libertarian criticism of government and of economic/environmental regulation, unfortunately in the case of climate change libertarians conveniently ignore that doing nothing is essentially a continuing subsidy to vested interests, and libertarians wrongly fail to criticize the rather blatant rent-seeking in which fossil fuel producers and manufacturing concerns have already successfully engaged.
In fact, it is this sell-out of our domestic and foreign policy on this matter that I find most outrageous, and it bothers me to no end that purported "libertarians" and other "skeptics" will rail about the "fear-peddling" "enviros", but ignore that they are doing exactly the same thing - peddling fear, but about enviros - either as deliberate or unwitting stooges for big corporate interests who prefer to push the costs of their free use of the atmosphere off onto others generally and to future generations.
That a purely libertarian position simply won't work should be obvious, given that this is a global tragedy of the commons issue. Without government, it is impossible to create a private-property solution such as tradable emissions permits, or to solve the free rider issues. Accordingly any "reasonable" libertarian skeptics would recognize this and push for quasi-libertarian solutions that are least meddlesome, while not forgetting to rail at the influence-peddling and purchasing that has deadlocked us into a do-nothing mitigation policy.
Mitigation policies make eminent sense, provided we are willing to use some muscle and carrots to bring along China and India (to eliminate free riders) and to coordinate with other developed nations (to ensure least-cost solutions).
Most dissenting pundits have been funded by interested parties - industry - and have enjoyed bashing what they see as the opposing tribe of muddled headed enviros who wish to destroy America and/or capitalism and to create a global government. This is clear from their own fevered, fear-mongering writings, and there is plenty of documented evidence of how much industry support has gone to these folks - money that was significant and not trifling, and spent to achieve exactly what was accomplished, namely, postponing regulatory action that would impose costs on those providing the funding. Just do a Google search on CEI and Exxon, read Chris Mooney's piece "Some Like It Hot" in Mother Jones last year, or read the crap that the National Association of Manufacturers posts at its blog: http://blog.nam.org/archives/global_warming/.
This is similar to the money that tobacco companies used to spend on denying the link between smoking and cancer, but worse because the costs have been pushed onto all of us and on future generations, and on our ecosystems (quite unlike individual smoking). Also, the free rider effects related to this global commons problem has meant that meaningful action worldwide has been held up, simply because no one wants to impose significant costs on their industry and fossil fuel users if the US has no intention of doing so.
Why has the Administration largely been a denier? Because it (1) felt it had more to gain politically by mocking and undermining the credibility of its opponents, and by selling the fear of enviros (as it has with the fear of terrorists, Islamofascists, liberals and gays), (2) felt it to be a tough sell to trade delayed future benefits for the costs of regulation now, (3) was essentially isolationistic to begin with, with no desire to cooperate with Europeans or to have tough negotiations with the Chinese and Indians to deal with free rider problems, and (4) as it has shown it other ways, the Administration and Republicans are financially close to energy interests and quite willing to provide benefits to such special interests from the national treasury that benefit them narrowly but at the cost of larger and broader longer-term interests. The Administration has have found that selling the "fear of enviros" has allowed it to spin "uncertainty" about climate change, thus keeping a firmer grip on political power while selling off our common resources for chump change to favored interests.
But given the increasingly clear science, the Bush Administration has apparently recognized that its denial of climate change is no longer working, and is seeking to limit political damage and to reposition itself by appointing Goldman Sachs CEO Paulson as Treasury Secretary, as noted with approval by Contributing Editor Irwin Stelzer of the Weekly Standard:
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Content/Public/Articles/000/000/012/289gqqnr.asp. There is already a bi-partisan majority in the Senate (and a majority in the House Appropriations Committee) in favor of establishing private property rights under GHG emission caps.
Dealing with climate change will yield real benefits at lower costs than the fabulously expensive and counterproductive Iraq adventure - which has been a great boon to special interests. Here's hoping that you (and Rob Bradley) will stop providing a smokescreen to the rent-seekers who have held up any meaningful policy measures on this important issue.
Published: June 26, 2006 2:30 AM
“Gore is correct that the scientific consensus is that humanity is causing global warming.�
"Science is about observation, experiment and theory, not consensus. This statement is rhetoric, and weak rhetoric at that.
NZCSC stands for less rhetoric and more science."
http://www.scoop.co.nz/stories/SC0605/S00014.htm
Published: June 26, 2006 4:49 AM
Peter, thanks for your interest. You might actually want to read what Ron Bailey, who's a libertarian affiliated with Cato and CEI, has to say and why he's changed his mind. I'm sure it's a bit embarrassing for him and he would have rpeferred not to.
Perhaps you might also care to tell me what you think about the position statements by The American Association for the Advancement of Science, The American Geophysical Union, The American Meteorological Society, and U.S. National Academy of Sciences Committee, that I've liked to and summarized here?
http://www.redstate.com/comments/2005/11/30/223549/05/14
Here are a few more links, with summaries of current science:
http://illconsidered.blogspot.com/2006/02/how-to-talk-to-global-warming-sceptic.html
http://www.realclimate.org/index.php?p=240#Responses
http://timlambert.org/2005/04/gwsbingo/
http://www.redstate.com/comments/2006/2/17/85716/1778/228#228
Regards,
Tom
Published: June 26, 2006 6:53 AM
One point that I attempted to make is that objective academic research in the natural sciences has become so corrupted due to the immense levels of government funding that the conclusions of these “scientists� must be treated with great skepticism. With government funding supporting ever larger amounts of academic research, scientific truth and objectivity are not high priorities of those receiving the funding. Again, the lack of objective academic research in the natural sciences is more and more mirroring the situation that has existed for many years in the social sciences.
Published: June 26, 2006 8:35 AM
I might also add that many academic supporters of man-caused, catastrophic global warming are cut from the same cloth as those academics that treated Mises, Rothbard, and other Austrians so shoddily for the large majority of their careers.
As two specific examples, the academic establishment derided and ridiculed Mises for his stand regarding the impossibility of establishing and maintaining a developed industrial/commercial economy under socialism. In addition, Henry Hazlitt lost his editorial position at The New York Times for arguing that the Bretton Woods monetary system was inherently inflationary and would eventually collapse.
What passes for consensus academic knowledge and wisdom, especially given the funding framework for academic research, many times turns out to be erroneous.
Published: June 26, 2006 10:26 AM
Dennis, ever hear of "confirmation bias"? Roughly, it's a cognitive phenomenon whereby we find it easier to deny or explain away dissonant information rather than changing our minds. This plagues mankind generally, but I wonder if you might not realize that you seem to have a case as well?
Essentially, because you don't like what you're hearing about climate change, your last two posts are rationalizations for ignoring those who are saying that there's a problem that we need to confront. Well, what you're going through is quite understandable, but you really should start opening your eyes. We ARE changing the world, and it's happening NOW - mountain glaciers everywhere (not just Peru), Greenland's glaciers, the Arctic icepack and "permafrosts" are rapidly melting (the American Geophysical Union says we've past a tipping point and may have in a few decades a seasonally ice-free Arctic for the first time in a million years), deserts are advancing, we are having more extreme weather events as heating drives a faster hydrogeological cycle (Japan is now regularly seeing "record-breaking" downpours and flooding), spring comes earlier every year and last year - for the first time in recorded history - none of the Great Lakes froze. Atomospheric CO2 levels continue to accelerate and will double over pre-industrial levels (unless we start to sequester carbon and actually lower atmospheric levels) by mid-century, and so far we have experienced only a 1 degree F increase of the 5 degree F increase scientists expect from an atmospheric CO2 doubling.
All this and more have been enough to convince many dedicated libertarians and skeptics over the past few years, such as those I linked to above. Since they have been persuaded by the evidence to go through the difficult process of abandoning their hard-fought positions on the skeptic side, you might find them more credible than I seem.
Let me point out that it is well known that environmental and energy policy are a havens for rent-seekers; in this case the so-called debate over the "science" has largey been a tactic of the rent-seekers to continue to cheaply exploit public resources. It is a puzzle to me that Miseans prefer to bash enviros over the rent-seekers, and to ignore the institutional and property-rights failures that are the ultimate cause of global warming. Solving the property-rights failures will lead to an improved economy, not to serfdom.
Regards,
Tom
Published: June 26, 2006 11:50 PM
TokyoTom,
I have a very simple test I apply to all advocates of controls on CO2 emissions:
Do you support the building of nuclear power plants to replace the fossil fuel burning ones?
Now note that I accept the fact that we are warming the planet and that it will likely cause severe climate changes in many places of the globe; and I am quite willing to use a carbon tax to replace the taxes we presently collect.
Any who answer no to my question are not to be taken seriously.
Published: June 27, 2006 9:03 AM
TokyoTom... I won't deny that climate change is happening. Who would do that? Climates change...naturally. Granted that global warming is indeed occurring, I still am not convinced that human beings are the primary cause. Your confirmation bias "argument" is a cheap trick to try to discredit your opposition. Show us your overwhelming evidence that human beings are the primary cause of global warming without, mind you, glossing over or ignoring important findings such as this one (http://news.mongabay.com/2005/1124-climate.html):
"The authors note, however, that the records for MIS 13 and 15 are not as clear as they are for MIS 11. One complicating factor is that the ice core records do not exactly match records from marine sediments that are used to help date the ice core data.
New insights important for understanding the impact early human activities such as land clearing and rice culture had on atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations, the topic of several recent studies, are also now available, thanks to the methane and carbon dioxide records from the EPICA Dome C ice core. The new record shows that natural variability can result in significant oscillations in greenhouse gasses during some interglacial periods and raises the possibility that early human activities may not be responsible for the greenhouse gas variability seen as early as 10,000 years ago, writes Ed Brook from Oregon State University in Corvallis, Oregon in a related Perspective article.
The greenhouse gas record from EPICA Dome C during past ice ages also provides indirect evidence for abrupt climate change in the past, the authors found. This suggests that abrupt climatic events on time scales relevant to societies may be common features of the last climatic cycles."
Though it would more reasonably read 'decreases the possibility that human beings are responsible' for global warming rather than the misleading 'raises the possibility that early human activities may not be responsible'. Note that the passage is buried deep toward the bottom of the article, which still takes the standard environmentalist line that human beings are the cause of global warming despite this and other findings.
Published: June 27, 2006 9:23 AM
Maybe if I make the following analogy, more Mises Blog readers will be rightly skeptical of the claim that man’s activity is causing global warming that will have catastrophic consequences for the earth and humans. For many years, the vast majority of economists and social scientists have told us that the market economy is inherently unstable and government, through a variety of measures, including monopoly control over the money and banking systems, must intervene to provide stability and prevent catastrophe. This assertion is the intellectual basis for activist “macroeconomic� policy, and is the widely accepted “wisdom�, even though Mises, Rothbard, Hayek and others have demonstrated that it is absolute nonsense. The same intellectual types and their media minions that disseminate this fallacious view of the market economy are also responsible for the global warming argument, and predictably with the demand for the same type of response.
And yes we should be skeptical of the research that is funded by energy companies, but we should be just as skeptical of research that is funded by the government. Absolutely the same principle, i.e., the possible corruption of objectivity and true scientific inquiry, is at work.
Published: June 27, 2006 10:45 AM
Guys - You're dealing with some people (at the NY times) that have a psych problem so it's likely pointless to them (not saying it shouldn't be done for the benefit of others) to drag out the science. These guys have a screw loose - they want things to go bad because it would validate their anger toward other people having what they want to have only to themselves by themselves for themselves with themselves. They do all the bad stuff (DiCaprio trashing his Island and lecturing Clinton on "destroying the planet") they get angry at other people for.
They want it all: to ski Aspen without the "little people" and to "save eagle's eggs" while millions of Africans die from Malaria (banning DDT). That's why we hear "pro-choice" - not because "government has no business" - but because unborn children shouldn't inconvenience their lifestyle. They sell out. Whatever makes them happy is a-ok: I imagine a few of them would sell you into slavery if it meant a life of comfort for themselves. It's all a cover for their b.s.
Published: June 27, 2006 11:50 AM
Yancey, thanks for your support. I'm sorry that in the past two months my poor attempts at writing on global warming have been insufficient to make my position clear on energy, the environment and climate. Let me try to sum up:
Our problems, such as they may be, are either created by government subsidies (financial or through favored access to "public" resources), government preemption of private rights of action against polluters and by market pricing distortions/over-exploitation of resources resulting from unclear or unenforceable property rights (tragedy of the commons cases).
The case of global warming is one of clear institutional failure, a failure that has been deliberately funded by those benefitting most from free use of the atmosphere (rent-seekers) and aided and abetted by Republicans for partisan political and financial gain.
My proposal is to remove the subsidies and institute effective propoerty rights, and to keep the government out of micro-management of everyone's private economic decisions. To the extent that the government must play a role in environmental regulation, it should focus on performance and let the market make decisions about how to achieve performance and what to invest in. I do think that federal and state legislation that established compensation schedules relating to facility siting decisions would do much to eliminate the understandable and inevitable NIMBY resistance to new facilities.
I am not opposed to nuclear power, and have long seen environmental opposition to it as a very costly mistake - coal is so much dirtier and the CAA is full of Faustian compromises. However, I also think that nuclear power should not be federally subsidized, via liability caps or otherwise.
On GHGs, I favor private property-style solutions (cap and tradable permits) over taxes.
Are you taking me seriously now?
Regards,
Tom
Published: June 27, 2006 10:14 PM
Geoff:
It's hard to know where to begin with a post such as yours. Sorry that you think that understanding human cognition and the problems of perception and denial are a "cheap trick" in explaining sticking points in the global warming debate. My own view is that we are all subject to these difficulties, and have to be aware of our tendencies, which affect us despite a conscious understanding of them. However, I think that the science of congnition can tell us alot about the difficulties we have in changing our minds, especially if the evidence is not staring us in the face.
As to your own mind, I cannot convince you and will not attempt to try. This is not the blog for that. In any case, I've provided plenty of links above for you to look through if you're truly interested. The climate scientists at Real Climate and elsewhere are happy to respond to questions from commenters. Personally, I find it very telling that over the past few months there has been a virtual avalanche of well-known skeptics who are abandoning their long-held, public and tenaciously defended positions such as yours. They have even stronger reasons NOT to change their minds, but did. Does it make you wonder why?
The paper you cite is interesting, and your skewed conclusion as well. Of course the climate scientists are well aware that the climate changes, sometimes rather abruptly, and that ther are long-term climate cycles. The part you quoted is simply a part of the debate over whether human agricultural activities had a significant impact on climate PRIOR to our industrialization and large-scale combustion of wood and fossil fuels. This is an interesting question, but I'm sure you must be aware that man's accelerating emissions of GHGs over the past few centuries, decades and years are levels of magnitude greater than what they were ten or twenth thousand years ago. There is no doubt that we are monkeying with the climate now in a large way. Did you miss these paragraphs?:
"The analysis highlights the fact that today’s rising atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration, at 380 parts per million by volume, is already 27 percent higher than its highest recorded level during the last 650,000 years, said Science author Thomas Stocker of the Physics Institute of the University of Bern, in Bern, Switzerland, who serves as the corresponding author for both papers.
“We have added another piece of information showing that the timescales on which humans have changed the composition of the atmosphere are extremely short compared to the natural time cycles of the climate system,� Stocker explained."
Maybe you care to tell me what you think of this recent statement:
"Our world has changed.
Since the 1800s concentrations of carbon dioxide (CO2) in the atmosphere have increased by roughly 30 percent (from 280 to 380 parts per million today). Concentrations of other greenhouse gases have also increased — including a doubling of methane levels. Human activities have contributed to these increased concentrations, mainly through the combustion of fossil fuels for energy use, land use changes (especially deforestation), and agricultural, animal husbandry, and waste-disposal practices.
Surface temperature measurements have shown that the average global temperature has risen by about 0.6ºC since the mid-1800s. Other changes, consistent with the surface temperature rise, have also been observed. For example, scientists have documented a decrease in the volume of mountain glaciers and an increase in the length of growing seasons. These observations have fueled concern about the potential longer-term consequences of climate change. …
Climate science: what we know
[We have] conducted and supported climate science research for 25 years. Our work has produced more than 40 papers in peer-reviewed literature, and our scientists serve on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and numerous related scientific bodies.
Based on this experience, we recognize that the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere poses risks that may prove significant for society and ecosystems. We believe that these risks justify actions now, but the selection of actions must consider the uncertainties that remain.
Even with many scientific uncertainties, the risk that greenhouse gas emissions may have serious impacts justifies taking action."
Can you identify what group of "enviros" or self-serving "scientists" - who we all know are just looking for public research grants - said this earlier this year? The answer: ">EXXON.
Geoff, I see you're a political scientist posting on an economics blog; besides the science, it puzzles me why you ignore the economics and politics of climate change that I've noted above. I've also summarized some of my views here: http://www.redstate.com/comments/2005/11/30/223549/05/36. Perhaps you care to beat me up to topics that are more within your own developing expertise?
Regards,
Tom
Published: June 28, 2006 1:08 AM
Earth to Dennis, Earth to Dennis ... Hello?
Do you care to address a single point I've made above, to you or others? Or do you find it impossible not to lump me into the class of "intellectual types and their media minions" that you feel can be ignored?
I have no particular beef with you discounting economists and pundits whom you don't like, but climate change and other persistent problems are actually rather easily understood from a Misean perspective as a "tragedy of the commons" resulting from a failure to clearly establish and enforce property rights. It is this key insight that explains the various "collapses" that Jared Diamond wrings his hands over but fails to understand. We don't need to change our very way of life to solve problems such as global warming - we just need to find the right kinds of property rights solutions, such as individual transferrable rights that are also solving problems in fisheries management and SO2 emissions. Failure to solve these problems means a continuing subsidy from all of us to those who exploit public goods, while passing the costs and losses onto us.
Rather elementary, it seems to me, but it's funny how it seems far easier to say (i) nothing's happening, (ii) those who say otherwise are evil liars and (iii) if something IS happening, it's (a) good, (b) inevitable, (c) natural, or (d) I don't care, because I'm happy to have my current consumption subsidized at the expense of others and my children.
Besides all those who offer solutions you don't like, you ignore reality and the scientists who are reporting on it at your own peril.
Regards,
Tom
Published: June 28, 2006 1:35 AM
JimB: I imagine that a few years back you would have been saying the same things about those who wanted to deal with our rampant air, land and water pollution problems: there are no such problems, and those who say it is are just trying to trash the US economy just to preserve their own "life of comfort". Well, they certainly succeeded in trashing the US economy then, didn't they?
The real truth of course is that allowing market failures to go uncorrected hurts the poor the most, not the wealthy.
Published: June 28, 2006 1:42 AM
On not subsidizing nuclear power or other energy production, you and I agree. However, I cannot agree with the cap and trade system you have in mind. The necessary regulatory apparatus required to enforce such a system, which will have to be applied all the way down to the level of the individual is simply giving the government far too much power. And if the idea is to apply the caps only at the level of the fossil fuel providers, this will only lead to actual shortages of fuels and/or direct subsidies to alternative energy suppliers. To be efficient, individuals must be given incentive to change the profile of their fuel usage with the absolute minimum of government involvement. A carbon tax is far and away the best method to accomplish this.
Tom, I take you more seriously than I do the other global-warming Cassandras since you don't seem to be advocating that society give up energy production, which is not going to happen in the absence of civilization's collapse.
Published: June 28, 2006 9:11 AM
TokyoTom,
I fully agree with you that establishing and enforcing property rights is the best method to deal with externalities, including pollution. My disagreement with you involves whether or not property rights have been violated in the first place, i.e., whether global warming is in fact occurring and whether or not man is the primary culprit. We fundamentally disagree over the science. And as I have stated and believe reasonably supported over the past several days, the so-called science supporting man as the cause of catastrophic global warming is extremely questionable, if not outright incorrect.
And frankly, for some supporters of the standard view on global warming the whole subject has taken on the nature of a fervent religious crusade, with all that this mindset implies for reason and objectivity.
Finally, by "intellectual types" I was not referring to you personally; I apologize if that was how my comment was perceived. I actually was referring to academics.
Published: June 28, 2006 10:37 AM
Yancey, I agree completely that we want the absolute minimum of government involvement in continuing administration. This certainly merits a much more detailed discussion; you may note that there are substantial materials posted at the Senate Energy Committee site by the corporations and associations who responded to Domenici's request for comments on possible legislation: http://energy.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Conferences.Detail&Event_id=4&Month=4&Year=2006.
My own initial view is that taxes leave too much up to political meddling and don't have a mechanism from cross-jurisdiction trades that allows least-cost reductions. Thus, the are ineffecient, waste money unnecessarily and, being subject to political whim, don't provide the stable investment profile that industry needs for long-term planning.
Cap and trade, which creates property rights that can be enforced, does a better job of minimizing the government's role, and need not be extended directly to individuals. A CO2 program that is limited to fossil fuel energy producers would naturally have downstream effects, and incentives for sequestration could be created by allowing permit owners to purchase any offsets produced by verifiable seqestration.
Maybe we need to start another thread on this.
As for other Cassandras, I think they've been deliberately oversold by those who have a financial stake in the current broken system. Of course we should NOT be advocating that society give up energy production - that would be akin to saying that we surrender to entropy. No, we simpy need to make sure that energy pricing reflects its real costs, so that we don't by reason of a partial failure in property rights, continue to disastrously subsidize current energy consumption while allowing very real costs to go ignored.
Regards,
TT
Published: June 29, 2006 10:58 PM
Gore said in ten years it will be too late to do anything about global warming. As long as people hold out against environmentalists until 2016 then all of this talk is moot. Either the Earth turns into Venus and the human race becomes extinct or the power hungry think of something else to enslave humanity.
One question though: if fossil fuels are bad then should people use nuclear power or just cut power consumption?
This is my question.
Published: June 29, 2006 11:11 PM
Dennis, I agree that "for some supporters of the standard view on global warming the whole subject has taken on the nature of a fervent religious crusade, with all that this mindset implies for reason and objectivity". So what? I am not one of them, and neither are any of the many corporations, idividuals and government leaders I linked to on Reisman's next thread. We don't have to follow the rostrums proposed by those who don't really understand the science or the economic underpinnings.
It is undeniable also that there is no small amount of reflexive denial of the climate change evidence on the right, a denial that has been assiduously cultivated by the Bush administration for partisan gain and by very powerful rent-suckers in industry - the fossil fuel producers/users - who have essentially harnessed the pre-existing big tobacco network of pundits, added in support for the few remaining iconoclasts and financed a bunch of other non-experts who were willing to loudly declaim the "uncertainty" in a science of which they are not practitioners.
Regards,
TT
Do you really need me to tell me that you more about this cynical abuse of power and of public resources? Where is your cynicism of the skeptics?
Published: June 29, 2006 11:12 PM
banker: Yes, we are letting things spin out of control, and delay is very expensive as it leads to increased CO2 levels and a longer and deeper climate change problem. It will be cheaper for us all in the long run if we act quickly, since much of the damage will be essentially irreversible.
We will, however, survive.
As to fossil fuels, nukes and conservation, basically we should not hinder individual choices in this regard, but just try to make sure to fix market failure problems and to eliminate unnecessary or counterproductive subsidies. That may mean that we end up paying moer for fossil fuels, which will increase the attractiveness of alternatives, including nuclear power, biofuels and fuel efficiency.
Regards,
TT
Published: July 3, 2006 12:25 AM