Comments (239)

• David C

  Consider the statement, "if X happens, that disproves global warming theory". Well, there is no "X". No matter what the hell happens, there is always some "explanation".

  How can that be science? How does that have anything to do with repeatable, measurable, observable? How can you possibly freaking test a hypothesis, when there is nothing to negate? This is not science, it may be a religion, a faith, a dogma, but it sure the hell isn't science.

  Published: October 29, 2009 1:08 PM

• fundamentalist

  Nice! Thanks!

  Published: October 29, 2009 1:20 PM

• marcus

  Something more worth reading

  
  http://www.schmanck.de/0707.1161v4.pdf

  Published: October 29, 2009 1:36 PM

• Sheran

  Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you.

  Published: October 29, 2009 1:52 PM

• Wildberry

  Brilliant rebuttal of "scientific" nonsense. The astounding feature of "global warming" is that it is so clearly inadequate as a scientific postulation, yet it prevails, and even finds its way into "cap and trade" legislation. Why? Because there are those, (Al Gore being not the least of them) who stand to benefit from the cultural and legislative embodiment of the myth.
  I live in San Francisco. 10,000 year ago, you could walk to the Farallon Islands, 25 miles away. 9,000 years ago, I could point to the rising tide as evidence of ...whatever.
  There is nothing fundamentally different in the accomplishment of cultural myth for private gain in this realm than the manipulations of J.P. Morgan in an earlier time in the business realm.
  This is the competition. This is the "market force" that must be overcome if we as a nation and a people desire a different direction.
  Unfortunately, brilliant as this piece is, it is ineffectual to the debate. Despite the obvious conclusion that this myth is being fabricated by those who stand to benefit from its procreation, it marches on.
  It is not the quality of our ideas that limit us, but the inadequacy of our marketing.

  Published: October 29, 2009 1:55 PM

• George

  "What he didn't know was that nuclear energy, not gravitation, provides the internal heat of the sun and the earth."

  Nuclear energy provides the internal heat of the *earth*? Pardon me, but I'm now terribly confused... what is he talking about?

  Published: October 29, 2009 2:09 PM

• George

  P.S., Those of us in the frozen white north wouldn't mind a bit of warming from time to time. We're only halfway to the pole, but it can get coooold.

  Published: October 29, 2009 2:16 PM

• Howard Hayden

  Spontaneous radiation (alpha, beta, and gamma) emission is a form of nuclear energy. It's not the same as neutron-induced nuclear fission, of course, but it is nuclear energy nevertheless.

  Published: October 29, 2009 2:33 PM

• Bob Kaercher

  George: The way I read that line is that nuclear energy provides the internal heat of the sun and therefore *that* is what heats the Earth, rather than gravitation.

  Published: October 29, 2009 2:42 PM

• Bob Kaercher

  Ah, well there ya go. Thanks for the clarification, professor.

  Published: October 29, 2009 2:49 PM

• Christopher

  http://www.desmogblog.com/denier_database

  
  (Not sure if my previous comment went through)

  Published: October 29, 2009 2:59 PM

• Bala

  http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;283/5408/1712?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=Greenland+Ice+Core+Studies&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=10&resourcetype=HWCIT

  (Not sure if my previous comment went through)

  Published: October 29, 2009 3:08 PM

• Bala

  My previous post was a request to others reading these comments to confirm the reliability of the link I have posted because it confirms a point made by Professor Howard Hayden (Point B).

  Published: October 29, 2009 3:11 PM

• Lemmywinks

  Could someone kindly relate this back to Austrian economics.

  All I can gather from this, is that either

  A. Externalities on such a massive scale as global warming cannot exist,

  or

  B. If they do exist, they must be positive and we shouldn't care.

  Published: October 29, 2009 3:26 PM

• Michael A. Clem

  Could someone kindly relate this back to Austrian economics.
  

  Why? "You have found the world center of the Austrian School of economics and libertarian political and social theory." Everything posted on Mises doesn't have to be about Austrian economics exclusively.

  Published: October 29, 2009 3:36 PM

• Walt D.

  Great letter Howard. I'm surprised that you didn't cite the recent article by Lindzen and Choi that really puts the nail in the coffin.
  
  It is interesting that you bring up Lord Kelvin. Kelvin dismissed Herschel's work correlating corn prices with sunspot activity as "astrology". He showed that the change in the solar flux due to sunspots was too small to be of any significance. The global warming "scientists" fell into the same trap. The cold weather we are having the last two years has coincided with the absence of sunspots.
  
  If you can listen to a 90 minute talk, I would recommend Christopher Monckton's presentation.
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=stij8sUybx0

  Published: October 29, 2009 4:36 PM

• Jonathan Finegold Catalán

  This relates to economics. Global warming is their justification for their tyranny.

  Published: October 29, 2009 4:39 PM

• Brian Gladish

  Unfortunately, the eminent philosopher of science, Karl Popper, is not around to make the simple comment that AGW or "climate change" is not falsifiable and, therefore, not science, much less "settled" science.

  Published: October 29, 2009 5:05 PM

• A. Smith

  It would be interesting to hear Popper's opinion. Popper ended up deflating his philosophy of science to allow non-falsifying events to falsify theories as well. Extremely unlikely events were also seen as falsifying. Sadly, in making this move, he really bit the bullet, and had to accept that falsification was not the whole answer to the demarcation problem.

  Published: October 29, 2009 5:36 PM

• Isaac

  Christopher,

  Regarding your like to deniers database:

  The interesting thing to note about this site is that it makes no attempt to debate the professor's position on the matter, but instead resorts to attacking his character and affiliations.

  "Hayden sits on the "Board of Academic and Scientific Advisors" of a US think tank called Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow (CFACT)."

  Oh no, a "think tank"... Those people are always biased, right?

  "Also on the board are many other well-known climate change "skeptics," including Sallie Baliunas, Robert Balling, Sherwood Idso and Patrick Michaels."

  These people are "skeptics" too. Skeptics are wrong, therefore Hayden is wrong...

  "ExxonMobil has contributed $472,000 to CFACT over the last 7 years."

  So? All of the scientists which promote AGW are payed by the government or government sponsored universities. As long we're poisoning the well...

  "Founded in 1985, CFACT has been critical of government regulation on many issues, including the o-zone layer, mercury emissions, global warming, taxic waste and the use of pesticides."

  Government regulation of these issues is good, Hayden is against them, therefore he is bad...

  "Listed as an “Allied Expert ” for the Natural Resource Stewardship Project ... he has failed to respond to follow-up questions about the source of NRSP funding."

  FUD

  "In 1996, Hayden authored an article stating that the science around the hole on the O-zone layer was "shaky.""

  Even if we accept that he was wrong in this case (the site doesn't even address the subject) it doesn't mean he is always wrong.

  There is nothing substantive in this article whatsoever.

  Published: October 29, 2009 5:54 PM

• baxter

  "Nuclear energy provides the internal heat of the *earth*? "

  Yes, heavy and radioactive elements such as Uranium exist in the Earth, especially at it's core, and are continuously decaying through fission. "The earth’s heat content is 10^31 Joules. This heat naturally flows to the surface by conduction at a rate of 44.2 TW and is replenished by radioactive decay at a rate of 30 TW" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_power

  Published: October 29, 2009 6:13 PM

• Pmix

  Heavy elements like uranium that are in the center of the earth are not releasing their energy through fission. There are many other nuclear processes that release energy. The main reactions going on in the center of the earth are nuclear decay reactions such as alpha, beta or gamma decay. While spontaneous or neutron induced fission might occur sporadically, fission is responsible for only a tiny fraction of the nuclear energy being generated in the core of the earth.

  Published: October 29, 2009 6:26 PM

• redshirt

  Awesome letter!

  Now I have always thought that the worst natural disasters have been heat waves. So it is nevertheless true that mortality is higher in the winter months on average? I'll look it up unless someone has a good link to post here.

  marcus' link is a good one for the physics... if you want, follow it and go to the very end. It basically says it's all bunk, all the way down to how the physics is being incorrectly applied in the models.

  Of course, if it is all bunk, one cannot really make positive comments about warmer weather either. The whole modeling system is in question. Only real experimental measurements (ice cores, etc) should be considered.

  Does anyone know what the current word is on the effect of warmer temperatures on the distribution of fresh water? This is something measurable, and the last I read it was a worsening situation. With the recent cooler weather, is this reversing?

  Published: October 29, 2009 6:36 PM

• brad maynard

  sent a copy of that letter to our canadian version of the Goracle, the David Suzuki Foundation. probably wont read it, like trying to convert a muslim to christianity. i do pray that america gets itself a republican dominated senate (filled with REAL republicans) soon enough to stop any climate change garbage, cause if it doesnt happen there it wont get off the ground here.

  Published: October 29, 2009 7:04 PM

• Hard Rain

  I'm with Michael Crichton on this one.

  It's a fool's errand trying to solve problems which may or may not exist for hundreds of years.

  Published: October 29, 2009 7:16 PM

• Crawdad

  Christopher,

  To add my own thoughts to what Isaac already wrote. I’m always fascinated to see people immediately question scientists’ motives who work in the private sector but give a free pass to scientists who work for governments or even international organizations like the U.N. If the notion is that the science is going to be subverted to fit corporate desires, why would it be any different for scientists working for governments? It reminds me of the following quote from Mises:

  “If one rejects laissez faire on account of man’s fallibility and moral weakness, one must for the same reasons also reject every kind of government action.”

  
  

  Published: October 29, 2009 7:38 PM

• Peter

  Now I have always thought that the worst natural disasters have been heat waves. So it is nevertheless true that mortality is higher in the winter months on average?

  Heat waves are bad not because of the heat but because of the 'waves' -- i.e., because people don't cope well with rapid changes in temperature. But people hardly ever die from gradual heating...people die all the time from cold (it doesn't even have to be very cold; when the temp. drops, blood vessels near the surface of your skin constrict to reduce blood-flow and conserve heat, causing a rise in blood pressure ... you're at significantly increased risk for heart attack and stroke at only, say, 15°C)

  Published: October 29, 2009 7:48 PM

• Staring at Wheat

  fantastic letter! thanks for posting, Mr. Kinsella

  Published: October 29, 2009 8:39 PM

• Gil

  Lemmywinks gets it.

  Published: October 29, 2009 9:06 PM

• Walt D.

  The fundamental equation of Global Warming:
  
  Science + Politics = BS

  Published: October 29, 2009 11:34 PM

• Gil

  I think Hard Rain meant to link this article as well.

  Published: October 30, 2009 12:41 AM

• K Ackermann

  This guy is a sitting advisor for CFACT, bought and paid for by Exxon/Mobil. Why not be up front about it? It can be taken as deception.

  What I find astonishing is the ready acceptance of the science behind climate history, and then the rejection of the principles of thermodynamics.

  Is this guy not aware of some of the models that show viable ways that the excess heat trapped by CO2 might possibly be shunted back to space?

  Leave it to a person paid by the petroleum industry to lead off with a denial that man is increasing CO2 levels. Let me guess: it's not the tailpipes of cars that turn the snow black on the sides of roads; it's the reflection of the black road that turns them black.

  I wasn't around to see it, but I read about the great American Dustbowl. That was man-made (if you believe facts), and it stripped vast amounts of topsoil from the continent. We found a way to fix that.

  We found that man-made CFC's were making it to the upper atmosphere where they finally broke down, and allowed free chlorine to rampage through ozone. We solved that too.

  Like it or not, man can indeed affect the planet. It would be nice to study what the effects are without some paid antagonist blowing smoke up our backsides about all the wonderful things excess heat will do for us.

  One claim, "All computer models predict a smaller temperature gradient between the poles and the equator. Necessarily, this would mean fewer and less violent storms"

  This has to be intended subterfuge. There is no way he could accidentally be wrong about that. The very essence of a hurricane is its warm core origins. They do not rely at all on temp gradients. Actually, they do in the second-order: they can be sheared apart by large crosswinds - something that would be less prevalent with a lower gradient.

  Everything about that letter feels disingenuous. There are much more sound ways to show possible hysteresis effects keeping thermal equilibrium low enough that we don't have a problem, and Exxon/Mobil should understand this by now.

  Expand knowledge, don't obfuscate it. The only alarmists are the people promising we can't wean ourselves off carbon without devastating consequences. It may be that we will have to wean ourselves off it.

  I'll at least give him credit for being pro-nuke.

  Published: October 30, 2009 1:13 AM

• TokyoTom

  Stephan:

  Thanks for bringing your post to my attention.

  My short response? Remember "Thank you, Prof. Block, for feeding our confirmation biases"?

  But since I can`t resist doing what nobody else seems inclined to - I suppose it is, after all, why you invited me to this feast - let me make a few comments on matters that would apparently not otherwise occur to you or to the rest of the community.

  The fact that most of the contents of Dr. Hayden`s letter is confused twaddle that has been explained in detail countless times (and personally by me, ad nauseum, to the extreme annoyance of most of the blog over the years 2006-2008) aside, it puzzles me that you and others prefer to treat the pages of the Mises Blog as a forum to dismiss - through drive-by postings like this (a la Walter Block) of a particular piece of "skepticism" that caught your fancy - extremely widespread scientific views (held by EVERY major national academy of science, including China and India), rather than engaging in a discussion of preferences, institutions and policies.

  As I`ve asked Jeffrey Tucker previously, is science the forte of the Mises Blog, or its readers?

  Even if those who believe that man`s rising emissions of CO2 have nothing to do with an observably rapidly changing world and pose no threat whatsoever - and that those who disagree all all deluded and/or evil - turn out, after we play our little massive and irreversible game with the Earth for another few centuries, to be absolutely right, is engaging with them by dismissing their concerns an approach that holds even the slightest prospect of success?

  It`s as if Austrians were determined to ignore their own principles, stampede themselves into irrelevancy, and to make sure that we get the WORST policy outcomes possible.

  Why not, if you think others all wrong, deluded or evil, play along with their game, and actually seek policy changes that might not only address the expressed concerns of others in a meaningful way, while also advancing a libertarian, freedom-seeking agenda?

  As I have noted in a litany of posts at my blog, most recently one addressed to Bob Murphy, such pro-freedom regulatory changes might include:

  * accelerating cleaner power investments by eliminating corporate income taxes or allowing immediate amortization of capital investment,
  * eliminating antitrust immunity for public utility monopolies (to allow consumer choice, peak pricing and "smart metering" that will rapidly push efficiency gains),
  * ending Clean Air Act handouts to the worst utilities (or otherwise unwinding burdensome regulations and moving to lighter and more common-law dependent approaches),
  * ending energy subsidies generally (including federal liability caps for nuclear power (and allowing states to license),
  * speeding economic growth and adaptation in the poorer countries most threatened by climate change by rolling back domestic agricultural corporate welfare programs (ethanol and sugar), and
  * if there is to be any type of carbon pricing at all, insisting that it is a per capita, fully-rebated carbon tax (puts the revenues in the hands of those with the best claim to it, eliminates regressive impact and price volatility, least new bureaucracy, most transparent, and least susceptible to pork).

  Other policy changes could also be put on the table, such as an insistence that government resource management be improved by requiring that half of all royalties be rebated to citizens (with a slice to the administering agency).

  As Rob Bradley once reluctantly acknowledged to me (in the halcyon days before he banned me from the "free-market" Master Resource blog), "a free-market approach is not about “do nothing” but implementing a whole new energy approach to remove myriad regulation and subsidies that have built up over a century or more." But unfortunately the wheels of this principled concern have never hit the ground at MR.

  There have been occasional libertarian climate proposals floated over the past few years, but they have never graced the Mises Blog, instead falling gently to the ground unnoticed - apparently, except for me - like the proverbial unstrained koala tea of Mercy.

  Austrians seem to act as if the love of reason requires a surrender it in favor of the comforting distraction of fevered enviro-bashing or a retreat to a self-satisfied echo chamber of a type that would warm the cockles of any like-minded religious "alarmist" cult.

  Then of course, we have our own home-grown libertarians who are happy to participate actively in the debate (with many excellent points, naturally), but carefully skirt for the purposes of maximum effectiveness (and felicitously, for their own consciences) the fact that their views are funded by the dirtiest class of rent-seekers. Plus we have a few who are happy to regurgitate for us "heroic" "grassroots" efforts that are transparent corporate PR ploys.

  Finally, since no one else seems to be remotely interesting in scratching the surface of Dr. Hayden`s letter, here is what a little due diligence turns up:

  - sure, the solubility of CO2 in water decreases as water warms, and increases as water cools. Some skeptics use this to suggest that rising atmospheric CO2 concentrations are due not to man, but to a naturally warming. That`s why it`s so interesting that, despite a warming ocean, ocean pH is rising because dissolved CO2 is also rising (because man`s CO2 emissions are forcing more CO2 to be dissolved in water).

  - You ask sarcastically, if the melting point of ice is 0 ºC in Antarctica, just as it is everywhere else, how will a putative few degrees of warming melt all the ice and inundate Florida, as is claimed by the warming alarmists? The answer is, simply, that (1) the warming oceans melt and undermine the coastal ice, and (2) as coastal buttresses are removed, gravity brings the continental ice down more rapidly. This process is well underway and apparently accelerating, as described in a study just published in Nature. Note also that not all of Antarctica lies precisely at the South Pole, and that some parts are melting directly as the atmosphere warms.

  - finally, not all men are dinosaurs, nor is the rest of extant Creation (save birds, of course). Why should we feel comforted by the fact that we may, in the blink of an eye in geologic time (decades/centuries), be terra-forming the Earth for creatures that no longer exist, while stressing it for the rest of Creation? Do we have no right of preference in climate or in the life we share the Earth with, or have the investors in fossil fuel firms homesteaded the right to modify environmental matters willy nilly, come what may?

  Thanks for providing the soapbox, Stephan.

  Tom

  Published: October 30, 2009 1:57 AM

• Alec McEachran

  I suppose Prof Hayden doesn't teach about gravity on the same basis?

  Does he also deny the holocaust? Same sorts of arguments are used by people that do

  I think he'd better stick to physics.

  Published: October 30, 2009 3:05 AM

• TokyoTom

  I note that my quick effort above contains a few bad links; I think I`ve fixed them here: http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/10/30/the-road-not-taken-ii-austrians-strive-for-a-self-comforting-irrelevancy-on-climate-change-the-greatest-commons-problem-rent-seeking-game-of-our-age.aspx

  Published: October 30, 2009 3:16 AM

• Paul

  Great debate material.

  Not a learned scientist, I tend to look to basics when considering this subject.

  London suffered from Smog prior to the mid 1960's, nobody felt that was a good thing, or that it was natural. Coke (reduced coal) was the solution and the air was cleaned up.

  Since then cities all over the world have seen the consequences of pollution and nobody thinks it's a good thing.

  Now we use science to argue either side of the pollution debate while forgetting a simple consequence.

  Pollution is harmful to our environment, our health, and our children. So let's deal with 'it' Improve our energy consumption efficiency, reduce production of polluting chemicals, clean up our act. Don't get taken off track by the debate on climate change, rising sea levels, or the reduction in the earths magnetic field.

  Published: October 30, 2009 6:33 AM

• K Ackermann

  I'd just like to add one other thing...

  Any attempt to outright dismiss the possibility of global warming, given the fact that it is, you know, global... is dysfunctional.

  A normal, healthy brain would want to look into these facts, and encourage study and preparation.

  A survey of 3146 scientists showed the vast majority to believe human activity will contribute to climate change. 97% of climate scientists held that belief.

  That means you can continue to find and report among the 3%, but don't you think it is fair to give the other 97% their say?

  I think it would be mentally defective to say no.

  Published: October 30, 2009 7:42 AM

• mpolzkill

  "meteorologists...64%", amateur propagandist. And why don't you look into who pays most of those 97% percent, "Mr. Normal, Healthy Brain".

  Published: October 30, 2009 8:03 AM

• Eric

  @K Ackermann. Hayden was not denying global warming. He was clearly stating that there is not a standard model and if there was a standard model than it is wrong due to the fact it did not predict the current cooling period.

  Michael Crichton put it well with this quote:
  "Let's be clear: the work of science has nothing whatever to do with consensus. Consensus is the business of politics. Science, on the contrary, requires only one investigator who happens to be right, which means that he or she has results that are verifiable by reference to the real world. In science, consensus is irrelevant."

  Published: October 30, 2009 8:19 AM

• Christopher

  Isaac & Crawdad,

  My apologies, my original comment didn't post so out of laziness I failed to add them again to the comment referencing the link.

  What I had said was that I didn't want the linke to come across as an attempt to discredit the author, but maybe question his motivation. I personally believe in the theory of climate change and believe that man has the ability to effect climate. However I also understand that both sides have their own motivations to make 'their data' appear more legitimate and discredit the data of their competitors. Afterall there are billions of $$'s at stake.

  Scientists must rely on funding for their research, and they know it's not a good idea to bite the hand that feeds them. I also no that it's no coincidence that GW gets played down when the world economy is in the tank.

  Regrettably(sp?) I've yet to read any study saying man-made GW does not exist which wasn't paid for by big oil.

  Published: October 30, 2009 8:27 AM

• Beefcake the Mighty

  "Regrettably(sp?) I've yet to read any study saying man-made GW does not exist which wasn't paid for by big oil."

  relevance = 0

  Published: October 30, 2009 8:40 AM

• fundamentalist

  I love the responses from the GW hysteria crowd. They have nothing to offer but ad hominem attacks and appeals to authority. Their tactics alone should prove the falseness of their claims.

  Published: October 30, 2009 8:45 AM

• George

  "leave it to a person paid by the petroleum industry to lead off with a denial that man is increasing CO2 levels. Let me guess: it's not the tailpipes of cars that turn the snow black on the sides of roads; it's the reflection of the black road that turns them black"

  K Ackermann, I'll have to read the letter again, but I don't remember seeing that he specifically denies that humans have anything to do with CO2 rise. Rather, I think he was saying that even if we do, it's not necessarily a BAD thing overall.

  However, I agree the correct approach isn't to stick one's head in the sand. It is a condition of risk where the outcomes are rather unknown. We will punch ourselves in the head if it turns out that the GW proponents were right, just the same as we will punch ourselves in the head if they are wrong and we spent all that money on carbon reduction for nothing.

  My personal thoughts on the matter is that there is no conclusive evidence either way, so the best way to go forward is to not try to directly attack climate change on the high level but to make changes on the low level, changes that even libertarians can agree with:

  - No more agricultural subsidies
  - No more fossil fuel subsidies
  - No more road & free parking subsidies
  - etc....

  ... except for those provided voluntarily by private enterprise.

  As well, even though it might not be reasonable to charge for carbon output, it is PERFECTLY reasonable to charge for lead output, mercury output, etc.... There are MANY small steps we can take the improve the environment without needing to ram a heavy top-down system down everyone's throat where only the guys on top will benefit.

  Published: October 30, 2009 9:02 AM

• Christopher

  Beefcake the Mighty ,

  
  How is that irrelevant? Surely you would say the same if there weren't studies proving GW which were paid for by All Gore (I'm not say Al Gore pay for them, but you get my drift).

  Published: October 30, 2009 9:04 AM

• Beefcake the Mighty

  No Christopher, unlike brain-dead toads, I read what someone has to say before accepting it as true or dismissing it as false. The fact that you can't see why oil company funding has no bearing on matters of true or false speaks volumes, I'm afraid. Or, are you claiming that such research (funded by oil companies) is deliberately distorted, on instruction of the subsidizer? If so, please say so, and provide some evidence, if you don't mind.
  

  Published: October 30, 2009 9:22 AM

• Mike

  I think the notion that the human race, which has spread across the entire globe and increased in density, cannot have any collective impact on the globe, is ridiculous. We have what, almost 7 billion people now, and most of them are burning stuff every single day. It's as if the entire earth is on fire, every piece of land is emitting CO2 and other gases into the atmosphere, all day, every day. It's clear we can no longer resort to "ahh, the world is so much BIGGER than us though! How can one little man affect it?"

  That being said, it's also pretty clear we have no idea just HOW we are affecting it, and what the ramifications will be in the long run. I personally think any real (human-affecting) consequences will be "marginal" in nature (that is, it will hurt/kill a few people or areas at a time) and therefore the damage will be self-limiting.

  I think part of the problem libertarians have with climate change is that it's WAY too convenient an excuse for state intervention. I mean, how can you argue with "we must save the world"?

  I'll tell you how: the state is destructive and incompetent to boot.

  Either humans' destruction of their own environment will be self-limiting, or humans will destroy the planet and themselves with it. If the state is involved in this at all, it will be on the side of destruction. If the end of humanity will be caused by global warming, then this end is inevitable, with or without statist tyranny.

  Published: October 30, 2009 9:23 AM

• George

  "Spontaneous radiation (alpha, beta, and gamma) emission is a form of nuclear energy. It's not the same as neutron-induced nuclear fission, of course, but it is nuclear energy nevertheless."

  Thanks for the explanation... you really do learn something new every day.

  I have a question about this part of the letter:
  "But therein lies the proof that we are nowhere near a tipping point. The earth, it seems, has seen times when the CO2 concentration was up to 8,000 ppm, and that did not lead to a tipping point. If it did, we would not be here talking about it. In fact, seen on the long scale, the CO2 concentration in the present cycle of glacials (ca. 200 ppm) and interglacials (ca. 300-400 ppm) is lower than it has been for the last 300 million years."

  I'm just wondering, but isn't this isolating one variable without taking others into account? According to the standard star model, the sun's output should have risen over time since its birth, from around two-thirds to its current output today.

  So, while 8000ppm might have led to one set of climate circumstances in the past, if you combine it with a higher solar output would that not lead to higher temperatures, perhaps past a so-called tipping point?

  Published: October 30, 2009 9:29 AM

• TokyoTom

  fundamentalist: "I love the responses from the GW hysteria crowd. They have nothing to offer but ad hominem attacks and appeals to authority."

  Am I excluded from the "hysteria" crowd, Roger? Because if I`m in, you seem to have entirely missed my post, and my point, as to the consistency of your arguments with Austrian principles and the effectiveness of approaches like yours in dealing with the rest of the world - including all of the deluded and others who are engaged in bad faith.

  Published: October 30, 2009 9:44 AM

• Walt D.

  If we took the $700 billion stimulus package and used it to fund fusion energy research there is a reasonable likelihood that we could come up with clean fusion reactors. If the research did not produce results, we could always adopt the Paul Krugman approach and spend another $700 billion!
  
  If all the satellite measurements that show that the energy radiated into space increases as the surface temperature increases, the ocean temperature measurements that show that the temperature of the oceans is not increasing, the landsat photographs that show that the polar ice cap is growing and not shrinking were all collected and processed by Exxon/Mobil, then we might have cause for concern that the data that shows that the the global warming computer models make false predictions, were being manipulated.
  
  Or we could spend the winter in Fargo North Dakota.
  Does Exxon/Mobil influence the local climate? Or what about corn and soybean yields? Is this due to cooler summers, or is Exxon/Mobil surreptitiously altering the composition of its fertilizers?

  Published: October 30, 2009 9:55 AM

• mpolzkill

  "I'll tell you how: the state is destructive and incompetent to boot."

  That is it in a nutshell, Mike. I, like almost everyone else, have no idea if humans will cause disasterous climate warming or cooling. But if we are bringing ruin on ourselves by our share of emitting carbon, I sure don't want the problem in the hands of the idiots in D.C. and the Hague, just as I don't want them running hospitals or anything else.

  Published: October 30, 2009 10:02 AM

• Stephan Kinsella

  "Tokyo" asked me to respond to his post but it's so rambling I am not sure what to respond to. To me this is very simple. I think we are in an interglacial period. It's going to start getting cooler eventually, unless by then we have enough technology and freedom (no offense, Tokyo) to stop it. If there is global warming maybe it can delay the coming ice age by a few centuries.

  If there were really global warming why not just use "nuclear winter" to cool things down? You don't see the envirotards advocating that! :) (see Greenpeace to advocate nuking the earth?)

  In any event as I see it there are several issues. Is it warming? Can we know it? Do we know it? Are we causing it? Can we stop it? Should we stop it?

  It seem to me we do not know that it's warming; if it is, it's probably not caused by Man; and if it is, there's probably nothing we can do to stop it except effectively destroy mankind; there's no reason to stop it since it won't even be all bad, and in fact would be overall good. I do not trust the envirotards, who hate industrialism and love the state, and seek anything to stop capitalism and to give the state an excuse to increase regulations and taxes; why anyone thinks these watermelons really know what the temperature will be in 10, 100, 1000 years, when we can't even get accurate weather forecasts a week out, is beyond me.

  That said, I'll take the watermelons seriously when they start advocating nuclear power. Until then, they reveal themselves to be anti-industry, anti-man, techo-illiterates. (See Green nukes; Nuclear spring?.)
  

  Published: October 30, 2009 10:03 AM

• Mike

  I should add that I haven't read any evidence of global warming feeding back on itself and becoming a death spiral. The earth is one huge ball of equilibrium, and so, all other things being equal, the current amount of greenhouse gas emissions corrosponds to a current state of the climate. It stands to reason that if emission were to be reduced, the excess CO2 would be reabsorbed (perhaps over a long (for humans) period of time) and climate would revert back accordingly.

  This is why I think the whole thing is self-limiting. I don't think climate change is a doomsday scenario, but more of a Malthus-esqe upper bound on human population (with this bound of course shifted by increasing or decreasing CO2 output per capita).

  Not to mention we're running out of fossil fuels.

  In short, nothing to see here. The natural order will take care of it.
  

  Published: October 30, 2009 10:05 AM

• christopher

  Beefcake the Mighty,

  " Or, are you claiming that such research (funded by oil companies) is deliberately distorted, on instruction of the subsidizer?"

  I claimed that it's always a possibility on both sides of the aisle. Nobody hear, that includes you, can otherwise prove or disprove it, but what I do know is that I have no read any reports from someone whose research wasn't paid by big oil saying man-made climate change isn't there.

  If you find one let me know.

  This is just like how some artificial sweetners were touted as causing cancer. Would it matter to you if the sugar lobby, who paid for the study, had a group of scientists determine that eating your body weight in a specific artifical sweetners caused cancer? Would the warning on the package carry any or more or less weight in your opinion?

  Published: October 30, 2009 10:21 AM

• Beefcake the Mighty

  You're obviously finding this perspective hard to fathom, but no, I would evaluate the merits of the hypothetical sugar study, without regard to the sponsor, *unless* there was reason to suspect that the sponsor falsfied the results. You apparently think that there's always reason to suspect this; I, on the other hand, need a bit more evidence of actual wrong-doing, as in, actual evidence.

  You remind me of the Marxists of old, who used to "refute" their opponents by pointing to their material interests.

  Published: October 30, 2009 10:33 AM

• PaulM

  We have come to realize that the environmental movement has been hijacked by the biggest perpetratos of environmental pollution. In order to steer the blame on to the consumer and in turn enforce the worlds first global tax.

  When I was 16 I said to my friends, "They tax everything, they are going to tax the air we breathe next...". My friends laughed and so did I. But unfortunately I was correct.

  Published: October 30, 2009 10:50 AM

• Christopher

  Beefcake the Mighty,

  ", without regard to the sponsor, *unless* there was reason to suspect that the sponsor falsfied the results. You apparently think that there's always reason to suspect "

  Yes I do. There are those in gov't who always crave more and more control over our lives.

  Published: October 30, 2009 11:23 AM

• TokyoTom

  [my prior version ran off without my permission; this is a re-draft]

  It seems like I can lead a horse to water, but I can`t make him think,

  We all have our own maps of reality and our own calculus as to what government policies are desirable and when, but as for me, the status quo needs changing, and the desire of a wide range of people - be they deluded, evil, conniving or whatnot - to do something on the climate front seems like a great opportunity to get freedom-enhancing measures on the table and to achieve some of MY preferences, chiefly because they help to advance the professed green agenda.
  
  I see no reason to sit at home or simply scoff or fling poo from the sidelines, and let what I see as a bad situation get worse. There`s very little in that for practically anyone here - except of course those who like coal pollution, public utilities, corporate income taxes, big ag corporate welfare, political fights over government-owned resources, energy subsidies and over-regulation, etc. (and those folks aren`t sitting at home, believe me).

  I can keep on questioning everyone`s sanity or bona fides, or I can argue strongly for BETTER policies, that advance shared aims.

  Does Austrian thinking simply lack a practical political arm, other than those few who have signed up to support special interests?

  Ramblin` Tom

  Published: October 30, 2009 11:51 AM

• Christopher

  Tokyo Tom

  "Does Austrian thinking simply lack a practical political arm, other than those few who have signed up to support special interests?"

  Ron Paul almost made it, but in the other side had just too much $$

  Published: October 30, 2009 12:05 PM

• yugan

  why is there no discussion of rising sea levels in this entire letter or comments? isn't that one of the major concerns related to global warming?

  Published: October 30, 2009 12:30 PM

• fundamentalist

  TT: "I see no reason to sit at home or simply scoff or fling poo from the sidelines..."

  I don't see anyone doing that except the GW hysterical crowd. Honest scientists like Hayden try to present evidence and reason so that we can have a real debate, and the hysterical crowd flings poo from the sidelines.

  yugan: "why is there no discussion of rising sea levels in this entire letter or comments?"

  Skeptics like Hayden don't deny that global warming is taking place and that sea levels will rise. They are skeptical that man-made CO2 is causing the warming and that we can do anything to stop it.
  

  Published: October 30, 2009 12:39 PM

• Stephan Kinsella

  As Hayden told me in response to TokyoTom's rambling screed:

  I haven’t much time to answer, and certainly not to address vague stuff like “confused twaddle” that he has supposedly discussed before. He is obviously weak on facts, or he’d actually say something substantive.

  Antarctica has the same average elevation as Colorado. It has more land area than the US. Precisely how can warm water at the coast melt the ice very far inland? Not a chance. In fact, though San Francisco is always cool because of the Pacific, you don’t have to go very far inland before it is very hot in summer. Ditto Seattle and surroundings. The oceanic effects do not go very far. The only place the ice is melting is West Antarctica, which is a narrow spit of land heading up toward Chile. Moreover, Antarctica is a desert; the air is very dry because it is so cold. The skiing report from the South Pole is “0.01 inches of new snow and two miles of base.” If the waters around it warm up, they create more precipitation.

  But there’s even more. Suppose I take an ice cube into a room where I’m giving a talk. I set the ice cube on the table. In an unrelated event, somebody decides that the room is too warm, and they turn down the thermostat. So the ice is busy melting even as the room is cooling. And it proves precisely what?

  The ocean’s pH is not rising. It is falling, ever so slightly. Obviously your respondent has not the faintest clue as to how pH is defined. (BTW, the oceans are basic, not acidic.)

  CO2 is plant food, and the more there is of it, the more verdant is the earth; moreover, the earth has handily survived many millions of years when CO2 levels were MUCH higher than at present, without passing the dreaded tipping point.

  I don’t do politics; the only difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is, in practical terms, their rhetoric. I don’t pretend to be an economic theorist. But the notion that we can run an industrialized giant on chicken manure and sunbeams doesn’t even pass the giggle test. Except in Washington.

  Published: October 30, 2009 12:40 PM

• mpolzkill

  "chicken manure and sunbeams"

  What a pleasure that note was to read. Thanks, Stephan.

  Published: October 30, 2009 12:52 PM

• LightBringer

  You just don't get it Tom, do you? The reason the Austrian School (at least the current vanguard of Hoppe, Kinsella, Tucker et al) don't make nice 'practical' policy suggestions is that they have correctly identified that the State, in all of its forms is evil and destructive and must be abolished. No policy suggestions there; just get rid of it, now. As much as I admire Ron Paul and his efforts, I have to agree - there is no such thing as acceptable government policy.

  Published: October 30, 2009 1:04 PM

• Walt D.

  yugan "why is there no discussion of rising sea levels in this entire letter or comments? isn't that one of the major concerns related to global warming?"
  
  Probably because there has been no global warming over the last ten years (hence global climate change), and that sea level temperatures have not been increasing and the actual sea level rises have been very small.
  
  To inject a point of rhetoric, Al Gore bought an apartment at Fisherman's Wharf in San Francisco. I don't think he is expecting a 20 foot rise in sea levels in the near future!
  
  Incidentally, here's a point I have not seen about the melting glacier fallacy. The Greenland glaciers flow downhill into the sea under the force of graviity and then melt. They will do this regardless of whether the climate is hot or cold. The key problem is lack of snow.

  Published: October 30, 2009 1:26 PM

• kristine N

  Honest scientists like Hayden try to present evidence and reason so that we can have a real debate, and the hysterical crowd flings poo from the sidelines.

  So, I happen to be a climate scientist (in training, at least--I'm a grad student) and first off, I don't see a whole lot of evidence in the letter above, mostly supposition and incorrect portrayals of data. For example,

  CO2 concentration has risen and fallen in the past with no help from mankind. The present rise began in the 1700s, long before humans could have made a meaningful contribution.

  Actually, CO2 began rising because of human activity ">http://www.sciencedirect.com/science?_ob=ArticleURL&_udi=B6VBC-4X0F6PH-1&_user=10&_coverDate=08/13/2009&_alid=982355866&_rdoc=1&_fmt=high&_orig=search&_cdi=5923&_sort=r&_docanchor=&view=c&_ct=13&_acct=C000050221&_version=1&_urlVersion=0&_userid=10&md5=a2294b7e165c7f3d40897b0f24d73bd4> several thousand years earlier because of agricultural practices that either involved slashing and burning forests or destabilized carbon stored in soils. The contributions from agriculture were not enough to act as a significant forcing, though, so the climate still primarily responded to solar and volcanic forcings until the industrial revolution.

  I also find his first comment regarding the existence of multiple models confusing given that he's supposedly a physicist. As a physicist he should understand the difference between a deterministic system (where a single answer would be appropriate) and a probabilistic system (like the climate), where multiple models are necessary to give the range of possible outcomes.

  I could go on, but like most of my colleagues I'm too busy actually producing data and interpreting it in the context of the other data that's been gathered by other busy scientists to fling more poo on this discussion.

  Published: October 30, 2009 1:28 PM

• Doug

  Great information as always.

  Isn't the goal of science to be able to predict? What I continue to struggle with are the predictions. If we really understand what impacts GW, then shouldn't we be able to predict temperatures anyplace in the world minute by minute? Is this too much to ask?

  I for one do not want to discount any scientist whether they work for an oil company or are state sponsored, but I would like to see better predictions at the micro level. Here in MN, we had a cold summer and a rainy fall and it would have been nice to know that beforehand :)
  

  Published: October 30, 2009 1:35 PM

• Walt D.

  kristine said
  
  " As a physicist he should understand the difference between a deterministic system (where a single answer would be appropriate) and a probabilistic system (like the climate), where multiple models are necessary to give the range of possible outcomes."
  
  In a probabilistic model, you have a single model with multiple scenarios, or "parallel universes". There was a bug in one of the official programs that resulted in the program producing different results (all wrong!) when run on different computers. This was several years ago. If you go to the official IPCC site, it clearly states that they are using multiple models. The key reason that the models are currently giving wrong results is that the parameter that they use to predict the rise in temperature produced by a given increase in CO2 overestimates the increase in temperature by a factor of 6.
  
  Doug
  
  " If we really understand what impacts GW, then shouldn't we be able to predict temperatures anyplace in the world minute by minute? Is this too much to ask?"
  
  At the moment yes. You would need at minimum a 1km surface grid on the Earth's surface and a 30 meter vertical grid in the Earth's atmosphere, and take measurements at every point every 15 minutes.
  There is no way to take all these measurements, and even if we could the data collected would be astronomical (even bigger - the new word is Congressional!). This could change as technology improves. The large hadron collider at CERN already collects and processes tera-bytes of data.
  

  Published: October 30, 2009 2:07 PM

• steve

  I wrote a whole series of articles based on my informal, unofficial, spare-time, research on the "Going Green!" aspect of the nation/world.

  And before you readily accept all the computer models that show such a drastic change in the climate of the earth due to human's activity, why not ask what parameters the scientists put into the computer to get those specific results? Or how many other non-destructive scenarios were produced?

  Also, for those that say that CO2 effects the temperature of the atmosphere, do some research on that, and you will find out that water vapor is more of a warming force then CO2.
  Also, man made CO2 is tiny compared to all the CO2 that all of the oceans, volcanoes, forests, and animals combined give off in a year. CO2 causing global warming is a myth

  Irregardless of all of this, life on earth will survive, even human life will survive anything we throw at it. Multiple major meteors impacts couldn't even wipe out life on earth, so we should all just chill out about it in general, and spend money on something that matters - exploration of space.

  Published: October 30, 2009 7:55 PM

• Bala

  TokyoTom,

  I have only 1 question on claims related to climate change.

  The basic laws on "cause" and "effect" require that that which is labelled as "cause" has to occur prior to that which is labelled as the "effect". In the case of human-induced Global Warming theories, this appears untrue. I am basing my statement on the report available on the link I am enclosing below.

  http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/sci;283/5408/1712?maxtoshow=&HITS=10&hits=10&RESULTFORMAT=&fulltext=Greenland+Ice+Core+Studies&searchid=1&FIRSTINDEX=10&resourcetype=HWCIT

  Please explain why this study report is not to be accepted as a reason to dismiss or at least cast a substantial shadow on the notion of human-induced Global Warming.

  Published: October 30, 2009 10:28 PM

• fundamentalist

  There is a great article over at the American Thinker web site describing a recent speech by the great scientist Al Gore in which he claims that sea levels will rise 250 feet in the next 10 years. Check it out!

  Published: October 30, 2009 10:30 PM

• kristine N

  There was a bug in one of the official programs that resulted in the program producing different results (all wrong!) when run on different computers. This was several years ago.

  Would you mind linking to those results?

  If you go to the official IPCC site, it clearly states that they are using multiple models.

  Uh, yes. Because you need to. In addition to being probabilistic, the climate system is very, very complex, to the point that it's hard and slow to model. So, multiple models are used--some of which have more detailed descriptions of the cryosphere, some with better description of the ocean or the atmosphere. They're called multi-model ensembles. For a decent explanation, check out http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2008/05/what-the-ipcc-models-really-say/

  The key reason that the models are currently giving wrong results is that the parameter that they use to predict the rise in temperature produced by a given increase in CO2 overestimates the increase in temperature by a factor of 6.

  Again, references for this would be nice. We don't really know what that particular parameter should be. We have a good idea what the range should be, but we don't know it exactly, and the number we use today could actually be too low, not too high as you claim. There's a fair amount of uncertainty in both our temperature and atmospheric CO2 concentrations in the past, so really the best we can do is predict a range of temperature response to CO2 doubling. The article ">http://droyer.web.wesleyan.edu/climate_sensitivity.pdf> here (pdf) reports a range of 1.5 to 6.2 degree climate sensitivity to CO2 doubling. That's really about the best we can do based on the records we have, and that's a huge uncertainty. Oh, and there are records that suggest the high end may still be too low.

  Published: October 30, 2009 11:00 PM

• kristine N

  Bala--that article is talking about CO2 persisting in the atmosphere after glaciation starts. The sun is the most important driver of climate. When insolation (or the amount of solar radiation received at the Earth's surface) decreases, it gets colder. The main driver of insolation is a set of orbital parameters--obliquity, eccentricity, and precession--that produce Milankovitch cycles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles) Eccentricity is ultimately what controls glaciations, with the other two parameters playing lesser, but still measurable roles in forcing climate.

  When the planet warms, ice melts and the biosphere expands. The expansion of the biosphere, along with changing sea surface temperature, cause the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to increase, thus in ice core records we see temperature increase, then CO2 and methane increasing very shortly after. http://www.daycreek.com/dc/images/1999.pdf

  The article you link to concerns the termination of interglacials, or the resumption of glacial periods. The observation is that CO2 remains high for some time even after global temperatures drop, which they attribute to the persistence of the biosphere. Again, the sun is the main driver of the climate system. CO2 concentrations respond to more than solar forcing, and there is apparently a lag between glaciations beginning and the biosphere shrinking.

  It's important to note here that concentrations of CO2 never reached the levels we see today, and I think levels even higher than we currently see are necessary to stop a glaciation (though I don't know the actual numbers).

  Published: October 30, 2009 11:36 PM

• kristine N

  Bala--that article is talking about CO2 persisting in the atmosphere after glaciation starts. The sun is the most important driver of climate. When insolation (or the amount of solar radiation received at the Earth's surface) decreases, it gets colder. The main driver of insolation is a set of orbital parameters--obliquity, eccentricity, and precession--that produce Milankovitch cycles (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles) Eccentricity is ultimately what controls glaciations, with the other two parameters playing lesser, but still measurable roles in forcing climate.

  When the planet warms, ice melts and the biosphere expands. The expansion of the biosphere, along with changing sea surface temperature, cause the concentration of CO2 in the atmosphere to increase, thus in ice core records we see temperature increase, then CO2 and methane increasing very shortly after. http://www.daycreek.com/dc/images/1999.pdf

  The article you link to concerns the termination of interglacials, or the resumption of glacial periods. The observation is that CO2 remains high for some time even after global temperatures drop, which they attribute to the persistence of the biosphere. Again, the sun is the main driver of the climate system. CO2 concentrations respond to more than solar forcing, and there is apparently a lag between glaciations beginning and the biosphere shrinking.

  It's important to note here that concentrations of CO2 probably haven't reached the levels we see today in millions of years (definitely in the last 400,000), and I think levels even higher than we currently see are necessary to stop a glaciation (though I don't know any actual numbers there).

  Published: October 30, 2009 11:39 PM

• Walt D.

  kristine N.
  
  "There was a bug in one of the official programs that resulted in the program producing different results (all wrong!) when run on different computers. This was several years ago.

  Would you mind linking to those results?"
  
  http://escholarship.org/uc/item/2rt1p2vm
  
  It also links to the ARPREC package that corrected the problem.
  
  

  The key reason that the models are currently giving wrong results is that the parameter that they use to predict the rise in temperature produced by a given increase in CO2 overestimates the increase in temperature by a factor of 6.
  
  
  Again, references for this would be nice."
  
  Lindzen, R.S. and Y.-S. Choi, 2009: On the determination of climate feedbacks from ERBE data, accepted Geophys. Res. Ltrs.
  
  I appreciate your honesty -it is OK to say you don't know, or your answers are in a range if that is in fact the case. The scientists who run the computer models for IPCC go to great lengths to disclose the limitations of their models and are looking for ways to improve them. It is the politicians like AL Gore and the UN who are the source of the lies.
  In the interest of full disclosure I did work for "Big Oil" before I retired!
  

  Published: October 30, 2009 11:56 PM

• Bala

  Kristine N,

  Thanks for your response. I still have a nagging doubt. The biggest problem I have is establishing the "cause-effect" relationship between increase in Carbon-dioxide levels and rise in Global average surface temperature. This assumes that we have a clear, unambiguous and usable definition of "Global average surface temperature".

  I rarely come across people who say they are studying Climate Science. I would be happy if you could give me the links that establish the "cause-effect" relationship I am hoping to find. I would specifically appreciate links that use scientific methods and not just modelling - something similar to the ice-core studies I referred to where real facts from the real world are studied using acknowledged methods of science to come up with sound conclusions.

  In simpler terms, the question I am seeking an answer to is "Did rising temperatures cause an increase in atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration or did increase in atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration cause rising temperatures (aka Global Warming)?"

  Thanks in advance for the response.

  Published: October 31, 2009 12:41 AM

• Francis Manns

  Eric Hoffer, 1951 – “The True Believer – Thoughts on the Nature of Mass Movements”
  P.11
  “When hopes and dreams are loose in the streets, it is well for the timid to lock doors , shutter windows and lie low until the wrath has passed. For there is often a monstrous incongruity between the hopes, however noble and tender, and the actions that follows them. It is as if ivied maidens and garlanded youths were to herald the four horsemen of the apocalypse.
  And p.12
  “People who see their lives as irremediably spoiled cannot find a worth-while purpose in self-advancement...Their innermost craving is for a new life – a rebirth – or failing this, a chance to acquire new elements of pride, confidence, hope, a sense of purpose and worth by an identification with a holy cause. An active mass movement offers them opportunities for both...”
  and P. 13
  “ It is true that in the early adherents of a mass movement there are also adventurers who join in the hope that that the movement will give a spin to their wheel of fortune and whirl them to fame and power.”

  This fits Al Gore, and it also describes a culture of celebrities and self - righteous environmental fascists. These people make up no more than 15% of the population at large but they tend to grab media headlines and sway our scientifically under endowed political class whose only motivation is re-election. We have re-entered the dark ages, thanks to celebrity sound bites and fear of the future.

  Published: October 31, 2009 5:28 AM

• Thoughtexperiment

  Ice core data is corrupt. It appears that fluid inclusion plots from ice core have a hockey stick trend as well. The blade of the stick is near the surface and is interpreted by most workers to document recent increases in temperature. There are two things to think about. 1) Ice is an open system. By that, I mean open to interchange with the atmosphere as snow recrystallises to firn and ice. The transition to ice involves expansion and the open structure of the ice sucks in ambient air as it crystallises. This process takes place seasonally and reiterates from decades to centuries depending on local conditions. No two glaciers are alike. During that period, in equilibrium with ambient air, light isotopes of carbon and oxygen will leave the system increasing the proportion of heavy isotopes and leaving a database biased with heavy isotopes; corrupted toward the cold interpretation, except at the top of the core that is 'youngest'. Thus, the lower reaches of ice core have a preferentially biased record toward the cold interpretation. 2) The isotopic database is calibrated relative to modern surface temperatures. That being the case, the recently open ice phase near the top of the core will be calibrated to modern temperatures and the isotopic ally heavy (light depleted) ice from deeper older ice will be 'read' as representing colder temperatures. Turning that around the old ice formed in a colder world and we have near surface ice interpreted to be recording 'anthropogenic' global warming.
  Check out the papers generated at Ohio State University and other work and look critically at the curves for the record of the Medieval Warm Period and the Little Ice Age. You will find them diminished by this phenomenon or missing entirely. The blade of the stick is emphasised proportionally to the Medieval Warm Period and that is simply not the case from other scientific studies.
  

  Published: October 31, 2009 6:57 AM

• Alpha Boötis

  Around 1,000 years ago, Greenland was warm enough for the Vikings to settle and grow livestock and vineyards. Today Greenland is almost entirely covered in ice. Is the earth warmer today than it was 1,000 years ago? Did they have SUVs and coal power plants in the days of the Vikings?

  The only thing tough about the global warming debate is trying to get the facts to match the socialist agenda of the AGW proponents. Try as they might, squirm as they will, they just can’t seem to do it, and more, and more people are starting to see that.

  Things like cyclic solar data, warming occurring on other planets such as Mars and Jupiter, almost a decade long cooling trend just do not line up with the suppositions of the AGW worshippers. They craft all manner of complex calculations and “what ifs,” but in the end the best they can do is throw the “computer model” dice at the wall and say things like, “Well, the science isn’t perfect and we can’t prove it yet, but by the time we can, it’ll be too late so we must act now.”

  Then we are all supposed to follow the mystics of know and watch in wonder like lemmings as our energy and food bills go thru the roof and we see our economy devastated on the basis of their what-ifs that not only do not match the evidence they present but does not even pass a good smell test?

  This really isn’t that difficult when you look at the bigger picture and think seriously about it, people... just follow the Chicken Little theories and the money and it all leads straight back to the anti-capitalist statist, who never lets a fact stand in their way and never let a good crisis go to waste.

  Published: October 31, 2009 8:39 AM

• fundamentalist

  The major issues involved are pretty clear and contradict human caused global warming:

  1. Hayden: “Not a single climate model predicted the current cooling phase. If the science were settled, the model (singular) would have predicted it.” The models are faulty. That’s why they use so many. The hysterical crowd can obfuscate all they want by quibbling over small detail, but it doesn’t change the fact that the models are faulty.

  2. Hayden: “The earth, it seems, has seen times when the CO2 concentration was up to 8,000 ppm, and that did not lead to a tipping point. If it did, we would not be here talking about it.” We have seen it before, most recently in the medieval warming. The earth has been as warm as it is today in the past and always, always cooled off.

  3. Hayden: “The first principle of causality is that the cause has to come before the effect. The historical record shows that climate changes precede CO2 changes. How, then, can one conclude that CO2 is responsible for the current warming?”

  4. The primary greenhouse gasses are water vapor and methane. CO2 comes in third. If we could eliminate all CO2 production tomorrow, global warming would continue because of the water vapor and methane gas.

  When confronted with these problems, the hysterical crowd will always respond as good socialists do. They will obfuscate with unimportant minutiae and lots of jargon. They’re just kicking up dust to hide their own doubts.
  

  Published: October 31, 2009 8:53 AM

• TokyoTom

  Bala:

  "Did rising temperatures cause an increase in atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration".

  This is a great, basic question; I`d love to answer it (actually, I already did, though a bit indirectly), but you see, I`m one of the nasty obfuscating members of the socialist hysterical crowd, so I really should defer to others here who have better ideological and scientific stature here (and who hate ad hominems and love reason), such as fundamentalist, or perhaps even our confident lead poster, Stephan Kinsella (who has nothing to offer on the question of how libertarians should engage with others on the political front), or even our humble physicist climate system authority, Dr. Hayden.

  Gentlemen, take it away.

  Published: October 31, 2009 11:31 AM

• TokyoTom

  I`m sorry I don`t have time now to respond in more detail to those who have commented in response to mine, but let me note that not one of you has troubled to actually respond to my challenge, which was based on Austrian concepts of conflict resolution, understanding of rent-seeking embedded in the status quo, and the recognition that the present debate on climate, energy and environmental issues presents opportunities to actually advance an Austrian agenda.

  In my view, we can either try to improve our lot, by seeking items such as those I laid out previously or condemn ourselves to irrelevancy by standing by and letting the big boys and the Baptists in their coalition hammer out something worse from our Congresscritters.

  For this, the correctness of our own views of climate science matters little - nothing, in fact, unless we are willing to DO something about it, by engaging with OTHERS who have DIFFERENT views.

  For those who have too much trouble remembering the legal/regulatory changes that I suggested, here they are:

  [pro-freedom regulatory changes might include:

  * accelerating cleaner power investments by eliminating corporate income taxes or allowing immediate amortization of capital investment,
  * eliminating antitrust immunity for public utility monopolies (to allow consumer choice, peak pricing and "smart metering" that will rapidly push efficiency gains),
  * ending Clean Air Act handouts to the worst utilities (or otherwise unwinding burdensome regulations and moving to lighter and more common-law dependent approaches),
  * ending energy subsidies generally (including federal liability caps for nuclear power (and allowing states to license),
  * speeding economic growth and adaptation in the poorer countries most threatened by climate change by rolling back domestic agricultural corporate welfare programs (ethanol and sugar), and
  * if there is to be any type of carbon pricing at all, insisting that it is a per capita, fully-rebated carbon tax (puts the revenues in the hands of those with the best claim to it, eliminates regressive impact and price volatility, least new bureaucracy, most transparent, and least susceptible to pork).

  Other policy changes could also be put on the table, such as an insistence that government resource management be improved by requiring that half of all royalties be rebated to citizens (with a slice to the administering agency).]

  Many others come to mind.

  Well, what`s it going to be? Relevancy, or a tribal exercise in disengaged and smug self-satisfaction?

  Published: October 31, 2009 12:37 PM

• method fan

  "In simpler terms, the question I am seeking an answer to is "Did rising temperatures cause an increase in atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration or did increase in atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration cause rising temperatures (aka Global Warming)?""

  That question can NOT be answered by following the "standard" methods of climate research.

  Only true experimental design could answer such a question. And even then conclusions could only be made about the experimental setting itself. Every other inference is only fallible.

  Is is very sad that most scientists are not able to see their errors in cum hoc ergo propter hoc and post hoc ergo propter hoc.

  Correlation is not causation.

  Published: October 31, 2009 12:39 PM

• mpolzkill

  Tokyo Tom says:

  "not one of you has troubled to actually respond to my challenge"

  Yes, someone did. Secession is the response.

  Here's the results of 35 years of work by your method, and by a preternaturally incorruptible man (that is, a once in a lifetime type individual)

  http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601103&sid=atc2o1ijLRno

  Not to say that his career wan't useful. He has demonstrated to millions the need for secession.

  Published: October 31, 2009 12:55 PM

• TokyoTom

  Stephan, if I may, I am appalled and offended by your shallow and fundamentally dishonest engagement here. That there are a string of others who have preceded you in this regard is no excuse.

  You: (i) post without significant comment a one-page letter from a scientist - as if the letter itself is vindication, victory or a roadmap for how we should seek to engage the views and preferences of others,

  (ii) refuse to answer my straightforward questions (both above and at my cross-linked post, which you visited) on how we engage others in the very active ongoing political debate, in a manner that actually defends and advances our policy agenda, and (putting aside the insulting and disingenuous "Tokyo asked me to respond" and "it's so rambling I am not sure what to respond to"); and

  (iii) then proceed to present your own view of the science, the motives and sanity "watermelons" (as if they`re running the show), a few helpful, free-market libertarian "solutions", like open-air explosion of nuclear weapons to bring about a "nuclear winter" effect!

  And my attempt to bring your focus back to the question of how we actually deal with others in the POLITICAL bargaining that is, after all, underway is met with silence - other than your faithful report back from your trusty climate physicist expert policy guru friend about .... science (all being essentially irrelevant to my question, not merely the cute little folksy demonstration about how the troubling melting and thinning of Antarctic ice sheets actually now underway simply CAN`T be occurring, but also a further failure to address the very rapid ocean acidification our CO2 emissions are producing)!

  Maybe it`s me, but I find this type of insincere and shallow engagement on such a serious issue to be a shameful discredit to the Mises Blog (even if it does cater to those who prefer to think that the big to do about climate - which may very well result in a mass of ill-considered, costly and counterproductive
  legislation - is really groundless and so can simply be ignored, aside from a bit of internal fulminations here).

  If you are not actually interested in discussing policy on a serious issue, then consider refraining from posting on it.

  Maybe it`s not my position to expect better, but I do.

  Sincerely,

  Tom

  Roy Cordato (linked at my name) said this:

  “The starting point for all Austrian welfare economics is the goal seeking individual and the ability of actors to formulate and execute plans within the context of their goals. … [S]ocial welfare or efficiency problems arise because of interpersonal conflict. [C] that similarly cannot be resolved by the market process, gives rise to catallactic inefficiency by preventing useful information from being captured by prices.”

  “Environmental problems are brought to light as striking at the heart of the efficiency problem as typically seen by Austrians, that is, they generate human conflict and disrupt inter- and intra-personal plan formulation and execution.”

  “The focus of the Austrian approach to environmental economics is conflict resolution. The purpose of focusing on issues related to property rights is to describe the source of the conflict and to identify possible ways of resolving it.”

  “If a pollution problem exists then its solution must be found in either a clearer definition of property rights to the relevant resources or in the stricter enforcement of rights that already exist. This has been the approach taken to environmental problems by nearly all Austrians who have addressed these kinds of issues (see Mises 1998; Rothbard 1982; Lewin 1982; Cordato 1997). This shifts the perspective on pollution from one of “market failure” where the free market is seen as failing to generate an efficient outcome, to legal failure where the market process is prevented from proceeding efficiently because the necessary institutional framework, clearly defined and enforced property rights, is not in place.”

  Published: October 31, 2009 1:00 PM

• method fan

  The question simply is: Whose property rights (!) are infringed by what cause (!)?

  If you can't exactly name the property rights, than it is your problem.

  If you can't tell how they are infringed and prove that, than it is your problem.

  
  Remember: Association and correlation are NO PROOF!

  Plain simple.
  

  Published: October 31, 2009 1:44 PM

• Alpha Bootis

  "If you can't tell how they are infringed and prove that, than it is your problem."

  There is no substantial proof that anything besides nature is the cause of the so-called "problem" of global warming so I guess all of those who are aggravated by it should try collectively pissing into the wind and see what good it does them.
  

  Published: October 31, 2009 2:10 PM

• Bala

  TokyoTom,

  " I`d love to answer it (actually, I already did, though a bit indirectly), but you see, I`m one of the nasty obfuscating members of the socialist hysterical crowd "

  If you'd love to answer it, please do. While you do it, please give me links to the scientific studies that do so. If possible, give links to the data too.

  Just remember that I did not label anyone. Dash it!! I am not even a Libertarian. As one of the people commenting out here will certify, I am a Randroid. So do feel free to engage me with proven scientific theories and results.

  I'm sure you understand that what I have asked is indeed a very basic and important question, the answer to which actually shapes the entire discussion. If the answer is either

  1. increase in atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration did not cause rising temperatures

  or

  2. there is no proof that increase in atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration caused rising temperatures

  or worse....

  3. rising temperatures caused an increase in atmospheric carbon-dioxide concentration

  the discussion is sealed. There is nothing more to discuss and Kyoto, Carbon Trading, Cap-and-trade, etc., should all be stopped forthwith.

  So, please do answer my question directly. And remember, as some on this discussion would say, I am rather dense and cannot understand a joke, leave alone indirect messages.

  Published: October 31, 2009 6:30 PM

• Bala

  TokyoTom,

  Just adding to my request, it does piss me off too that discussions on this important issue keep focusing on irrelevant issues like "Is global average temperature rising?". I understand that all this wastes precious discussion time on irrelevant issues while the main issue is not being addressed.

  To a supporter of the theory of human-induced global warming and climate change, how does it matter whether the effects are showing up now or are soon expected to do so? So, by raising irrelevant issues of the kind I have indicated, we are actually allowing some people to divert attention from the core issue which is

  'What is the scientific proof available for the claim that increasing carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere are responsible for global warming/climate change that is being observed or expected any time now?'

  My problem is that as of now, the only response I get for this question is unproven theories. So, to that extent, saying that the theory is unproven addresses the issue, but very indirectly. I think it is best to address it directly and on the most important issue.

  So, please do!!! It does not matter if Stephan is being shallow in this matter. You please be honest and sensible about it. I'm sure you will feel better for it.

  Published: October 31, 2009 6:42 PM

• Bala

  TokyoTom,

  Oops!! A small error in the wording of the question. It should read

  ''What is the scientific proof available for the claim that increasing carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere are causing global warming/climate change that is being observed or expected any time now?'

  Published: October 31, 2009 6:46 PM

• kristine N

  "There was a bug in one of the official programs that resulted in the program producing different results (all wrong!) when run on different computers."

  Walt, that's not what the article you link to says. It points out that numbers were non-reproducible, but not in a way that sent out warning flags--in other words, not in a way that looked "wrong." It sounds like it's the equivalent of rounding errors from the abstract and introduction, and the fix doesn't substantially change the answers produced by the models.

  I don't really know what to say about the Lindzen article other than the tropics seem like a crappy place to try and pin down the climate effect of CO2 doubling since they are the least sensitive part of the globe to CO2 doubling. He doesn't include higher latitudes in his analysis, which he admits would change the answer, and he states it is difficult to determine sensitivity based on change in flux over the change in sea surface temperature. He says that's only true for models, but there's no reason that would be different for the data. I also really question that estimate of climate sensitivity given how extremely different it is than estimates based on paleoclimate data. He's looking at a very short record in a very small, not terribly sensitive part of the Earth. If what he's claiming is right, that's a valid contribution, but it's hard to know if his estimate is a good one based on this single paper.

  Which brings me to an important point. There are scads of studies out there showing the climate is sensitive to the composition of the atmosphere, specifically to the concentrations of greenhouse gases, and showing evidence that our climate is responding now to increasing CO2. If you pick any single study there are likely to be problems with it. In total, though, the observations of glacial melting; of increased temperatures from boreholes, instruments, and proxies; of changing habitat ranges and life patterns for many species all point to the fact that the Earth is warming. CO2 is the most likely culprit--we know it absorbs infrared radiation, essentially acting to insulate the Earth. We see in past records evidence of a CO2 feedback, wherein at the end of glacial periods temperatures increase, driving an increase in CO2, which then causes temperatures to increase again until a new equilibrium, interglacial climate state is reached. The evidence we have is a whole tapestry woven from thousands of individual research threads showing what the climate looks like and how it's responding to CO2. Picking at the threads on the edge, like most of you have been doing, doesn't change the rest of the picture.

  Published: October 31, 2009 11:56 PM

• method fan

  "'What is the scientific proof available for the claim that increasing carbon-dioxide levels in the atmosphere are causing global warming/climate change that is being observed or expected any time now?"

  The real question should be: "Is it possible with the methods currently applied to determine with 100% certainty the actual cause of the past global warming?"

  Do you know the difference between correlation and causation, between experimental design studies and studies based on researching past data, between models and reality?

  Remember: There are so many variables involved in the construct we call climate. What if variables are missing or misinterpreted? A model used in a simulation with a high goodness of fit of must not be equated with reality.

  Just think about economic "science": Most libertarians do not accept macroeconomic models... for good reasons.
  

  Published: November 1, 2009 1:45 AM

• TokyoTom

  1. Christopher and mpolzkill:

  Thanks for the favor of your comments.

  I was asking if Austrians never seek to practically engage others on questions of policy; the first of you brings up Ron Paul, but one man is not a policy, nor are his sole efforts a policy program; the other of you suggests succession from the U, which is hardly an effort at pragmatic engagement with anybody over a particular issue. (BTW, here is Ron Paul`s climate program.)

  I can see some engagement by libertarians on this issue, but such seeds either (i) die when they fall on the rocky ground of the Mises Blog or (ii) represent work by people paid to criticize one side of the debate, and consistently ignore problems with the definitely non-libertarian status quo.

  Why libertarians do not see any opportunity here for a positive agenda? Do they prefer to be taken as implicit supporters of the government interventions that underlie most enviros` complaints?

  2. fundamentalist:

  "I don't see anyone doing that except the GW hysterical crowd. Honest scientists like Hayden try to present evidence and reason so that we can have a real debate, and the hysterical crowd flings poo from the sidelines."

  Thanks for your direct comment (even as you lace it and others with ad homs), but can`t you see you also are missing my point? Are you NOT interested in trying to cut deals that would, say:

  * accelerate cleaner power investments by eliminating corporate income taxes or allowing immediate amortization of capital investment,
  * eliminate antitrust immunity for public utility monopolies (to allow consumer choice, peak pricing and "smart metering" that will rapidly push efficiency gains),
  * end Clean Air Act handouts to the worst utilities (or otherwise unwinding burdensome regulations and moving to lighter and more common-law dependent approaches),
  * end energy subsidies generally (including federal liability caps for nuclear power (and allowing states to license),
  * speed economic growth and adaptation in the poorer countries most threatened by climate change by rolling back domestic agricultural corporate welfare programs (ethanol and sugar),
  * insist that government resource management be improved by requiring that half of all royalties be rebated to citizens,
  * end federal subsidies to development on barrier islands, etc. or
  * improve adaptability by deregulating and privatizing roads and other "public" infrastructure?

  Or is it more productive to NOT deal with those whom you hate, and stand by while special interests cut deals that widen and deepen the federal trough?

  TT

  Published: November 1, 2009 2:21 AM

• Bala

  Kristine N,

  I am assuming that the following line and the points after that were meant for me.

  " There are scads of studies out there showing the climate is sensitive to the composition of the atmosphere, specifically to the concentrations of greenhouse gases, and showing evidence that our climate is responding now to increasing CO2..... "

  In case it is indeed meant for me, you are not establishing the point that increasing levels of CO2 are indeed the cause for rise in global average temperature. What I would like to understand is the scientific basis of the studies. In particular, I would like to understand the basis on which you would claim that these studies are scientifically sound and establish with 100% certainty that increase in the level of CO2, that too the CO2 added by human activity, has caused the rise in global average temperature (assuming of course that the temperature has indeed risen).

  More specifically, it would help if you provide links to the studies you are referring to. I am sure they are available on the internet.

  Just remember that "a whole tapestry woven from thousands of individual research threads" is not a scientific method of drawing conclusions. It is as less a scientific method as consensus is. Science requires the categorical establishment of a "cause-effect" relationship. So, in case the studies you have gone through use correlation, please bear in mind that correlation is not scientifically sufficient to establish causation.

  Also remember that in case you are unable to provide the links, the following are the possibilities

  1. The links do not exist - This, I am convinced, in this age, is impossible.

  2. You are not aware of the links - In this case, you may swallowed a whole lot of propaganda without verifying the facts for yourself. If that is true, you run the risk that you may not be a scientist at all - accepting hypothesis as valid without asking for concincing proof is not a characteristic of a true scientist. That approach is usually called "faith" and would place you at the level of a religious propagandist.

  3. You are aware of the links but are sure that the studies presented there do not establish a 'cause-effect' relationship - In that case, you would be guilty of engaging in extreme intellectual dishonesty by not presenting the links. It would be what is normally called cherry-picking data to suit your beliefs. It could also indicate evading obvious realities and living in a fictional/imaginary world.

  Please present the links so that I (and every one else who may be following this discussion) understand the truth about CO2 and Global Warming.

  Published: November 1, 2009 3:58 AM

• TokyoTom

  Allow me to outline here a few responses to the arguments raised by Dr. Hayden, even as I do not pretend to be an expert (and, to be pedantic, even though they are largely irrelevant to the question of whether Austrians wish to take advantage of the opportunity presented by the many scientists and others who have differing views, to roll back alot of costly, counterproductive and unfair regulation).

  1. Models: Dr. Hayden disingenuously casts aside what modern physics tells us about how God plays dice with the universe (via random, unpredictible behavior throughout the universe), and the limits of human knowledge (including the ability to measure all inputs affecting climate, including all of our own), and essentially asks us to wait until our knowledge is perfect, and our ability to capture and number-crunch all information relevant to the Earth`s climate (including changing solar and cosmic ray inputs and ocean behavior) before any of us, or our imperfect governments, can take any action on climate.

  Physical and practical impossibility aside, is this how any human or any human organization structures its decisions? Narrowly, Dr. Hayden is of course right that "the science is not settled", but so what?

  2. Was there a tipping point 300 million years ago (or whenever it was when CO2 levels reached 8000 ppm) ?
  Dr. Hayden plays with language, suggesting that a "tipping point" means something irreversible over hundreds of millions of years, when it`s very clear that there have in the past been numerous abrupt changes in climate (some taking place in as little as a few years, with a general return to prior values sometimes taking very long periods of time) and that scientists today are talking about tipping points that may be reached in human lifetimes. Will we lose all mountain glaciers? Will the Arctic become ice-free in winter? Will thawing release sufficient methane from tundras and seabed clathrates to push the climate even more forcibly than CO2? Are we set to lose glaciers in Greenland and Antarctica, regardless of what we do? Will we dry out the Amazon basin, and interrupt the Asian monsoon? There is plenty of concern and evidence that these things are real possibilities.

  3. "Global-warming alarmists tell us that the rising CO2 concentration is (A) anthropogenic and (B) leading to global warming."

  But you never tell us whether you, too, Dr. Hayden, are an "alarmist". Further down you acknowledge that "Nobody doubts that CO2 has some greenhouse effect" admitting (B) (though not that it may be the chief factor), but as far as (A) goes, you only acknowledge that "CO2 concentration is increasing". Care to make yourself an alarmist by admitting what cannot be denied - that man is responsible for rising CO2 concentrations? Or you prefer play with laymen`s ignorance by irresponsibly suggesting that rising CO2 is now due to warming oceans and not man`s activities?

  - "CO2 concentration has risen and fallen in the past with no help from mankind."

  Yes, but what relevance is this now, when man is undeniably not simply "helping" but clearly responsible?

  - "The present rise began in the 1700s, long before humans could have made a meaningful contribution."

  So? Does the fact that CO2 fluctuates naturally do to things other than man`s activities mean humans` massive releases of CO2 have NOT made a "meaningful contribution"? It`s very clear that the Industrial Revolution caused a dramatic rise in CO2. Surely you don`t disagree?

  - "Alarmists have failed to ask, let alone answer, what the CO2 level would be today if we had never burned any fuels. They simply assume that it would be the "pre-industrial" value."

  "Alarmists" of course is simply an unhelpful ad hom; and as for the rest, concerned scientists and laymen clearly note how CO2 has fluctuated prior to the Industrial Revolution.

  There undoubtedly many clueless laymen, just as there are some clueless scientists, so your sweeping statement may be narrowly accurate.

  But in the big picture, it is clear that man has had a drastic impact on CO2 levels - so what, precisely, is your point, except to confuse the issue?

  - "The solubility of CO2 in water decreases as water warms, and increases as water cools. The warming of the earth since the Little Ice Age has thus caused the oceans to emit CO2 into the atmosphere."

  Sure, but this doesn`t mean man hasn`t been the dominant contributor to atmospheric CO2.

  Further, of course, warming oceans CEASED to release CO2 at the point that atmospheric CO2 started to make the oceans more acidic.

  - "The historical record shows that climate changes precede CO2 changes. How, then, can one conclude that CO2 is responsible for the current warming?"

  The lag in the historical record BEFORE man simply shows that CO2, which has an acknowledged warming effect, was a warming reinforcer and not an initiator. This does NOT, of course, suggest that massive CO2 releases by man magically have NO effect.

  4. Assuming that we ARE changing climate, is that a bad thing?

  - "A warmer world is a better world." Maybe, but are there NO costs, losses or damages in moving to one? And do those people and communities who bear these costs or kinda like things as they are have any choice, much less defendable property rights?

  - "The higher the CO2 levels, the more vibrant is the biosphere, as numerous experiments in greenhouses have shown. ... Those huge dinosaurs could not exist anywhere on the earth today because the land is not productive enough. CO2 is plant food, pure and simple."

  I see; this is not a question of fossil fuel interests homesteading the sky (or being given license by govt) and so being entitled to shift risks and costs on us, but them beneficiently bestowing gifts on mankind - or dinosaurs, as Dr. Hayden may prefer! Wonderful gifts that cannot be returned for centuries or millenia! Yippee!

  [This is only scratching the surface of the letter, but I`m afraid I need to run for now.]

  Published: November 1, 2009 4:51 AM

• Bala

  TokyoTom,

  Given that you seem to know a lot, could you please give me links by reading which I could convince myself (leave alone anyone else in the world) that increase in atmospheric CO2 levels, specifically anthropogenic emission of CO2 , is the cause of increase in global average temperatures (Global Warming) and the related concept of Climate Change.

  Please also summarise why you think the links present scientifically valid arguments for the said phenomena.

  Published: November 1, 2009 5:55 AM

• mpolzkill

  Tokyo Tom:

  "which is hardly an effort at pragmatic engagement with anybody over a particular issue."

  Tom, believing you live in a Republic with 300,000,000 people is a delusion which heads off all actual pragmatism. Just as the Roman plutarchy carried on for centuries because its citizens shared this delusion, so does this Empire.

  (and thank you for being respectful even though you mistakenly think I'm a nut, haha)

  Published: November 1, 2009 9:38 AM

• TokyoTom

  Okay, here`s a few more unconsidered thoughts to show how hysterical I am, am hooked on religion, hate mankind, return us to the Middle Ages and otherwise take over the world:

  - "Look at weather-related death rates in winter and in summer, and the case is overwhelming that warmer is better."

  Sure, for If only it were so simple. The increase in AVERAGE global temps that we`ve experienced so far has meant little warming of the oceans (a vast thermal sink), and has shown up at higher latitudes, where we have seen a very marked warming and ongoing thawing, a shift of tropic zones away from the equator, disruption of rainfall patterns and stress on tropical ecosystems; all of this is considered to be just the beginning of a wide range of climate effects that have not yet been fully manifested for GHG and albedo changes so far,. much less to further increases in GHGs.

  - "CO2 is plant food, pure and simple."

  It IS a "pure and simple" plant food, but your rhetoric implies much more - essentially that CO2 is NOTHING BUT plant food, and large releases of it have no effect on climate. And this, as you well know, is NOT a "pure and simple" matter.

  - "CO2 is not pollution by any reasonable definition."

  You mean not by your reasonable definition, or under historical standards. But what IS "pollution", but a social construct to describe the outputs of human activity that some of us have found to be damaging to our persons, property or other things that we value? Were CFCs released by refrigeration equipment "pollution" before we discovered that they damage the ozone layer?

  Scientists may be qualified to measure particular outputs and their consequences, but otherwise have no special insights into what others value.

  - "A warmer world begets more precipitation."

  Sure, as warmer air generally holds more water - which in turn has a warming effect, let`s not forget. But as for the water itself, climate change leads to more severe rain events in some places but to droughts in others. And let`s not forget that a warmer world means that mountain snows don`t last until spring and summer as they once did, leaving streams and forests drier, and adversely affecting agriculture that relies on such water.

  - "All computer models predict a smaller temperature gradient between the poles and the equator. Necessarily, this would mean fewer and less violent storms."

  Not so fast; this doesn`t hold for rain events or tornadoes. Further, independent paths of research indicate that while the North Atlantic may end up with fewer hurricanes, warming is likely to make them more intense.

  - How, pray, will a putative few degrees of warming melt all the ice and inundate Florida, as is claimed by the warming alarmists?

  First, note again the Dr.`s use of a strawman; no one is expect an imminent melt of "ALL" the ice. But significant melting and thinning of coastal ice IS occurring, and not merely on the West Antactic peninsula, which the good Dr. would realize if he`d trouble himself to compare his simple mental model, of reality with FACTS. As previously noted, coast ice sheets are plugs that slow the flow of glaciers from the interior. As these plugs are removed, the glaciers flow more quickly, via that exotic phenomenon we call "gravity". I`ve already addressed this above, with links.

  - "If the waters around it warm up, they create more precipitation."

  Yes, but does the new precipitation balance the ice being melted? Actual, detailed observations tell us that, despite your absolute certainty, that we are seeing increasing net mass losses far inland, not merely in Greenland but also in Antarctica. Your religious-like faith in your own superior understanding doesn`t make the facts go away.

  - "The ocean’s pH is not rising. It is falling, ever so slightly. Obviously your respondent has not the faintest clue as to how pH is defined. (BTW, the oceans are basic, not acidic.)"

  Yes, the good Dr. catches my mistake - pH is falling rather remarkably (from basic towards acidic) - but he too hastily skates past the main point, which is that this is due to increased atmospheric levels of CO2, which prove that the oceans are NOT actually releasing CO2 (or they`d be becoming more basic).

  I provided links in this last year here:
  http://blog.mises.org/archives/007931.asp#c192563

  Here`s more:
  http://www.scienceprogress.org/2008/06/our-dying-oceans/
  http://docs.google.com/gview?a=v&q=cache:y_W6vseUrykJ:www.tos.org/oceanography/issues/issue_archive/issue_pdfs/20_2/20.2_caldeira.pdf+caldeira+ocean+ph&hl=en&gl=jp&pid=bl&srcid=ADGEESgEEoFLf7xd9QTyol2TYYmXKPxXFqMq5Nr1IPdGd_yEbV3zIxPi-4Rmhb6d-IQ-r4BPwBqzyhF6GZQw_ka1Eh3Ynn0lYlP7p974IYMHIdLMVE90nWJ81GHAfcdTrUJTNk7W8Man&sig=AFQjCNGg6Idq6GQ5gyrddlXRD8R98NQ_dQ

  
  From the Plymouth Marine Laboratory (UK) :

  "Until recently, it was believed that the oceans contained so much disolved carbonate and bicarbonate ions that any extra would have little effect. In fact this absorbtion was generally acknowledged a valuable process in protecting the planet from the worst effects of rising temperatures and climate change. However, in 2003 a paper was published in Nature (vol 425) which suggested that the increases in atmospheric CO2, occurring over the last 200 years, has actually increased the acidity of the oceans by 0.1 of a pH unit.The pH scale is logarithmic and this change represents a 30% increase in the concentration of H+ ions.

  "However, atmospheric concentrations of CO2 have been higher during previous times in Earths history and these high CO2 periods didn’t cause ocean pH to change. The difference now is that the rate at which CO2 concentrations are increasing, is 100 times greater than the natural fluctuations seen over recent millennia. Consequently, the processes that ultimately balance the carbon cycle are unable to react quickly enough and ocean pH is affected. About half of all released CO2 is absorbed by the oceans but even if we stop all emmissions today, the CO2 already in the atmosphere has been predicted to decrease ocean pH by a further 0.5 unit."

  From Wikipedia">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocean_acidification">Wikipedia:

  "Dissolving CO2 in seawater also increases the hydrogen ion (H+) concentration in the ocean, and thus decreases ocean pH. Caldeira and Wickett (2003)[1] placed the rate and magnitude of modern ocean acidification changes in the context of probable historical changes during the last 300 million years.

  Since the industrial revolution began, it is estimated that surface ocean pH has dropped by slightly less than 0.1 units (on the logarithmic scale of pH; approximately a 25% increase in H+), and it is estimated that it will drop by a further 0.3 to 0.5 units by 2100 as the oceans absorb more anthropogenic CO2.[1][2][9] These changes are predicted to continue rapidly as the oceans take up more anthropogenic CO2 from the atmosphere, the degree of change to ocean chemistry, for example ocean pH, will depend on the mitigation and emissions pathways society takes.[10] Note that, although the ocean is acidifying, its pH is still greater than 7 (that of neutral water), so the ocean could also be described as becoming less basic."

  - "The term global warming has given way to the term climate change, because the former is not supported by the data. The latter term, climate change, admits of all kinds of illogical attributions. If it warms up, that's climate change. If it cools down, ditto. Any change whatsoever can be said by alarmists to be proof of climate change."

  Wonderful observation, except for the fact that IT`S WRONG; the change instead being deliberately led by Republicans; leading Republican pollster/ spinmeister Frank Luntz in 2002 pushed Republicans to move the public discussion away from "global warming" to "climate change", because, as Luntz wrote,

  “'Climate change' is less frightening than 'global warming.' ... While global warming has catastrophic connotations attached to it, climate change suggests a more controllable and less emotional challenge”.

  Of course there IS the inconvenient fact that "climate change" is actually more accurate than simple "global warming", but who cares about accuracy anyway, right Dr.?

  - "the earth has handily survived many millions of years when CO2 levels were MUCH higher than at present, without passing the dreaded tipping point."

  I already addressed above the point that while the Dr. seems to what to recreate the Cretaceous, the better for dinosaurs, most of us seem rather to like the Earth that we actually inherited and that the rest of current Creation is adapted for. He is obviously a physicist and not a biologist, and doesn`t seem to give any thought to the rapidity of the scale at which we are conducting our little terraforming experiment, and te challenges the pace of those changes are posing to ecosystems.

  - "To put it fairly but bluntly, the global-warming alarmists have relied on a pathetic version of science in which computer models take precedence over data, and numerical averages of computer outputs are believed to be able to predict the future climate. It would be a travesty if the EPA were to countenance such nonsense."

  To put it bluntly, this is largely rubbish; there is a tremendous and growing amount of climate change DATA. You just make it your habit not to let facts get in the way of your own opinions. I would be a travesty if we continue to countenance posts such as yours, questions of relevance to Austrian purposes aside.

  - "I don’t do politics"

  Fine; I can see why that would not be your forte. But what`s very puzzling is that you seem to think that climate science IS your forte, when all you`ve show is a shocking level of arrogant ignorance.

  - "I don’t pretend to be an economic theorist."

  And on a blog dedicated to Austrian economists, just why, one wonders, do the "giants" in our Mises world keep filling the Blog pages with post such as this, which are, on their very face, IRRELEVANT, to the question of how Austrians wish to address the preferences of other, the misuses of government and the management of unowned common resources.

  - "he only difference between the Republicans and the Democrats is, in practical terms, their rhetoric. I don’t pretend to be an economic theorist.

  - "But the notion that we can run an industrialized giant on chicken manure and sunbeams doesn’t even pass the giggle test. Except in Washington."

  At long last, you say something something intelligible. Except Washington spends trillions on nonsense at the drop of a hat, if you haven`t noticed recent events.

  Published: November 1, 2009 10:02 AM

• TokyoTom

  Sorry if I`ve been a bit intemperate; that I`m rushed doesn`t excuse it.

  Dr. Hayden, you are entirely welcome to your own opinion and your own mental map of reality, but not to your own facts. As to your opinion and mental map, they are by your own admittance uninformed as to matters of economics and political science, but I must confess that I find your understanding of climate science to be seriously wanting.

  Given these, I fail to see what you offer here, other than a convenient, if very thin, cover for others here who don`t want to think, or to fight to make the world (or our own government) better.

  Sincerely,

  Tom

  Published: November 1, 2009 10:11 AM

• method fan

  "To put it bluntly, this is largely rubbish; there is a tremendous and growing amount of climate change DATA. You just make it your habit not to let facts get in the way of your own opinions"

  You are insofar wrong, that not only this "data" is analysed but it is also used to "predict" the future of reality by using it in simulations!
  
  There is no sound experimental proof that human activity-emitted carbon dioxide is the cause for some sort of global warming. Just guesses.

  These guesses remind one of the idea that rain dances are the cause for rain.

  But this claimed relationship is the fundament for many government activities; at least the government wants people to believe in that.

  @Bala: thx for your sophisticated statements!

  Published: November 1, 2009 11:18 AM

• mpolzkill

  "or our own government"

  Right there again, Tom, that's the basic misconception. Until there is actual representation, everything said by we proles is literally hot air (unless it's happens to coincide with whatever benefits the regime).

  Published: November 1, 2009 11:36 AM

• mpolzkill

  "These guesses remind one of the idea that rain dances are the cause for rain"

  That's funny because I was about to tell Tom that a rain dance would be as effective a means of influencing the congressional/banking/military/industrial combine as anything else.

  Published: November 1, 2009 11:47 AM

• matt

  Interesting to see how a "letter which disproofs global warming" gets such attention (and as it seems even approval) here. Human made global warming and human made global pollution problems are one of the main problems why anarchy cannot work.

  I'm all for liberty and individual freedom. But the problem is that we live together on this small planet. And how I use my freedom directly affects other people. Sometimes in a neutral way, sometimes in a positive way. But in many cases in negative ways. So complete individual freedom just does not exist.

  The fact remains that if everybody is free to do whatever he wants, burning coal and oil and polluting the environment at the current frightening pace, the planet cannot sustain that. We will simply destroy our climate. Maybe we won't die of temperatures being too high, but that's only because we die sooner from toxic chemicals which have been entered the air we breath, the water we drink and the food we eat.

  Sure, "the free market" might eventually solve the climate/environmental problems. But only by - literally - survival of the fittest. If there's any survival, of course

  Published: November 1, 2009 12:50 PM

• Bala

  TokyoTom,

  It is indeed interesting that I too am irritated by Dr Howard Hayden's initial and later letters. However, unlike the way you have indicated in your response to him, I am irritated that by raising a whole host of "issues", he has given you a lot of room to pretend like you are actually engaging in serious discussion. Of all the issues he has raised, there is only 1 core issue at the heart of the matter, which I have raised and been repeatedly questioning you and Kristine N (the other person who claims to be a climate scientist and seems to be aligned with your way of thinking). Until now, neither of you has answered my simple and easily understood question.

  If you had spent a fraction of the time spent railing against Dr Howard Hayden's letter to give me the links I had requested, you would have

  1. proven by now that you are an honest, scientifically driven person talking on the basis of scientifically valid data and methods and not a politically biased person advancing your own agenda (which is what most of us out here think of those who advance political action to "tackle" climate change) with no regard for science, its methods and, above all, truth.

  2. convinced a lot of us out here that global warming and climate change are indeed antopogenic in their origins and hence that action taken to address them is indeed justified.

  Please do that soon, failing which I will be forced to draw my own conclusions about you, your intellectual honesty and the integrity of the entire global warming and climate change "movement".

  @method fan,

  Thanks. However, I was doing nothing great. Just trying to ask what I think is the only important question to ask. In fact, I always get cheesed off at the way most GW and CC skeptics (Dr. Howard Hayden included) ask so many questions that discussions always veer off course. I just thought a little focus would help.

  In fact, the main problem that I see with proponents of action to tackle GW and CC is that they have not yet proven their fundamental hypothesis which is nothing more than the question I have posed (rather repeatedly to the point of boredom, at least for some).

  I hope I have proved a point at least to GW and CC skeptics that focus, especially on the core question, helps (I take TokyoTom's persistent refusal to answer my question as proof of the success of my method). In fact, I am quite confident that if mine had been the only question posed, TokyoTom wouldn't be around posting a reply.

  I wouldn't be suprised to see that more and more of us, at different fora, asking this same question forces entire the GW and CC "movement" to retreat into its foxhole and fade into irrelevance.

  Published: November 1, 2009 4:49 PM

• Bala

  TokyoTom,

  Sorry about a small typographical error. Correction out here

  2. convinced a lot of us out here that global warming and climate change are indeed anthropogenic in their origins and hence that action taken to address them is indeed justified.

  Published: November 1, 2009 5:08 PM

• Walt D.

  As "Deep Throat" said - follow the money. The politicians and the UN are only interested in this to the extent that they can use the scare tactics to promote international energy taxation and redistribution of wealth.
  
  To this extent, their biggest threat is scientists like Richard Lindzen, whose research shows that the temperature increase produced by a given amount of CO2 is about 1/6th or 1/7th of what the IPCC predicts and, thus, the carbon tax should be about 1/6th or 1/7th of what they propose.

  Published: November 1, 2009 5:38 PM

• TokyoTom

  Bala, I appreciate your polite persistence; I`m sorry I haven`t responded yet, but I`ll get to you.

  Please note that my time is both limited and my own (though indeed others have claims on it), and I have no obligation to spend any of it responding to your importunings regarding climate science, which are now shading into impertinence.

  Feel free to draw whatever conclusions you wish, but a fair reader might note that:

  - my priorities may (unsurprisingly) differ from yours,
  - my chief points (and Austrian principles as to how to engage with others) have nothing to do with climate science per se,
  - I explicitly make no pretense of being a scientist or climate expert, and
  - in any case, there is no simple course to understanding reality; we are all forced to make decisions as to how much energy to devote to puzzling things out on our own (and overcoming what we know of our own subconscious cognitive filters) versus outsourcing this effort to others (by accepting things without deliberation, "on faith" as it were).

  Others who have been around longer will know that I`ve also devoted what they might consider an unreasonable amount of my time over the past few years, "hysterical" trying to help others work through climate science (and policy) issues.

  TT

  Published: November 1, 2009 8:46 PM

• TokyoTom

  mpolzkill:

  - "Tom, believing you live in a Republic with 300,000,000 people is a delusion which heads off all actual pragmatism."

  This is not a delusion I have, but in any case it`s not at all clear that this or any other delusion "heads off all actual pragmatism".

  - "Until there is actual representation, everything said by we proles is literally hot air (unless it's happens to coincide with whatever benefits the regime)."

  I use "our government" simply as shorthand for what you call "the regime", but perhaps may be more accurately described as a multicentric mess.

  In any case, the painstaking efforts of LVMI to grow the Mises website, and the welcome reception of and contribution to those efforts by everyone here - yourself included - belies both your near-nihilistic cynicism and your conclusion, as to virtually every topic discussed here. Words are deeds, though they be more or less frivolous, weighty, insightful or consequential.

  If the other Mises bloggers agreed with you as to the possible efficacy of their words, either generally or on this particular topic, they simply wouldn`t bother to post.

  However, I share your concern about efficiacy, which is why I criticize posts such these (whether by Stephan, George Reisman, Sean Corrigan, Walter Block, or Jeffrey Tucker), which are, by and large, more of a circle jerk than an effort to engage.

  - "thank you for being respectful"

  My pleasure, but you hardly need to thank me; this is a community, after all.

  - "even though you mistakenly think I'm a nut.

  In this case, it is you who are mistaken (not that you ARE a nut, but that you think I think you are).

  Tom
  

  Published: November 1, 2009 9:35 PM

• mpolzkill

  Tom,

  If someone told me they could flap their arms and fly across the Grand Canyon, and I had the same type of reactions I've had to you here, would you call me a near-nihilistic cynic? A Republic can not be anywhere near this large, it is just a fact, one that was known by the likes of Plato, Aristotle, Montesquieu and Madison. And this not being a Republic, you are not represented, will not be represented. It pains me to say this, but some things really are simple: if you're going down the wrong road there is no sense in trying to do anthing but stop and turn around. In this case, this driver has no interest doing anything but staying the insane course; the only goal can be to somehow get out so we can walk back.

  Of course a delusion can preclude solution: on foot in the desert, for example, using ones last remaining strength walking towards a mirage instead of a spring.

  It was the "our" not the "government".

  That "multicentricity" sure has a way of all pointing to the Pentagon.

  I can't speak for the other bloggers, but I'm sure the efficacy of my words approaches zippo. I just type this stuff occasionally out of some compulsion and because it helps me think.

  OK, well I call un-pragmatic near-nihilistic cynics that think they post stuff for one reason when it's really another nuts.

  Published: November 1, 2009 11:29 PM

• Bala

  TokyoTom,

  You said

  " Please note that my time is both limited and my own (though indeed others have claims on it), and I have no obligation to spend any of it responding to your importunings regarding climate science, which are now shading into impertinence. "

  Actually, the "obligation" you have is not to me, but to yourself and your credibility in the community out here blogging, posting comments and reading.

  To this community out here, you come across the same way the Spartans viewed the messenger sent by Xerxes to Sparta (If you've seen the movie "300"). Like in Sparta, here too, the messenger is also accountable for his words.

  The situation is like this. Here (in this community, say community A) are a lot of people who believe in the principles of Rights such as Liberty and Property. Along comes a person talking on behalf of another community (a much larger one, say community B) that plans to act in a manner that violates the Rights to Liberty and Property of those of community A.

  So, the people in community A start with the perception that the people in community B are a threat to them and are a little wary about engaging with them. So, they are asking the question "How and why is the violation Liberty and Property Rights of people to reduce CO2 emissions justified?". The simple translation is "Can you tell me that my emitting CO2 is a demonstrable violation of the Liberty and Property Rights of others?".

  These people in Community A are, fortunately or unfortunately, a little principled and are not willing to make compromises on basic principles. They take as their role models, Ludwig von Mises and Murray Rothbard, persons who went through great privations because of their commitment to their high principles. Becoming irrelavant to the mainstream does not scare them like it did not scare Mises or Rothbard. So, it is going to be difficult to get these people to compromise. So how are you planning to get them to "engage"?

  It is this question that I am asking when I asked whether there exists scientific proof of the causal effect CO2 emissions has on rising global average temperatures. Giving a convincing answer with links will greatly enhance your credibility in this community.

  In fact, it will also increase this community's willingness to engage with the people you are suggesting they engage with. Thus it will also make the time you are currently spending more worthwhile.

  Published: November 2, 2009 12:18 AM

• TokyoTom

  method fan:

  [my first attempt apparently failed to post, so apologies if this shows up twice]

  - "You are insofar wrong, that not only this "data" is analysed but it is also used to "predict" the future of reality by using it in simulations!"

  You miss my criticism of Dr. Hayden`s refusal to examine facts about ongoing melting in Antarctica, but of course I do NOT disagree with you that current and paleo data can be used to "predict" the future.

  But of course a scientific understanding of the world, and information - in this case, both about the past and current trends of climate inputs - certainly can give us useful information about what the future may hold in store for us.

  "There is no sound experimental proof that human activity-emitted carbon dioxide is the cause for some sort of global warming."

  Nicely phrased; there of course plenty of experimental proof that carbon dioxide is an atmospheric warming agent, but no experimental proof that it is "the" cause for any global warming - nor is such "experimental" proof even possible.

  While we are now running such a global experiment - one that started centuries ago and will not be played out for centuries hence and is, for all intents and purposes irreversible - and thus cannot, in the Popperian sense, even be considered an "experiment".

  Whether our ramping up of the experiment is prudent or principled are entirely different questions, and properly the subject of much discussion.

  - "These guesses remind one of the idea that rain dances are the cause for rain."

  I`m tempted to make a comeback, but surely you realize your flip comparison is entirely inapropos. Dr. Hayden himself acknowledged that no one denies that CO2 will cause some warming

  TT

  Published: November 2, 2009 3:38 AM

• TokyoTom

  Folks, let me alert you to an apology I just made to Stephan in relation to some difficulties I was having posting. (My posts were not getting through, despite the lack of anything I could discern wrong in the posts that would hold them up automatically. Stephan advises me emphatically it was NOT him; I take his word for it and apologize to him and you. I`m trying to figure things what went wrong - besides me jumping to unfair conclusions.Do too many posts in a row look like spam?)
  http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/11/02/the-road-not-taken-iii-stephan-kinsella-plugs-his-ears-on-the-austrians-obstinate-willful-irrelevancy-in-the-climate-debate.aspx

  mpolzkill: "I call un-pragmatic near-nihilistic cynics that think they post stuff for one reason when it's really another nuts."

  Is that why you think I should thnk you`re nuts, or why I should consider myself nuts?

  I am happy to concede that the efficacy of my words probably approaches zero, but I think that LvMI is actually trying to aim for higher. I`m trying to assist that effort; please don`t tell me you think we should shut it all down, or that we are better off simply being content at being an echo chamber.

  Bala, you are beginning to get offensive, and I am less and less inclined to do any homework assignments for you on climate change science.

  Perhaps YOU might not have noticed, but "this community" includes me, and there are plenty of other free-market libertarians and libertarians concerned about climate change. I`ve been here commenting for 3+ years now and have my own Mises blog (which typically captures 20% or so of traffic), which you might figure out if you weren`t so lazy. See here, for example: http://blog.mises.org/archives/005916.asp

  - "Along comes a person talking on behalf of another community (a much larger one, say community B) that plans to act in a manner that violates the Rights to Liberty and Property of those of community A."

  In no manner whatsoever do I represent ANY other community, particularly the enviro community. I make efforts to steer them in the right direction, but basically I`m a fed-up former Republican.

  - "So, it is going to be difficult to get these people to compromise [on matters of principle]. So how are you planning to get them to "engage"?"

  You seem to have tremendous difficulty actually reading what I have said. While I share concerns about what we are doing to unowned or government-owned commons around the world, I am not on a mission to convince anyone of the science, or to get Austrians to abandon principles. Far from it; I`m actually trying to get them to act in a manner consistent with their own principles and to use the opportunity of the concerns that OTHERS have to seek to roll back the regulatory state in key ways.

  It`s amazing to me that you and others have such a difficult time following this.

  Maybe it simply won`t work, but it certainly won`t if people won`t try. In any case, trying to seek the gains that I`ve laid laid out above and on my own blog see well wortth it to me. If you disagree, then maybe you should tell Lew Rockwell and others to stop blogging about power deregulation.

  Sorry, but I gotta run.

  Published: November 2, 2009 4:43 AM

• mpolzkill

  Tom,

  "Is that why you think I should thnk you`re nuts, or why I should consider myself nuts?"

  Haha. Close on the first one. You describing me in these ways is tantamount to you calling me a nut, in my book.

  "...I think that LvMI is actually trying to aim for higher. I`m trying to assist that effort; please don`t tell me you think we should shut it all down, or that we are better off simply being content at being an echo chamber."

  I hope they are aiming for secession (or massive, down the line nullification of all the laws that make possible the things you correctly condemn), that must be primary. If no one will listen to the truth or educate themselves as to what a Republic is, the fault lies with them. Back to one of my "walking" analogies: there can be *no* compromise between heading towards the mirage and the spring. Rest assured, the vile corporatism which you accurately describe is the natural product of an imaginary Republic. Of course we want out from under it; we (you and I, and I hope most at the LvMI are on my side) appear to have irreconcilable differences on how that is to be achieved. (And I wouldn't ever say you're a nut because you believe D.C. can be reformed. Mass hysteria is actually the norm. There I go being a cynic again. The optimist believes this to be the best of all possible worlds, the pessimist fears this is true.)

  "Bala, you are beginning to get offensive and I am less and less inclined to do any homework assignments for you"

  He'll do that to ya, haha.

  Published: November 2, 2009 8:38 AM

• Stephan Kinsella

  Tom, I'm against the state. I'm against junk science. I'm against science used by liberal arts and women's studies majors from Brown who now infest the state to advance their anti-capitalist interests. I believe we are in an interglacial period. I believe the evidence trotted out so far by global warming advocates is spotty and selective, and almost always insincere and agenda-driven, or driven by pure ignorance. I believe that global warming would probably be good, but is not going to happen. I believe that even if it were happening and even if it were bad, I suspect that the cost of stopping it would far exceed its damages--that is, that it's not worth it to stop it; moreover, I would never trust the state to make this assessment or to impose the "right" regulations to ameliorate the "problem."

  I think that the global warming advocates are not interested in real science or real debate--they want to just take their temporary popularity in the polls and among the arts & croissant crowd, among the DC jetset bored housewives and ditzy Hollywood stars and parlay that as quickly as possible into legislation sponsored by corrupt pols like Nancy Pelosi. I.e.., they just want to win, right away, as quickly as possible before the public starts to catch on or the latest pseudo-science fad catches its eye.

  The primary enemy, Tom, is the state. Any scheme that involves them as a part of the "solution" to a posited problem is obviously flawed. I have no wish to cooperate with or endorse that criminal gang's legitimacy. Period.

  Published: November 2, 2009 9:18 AM

• Gil

  A simple question is global warming occurring in the 'commons'? If it is then there's nothing that can be done under 'natural rights'. It's the same with overfishing and overhunting that causing extinctions of animals and can even inadvertedly near starve tribal people out. If it's in the 'commons' then it can't be regulated in a way that's compatible with Libertarianism.

  Published: November 2, 2009 9:46 AM

• TokyoTom

  Stephan, thanks for your response. Again, my apologies for my wrong and hasty supposition about moderation.

  - "The primary enemy, Tom, is the state. Any scheme that involves them as a part of the "solution" to a posited problem is obviously flawed. I have no wish to cooperate with or endorse that criminal gang's legitimacy. Period."

  You`re misunderstanding me. I fail to see why it is contrary to any Austrian principle to directly engage enviros or anyone else who is concerned about climate change risks - heck, even Exxon is trumpeting them now - on the Mises Blog or elsewhere, not on the merits of their concern, but on the appropriate policy response, and to point out that there is alot of state and federal regulation that makes the perceived problem WORSE. And that a good first step, ought to be in changing these counterproductive regulations.

  There is alot of business and consumer push-back on the Dems climate change policy proposals; why do we also spend our time dissing science - and preferences - and not trying to help stave off of mass of more regulation? Policy analysis that pointed in useful directions might very well be useful, and is certain to be more useful than one that reserves itself to scoffing at science, preferences, motives and sanity.

  As we discussed I copy below some of our exchange over at my blog:

  
  # re: The Road Not Taken III: Stephan Kinsella plugs his ears on the Austrians` obstinate, willful irrelevancy in the climate debate
  Monday, November 02, 2009 4:20 PM by nskinsella

  Tom,

  I didn't moderate or block anything. This is the first I've heard of it.

  "You: (i) post without significant comment a one-page letter from a scientist - as if the letter itself is vindication, victory or a roadmap for how we should seek to engage the views and preferences of others,"

  How, how DARE I publish something someone else has written! The nerve!

  "(ii) refuse to answer my straightforward questions (both above and at my cross-linked post, which you visited) on how we engage others in the very active ongoing political debate, in a manner that actually defends and advances our policy agenda, (putting aside the insulting and disingenuous "Tokyo asked me to respond" and "it's so rambling I am not sure what to respond to");"

  I have no obligation to respond to your rambling comments. I don't know what you are jabbering about.

  "(iii) then proceed to present your own view of the science,"

  How, How... DARE I present my own opinion! The nerve!

  "If you are not actually interested in discussing policy on a serious issue, then consider refraining from posting on it."

  "discussing policy" is how socialists describe it when the foregone conclusion is that the state is going to intervene, and we need to just have a nice cozy chat about what knobs to twiddle to satisfy or balance this or that "interest" against others. Real libertarians don't "discuss policy"--they talk about property rights.
  Monday, November 02, 2009 6:07 PM by TokyoTom

  Stephan, I`m sorry; you have my full apology, as I`ve noted above.

  Since you`ve provided some substantive comments, let me respond briefly:

  - my point is not at all that you`ve had the nerve to publish something someone else has written, but the fact that you`ve done so with a piece that just a little scratch reveals is mainly twaddle and that you don`t at all address how Mises blog readers ought to engage others on this issue, including particularly whether we ought to consider engaging the various people fighting over the wheel of government in ways that might to help improve on the status quo and to advance the cause of freedom.

  - as to your views of the science, of course I have no problem at all you stating whatever those views might be. My point is that you were not at all responsive to my question about whether it would be more productive than calling enviros evil to engage them (and the big boys who use them as puppets) in discussing changes that Austrians would like to see that might advance the enviros` (and others`) agendas.

  - "discussing policy" is how socialists describe it when the foregone conclusion is that the state is going to intervene, and we need to just have a nice cozy chat about what knobs to twiddle to satisfy or balance this or that "interest" against others. Real libertarians don't "discuss policy"--they talk about property rights.

  The only way that Austrians can achieve their purposes is by seeking to influence others AND government. My point is not at all "socialistic".

  Real libertarians DO discuss policy, AND property rights, AND, like Ostrom points out, the way communities can, without government interference, devise their own rules to manage commons.

  I stand by my point, that we ought to be vigorously discussing all of these things, including, in the context of climate change concerns:

  - ending counterproductive public utility monopolies;

  - allowing immediate write-off of capital investments;

  - ending favoritism under the CAA for the dirtiest coal-fired power plants;

  - ending licensing of nuclear power (and federal insurance caps); etc.

  http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/11/02/the-road-not-taken-iii-stephan-kinsella-plugs-his-ears-on-the-austrians-obstinate-willful-irrelevancy-in-the-climate-debate.aspx

  Sincerely,

  Tom
  

  Published: November 2, 2009 9:55 AM

• Bala

  TokyoTom,

  First up, apologies if I sounded offensive. That was not the intention. I was just pushing to get a reply from you.

  Now that you have answered my question, though in response to @method man, let me now come to the objection I have to the "engagement" you are suggesting.

  Firstly, the entire focus of the current "movement" on Global Warming and Climate Change is working on the assumption that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the cause of the problem. (This statement in itself presumes that we have a problem. That's an entire discussion altogether and one that gets rather scientific. I know I am not qualified to talk on that issue and hence will not.)

  However, on the basic issue, what is the point of enagaging with the objective of developing solutions that advance the course of Liberty, with someone who is working on wrong premises and is hence likely to disagree with me not because my solutions are poor but because he thinks his solutions address the problem better? That, I guess is what mpolzkill was referring to.

  Secondly, if there is no convincing proof that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the cause of GW & CC, then climate science that assumes that atmospheric CO2 levels are the key problem can only be called pseudoscience. I am not sure I (speaking only for myself and not for LvMI) would not want to engage with people who claim validity for their pseudoscience and trot out political "solutions" based on that.

  Thirdly, the biggest problem with the GW & CC "movement" is that it is far more political than it is scientific. Solutions that are being thrown up are entirely political in nature and their implementation too is to be placed in the hands of the political establishment. I fail to understand how that is going to create a better world. Stephan has by now addressed that issue and I shall hence not dwell on that. But in brief, I don't think involving the State in solving the problem, even assuming we have a problem on our hands, is going to achieve any useful purpose.

  Finally, I have not studied your suggested solutions in detail, but a cursory glance tells me that your intention is to advance the cause of Liberty by working towards eliminating distorting State interventions in the economy. I don't see how accepting the GW & CC crowd's assumption (given that it is flawed) and engaging them is a better way of advancing this agenda than ignoring them completely and focusing on non-State means of advancing the same agenda.

  Published: November 2, 2009 10:13 AM

• Walt D.

  Stephan:
  
  Outstanding summary of what the real problem is.

  Published: November 2, 2009 12:03 PM

• Stephan Kinsella

  Tom:

  I am not clear if you are proposing the following, or simply proposing discussing them, but:

  "ending counterproductive public utility monopolies;"

  Yes, but this is libertarianism 101.

  "- allowing immediate write-off of capital investments;"

  What exactly are you talking about? If you are proposing that the state should in effect increase its taxation of corporations, all true libertarians disagree. First, corporations should not be taxed at all; this is just double taxation of shareholders and others. Second, no one should be taxed. Third, taxes should never be increased, even if only indirectly by means of eliminating a deduction.

  "- ending favoritism under the CAA for the dirtiest coal-fired power plants;"

  Sure. If costs were internalized nuclear would dominate.

  "- ending licensing of nuclear power (and federal insurance caps); etc."

  I am not sure what exaclty you are proposing but if you mean the state should stop interfering with the construction of nuclear power plants, amen, brother. And you have to realize that if you are in fact pro-nuclear you are unlike most of your global warming ilk. Most of them are either too misanthropic or scientifically illiterate to favor nuclear power: they either do not understand why it would be superior in every way to other forms of energy production, or they do understand and and for this reason want to oppose it. None of your comrades are genuine environmentalists if they do not actively push for nuclear power. Instead they are rotten watermelons.

  Published: November 2, 2009 12:07 PM

• kristine N

  Bala--please don't take my absence as acquiescence; my rather busy life tends to interfere with my blogging frequently.

  "I don't see how accepting the GW & CC crowd's assumption (given that it is flawed) and engaging them is a better way of advancing this agenda than ignoring them completely and focusing on non-State means of advancing the same agenda."

  Ah yes, the real you shows up. I'm going to guess that no matter what evidence I show, there will be no "cause and effect" relationship good enough for you. Nevertheless, here are a few things that indicate CO2 is a greenhouse gas and is responsible for current global warming.

  I'm going to start off here with the Paleogene. During the Eocene, atmospheric CO2 concentrations were much, much higher than they are today, and the climate was much warmer. Then, India hit China (or rather, their respective continents did). What, you may ask, does that have to do with climate?
  http://www.osti.gov/energycitations/product.biblio.jsp?osti_id=6582171
  It turns out, weathering of silicate rocks pulls CO2 out of the atmosphere. So when India hit China and the Himalayan uplift started approximately 40 million years ago at the end of the Eocene, CO2 concentrations went down. Antarctica became glaciated, at first with ephemeral glaciers, and eventually with permanent ones:
  http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/15961630
  It's pretty clear the temperature drop and consequent glaciations that happen at the beginning of the Oligocene were caused by a drop in atmospheric CO2 concentrations.

  There's also the snowball earth, which was probably terminated by CO2:
  http://www-eps.harvard.edu/people/faculty/hoffman/snowball_paper.html
  No, it's not a scholarly article, but it is written by the two main proponents of the theory and is written in layman's terms. Briefly, we have evidence that at a few points early in Earth's history the Earth was covered by glaciers to the equator. Ice has high albedo, meaning it reflects most incoming solar radiation. Models suggest if glaciers ever extended to the equator, there would be no way to ever melt them because they reflect too much solar radiation. Joe Kirschvink suggested that CO2 (which would continue to be emitted by volcanoes) could cause a greenhouse effect strong enough to melt the glaciers.

  From basic physics, CO2 absorbs light in the IR band:
  http://www.iitap.iastate.edu/gccourse/forcing/spectrum.html
  something Svante Arrhenius recognized and thought would lead to global warming:
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Svante_Arrhenius#Greenhouse_effect
  The Earth, having a temperature of about 298 K emits in the IR band (which you can check yourself using Plank's law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_law), so CO2 and other greenhouse gases trap more of the outgoing heat, causing the atmosphere to warm.

  To say there is no direct, cause and effect relationship between CO2 and the surface temperature of the Earth you really have to throw out a lot of science that's been demonstrated over and over. You have to throw out physics that you use every day, you have to throw out geology and chemistry; basically, you have to say all of physical science is corrupt--all while using the tools produced from the knowledge gained by "corrupt science."
  

  Published: November 2, 2009 12:34 PM

• kristine N

  On tipping points:

  I get the impression from the discussion there's some uncertainty about what a tipping point is (given so many of you are taking Hayden's comment at face value). A tipping point is simply the point at which you go from one equilibrium state to another. Tipping points happen all the time--to claim we haven't seen one the course of 8,000 ppm shift in atmospheric CO2 concentrations is preposterous. A very big one I mentioned earlier was the transition from a completely un-glaciated world before about 40 million years ago to a world in which both poles are glaciated constantly.

  We're seeing a tipping point in an ecosystem in my lifetime. I grew up in the southwestern US, surrounded by pine-covered mountains. Today, most of those pines are dead because bark beetles aren't killed off in the winter. There used to be an equilibrium between bark beetles and pine trees, but the warming we've seen in the last couple of decades, small as it is, was enough to upset that equilibrium.
  http://www.usatoday.com/printedition/news/20080716/a_redstorm16.art.htm

  There's obviously more going on than just the warming--fire suppression hasn't helped matters for pine trees. Nevertheless, it is unlikely the bark beetle would be the problem it is today if all we were doing was suppressing fires.

  Published: November 2, 2009 12:46 PM

• fundamentalist

  kristine: "A tipping point is simply the point at which you go from one equilibrium state to another."

  You misunderstand Hayden's definition of a tipping point, reflected in his analogy of an amplifier. A tipping point with an amp is when the feedback becomes so strong that all you hear in the room is that ear piercing shriek from the amp. The climate, in Hayden's example, is like the amp working normally with minimal feedback. Occasionally your hear a whistle that subsides, but generally the volume rises and falls with the voice of the person speaking into the microphone. For the climate, that would be the recorded rising and falling of temperatures and CO2 together over time. As with the mic and amp, the tipping point occurs when the CO2 and temps quit falling and shoot straight up in a way they never have before. The hysterical crowd is saying that we have reached the tipping point, but we can back off from it, just as a speaker who encounters feedback can move the mic away from the amp's speakers and stop it.

  By the way, equilibrium in economics doesn't mean the normal rise and fall, that is business cycle. It essentially means that very little changes. If the economic definition of equilibrium were applied to climate, it would mean that there are no cycles of temperatures and CO2 as we see in the historical record. Equilibrium means balanced, so that there is very little change.

  Published: November 2, 2009 1:41 PM

• kristine N

  "You misunderstand Hayden's definition of a tipping point, reflected in his analogy of an amplifier. A tipping point with an amp is when the feedback becomes so strong that all you hear in the room is that ear piercing shriek from the amp."

  Which is not a good definition of a climate tipping point. From that description he's saying something along the lines of, since we haven't descended into a Venus-like state, we haven't reached a tipping point. A tipping point, in the sense of the global climate system, is going from one equilibrium state to another--like a world with ice at the poles to one without ice at the poles.

  Published: November 2, 2009 1:49 PM

• fundamentalist

  Kristine: "A tipping point, in the sense of the global climate system, is going from one equilibrium state to another--like a world with ice at the poles to one without ice at the poles."

  This is just trivia, but you ought to check out a book called "Maps of the Ancient Sea Kings." In cartography there is a famous map of the world that an Ottoman Admiral owned in the 16th century, but it's much older. It has a map of Antarctica without ice. Many details of the map could only be confirmed recently when we had the technology to "see" through the ice and the map appears to be very accurate. No one has any explanation of how ancient people could draw such an accurate map. This has nothing to do with climate change, but it's a very interesting mystery.

  Published: November 2, 2009 2:40 PM

• Mr Eko

  Tipping point - positive feedback loop. Fundamentalist's example of the amplifier is a good one.

  Buffer - negative feedback loop. An example would be a lake containing hard water, that is resistant to changes in pH from acid rain.

  Also, kristine N, your vision of jumping from one equilibrium to the next is somewhat of a caricature, as there never was "equilibrium" in the first place. Steady-state Edens do not exist in nature, which is incredibly dynamic.

  Published: November 2, 2009 6:58 PM

• Mr Eko

  kristine N,

  Additionally, nobody is challenging the fact that CO2 absorbs the earth's radiant heat, only that your "direct cause and effect relationship" ignores the other causes of temperature variation (sun cycles, ocean cycles, the wobble in the earth's orbit, etc.) How can you possibly presume to know the contribution of man made CO2?

  Not to mention that a concise definition of the problem itself is difficult, as there is no reliable temperature datum to variance from.

  Note that I don't think denial is a logical position either. I remain a skeptic.

  Published: November 2, 2009 7:07 PM

• kristine N

  A positive feedback loop is distinctly different than a tipping point. The amplifier example is a good example of a positive feedback loop, not of a tipping point. Positive feedback loops may be involved in moving from one equilibrium point to another, but not necessarily.

  The climate is in a state of dynamic equilibrium, which means it is constantly changing, but always comes back to near some average value. A tipping point is where you irreversibly move away from the established average, or equilibrium point, to a new average--like an electron in an energy well moving from one to another, or a ball on a hummocky plane moving from one valley to another. The ball can move around in one valley quite a bit, as long as it doesn't go too high. If something happens to perturb the ball too far, though, it'll fall over into the next valley, where it will stay until something perturbs it again.

  Published: November 2, 2009 7:57 PM

• kristine N

  "nobody is challenging the fact that CO2 absorbs the earth's radiant heat"

  Then you accept CO2 is a greenhouse gas? And that increasing concentrations of CO2 will lead to higher global temperatures? 'Cause that's the logical conclusion of that statement.

  "your "direct cause and effect relationship" ignores the other causes of temperature variation (sun cycles, ocean cycles, the wobble in the earth's orbit, etc.) How can you possibly presume to know the contribution of man made CO2?"

  We understand the contributions of those other forcings pretty well and can model them and show that if CO2 is not added in to the models, you can't produce today's climate.
  http://lasp.colorado.edu/sorce/news/2008ScienceMeeting/doc/Session4/S4_01_Ammann.pdf

  We've seen no trend in solar output over the last 50 years, nor any significant trend in other important variables, yet we've seen temperatures increase over that same timespan.

  "Not to mention that a concise definition of the problem itself is difficult, as there is no reliable temperature datum to variance from."

  You: Here, let me tie your hands behind your back...

  Me: But what about boreholes?
  http://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/globalwarming/pollack.html
  
  Boreholes show very close to the same amount of warming as the instrumental record and as proxy data (tree rings, corals, etc.) show. And since you actually measure temperature and since boreholes are located all over the world and in very different places than the other proxies they represent a nice, independent test.

  If you actually want to see a reasonably current picture of the state of climate science, I highly recommend this:
  http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676

  You can download the pdf version of the book for free and read it at your leisure. It covers past temperatures, forcings (solar, volcanic, etc.), and models, among other things.

  Published: November 2, 2009 8:31 PM

• Walt D.

  "The Earth, having a temperature of about 298 K emits in the IR band (which you can check yourself using Plank's law: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Planck%27s_law), so CO2 and other greenhouse gases trap more of the outgoing heat, causing the atmosphere to warm.".
  
  The only problem is when you apply this when you apply this equation using actual satellite data, it shows that if you double atmospheric CO2, the heat trapped by the CO2 will raise ocean temperatures by 0.5F.
  
  This explains why global temperatures appear not to be rising. We can't measure global temperatures to an accuracy of 0.002F. This explains why we can have 3000 ppm CO2 in the past and still be here.
  
  It works the other way as well. Why could the Romans grow grapes in the UK? Why are the Saguaro cactuses in Arizona dying due to freezing? Why did we have a lemon crop failure in California?
  
  For anyone who actual likes science, you might want to google magnetic field reversal. Many ice ages in the past have been preceded by magnetic field reversal. We are overdue for a reversal, and some well respected scientists are saying that change could be imminent. This would be good news for the Obama Administration, who are currently headed 80 degrees in the wrong direction! :-)

  Published: November 2, 2009 8:39 PM

• method fan

  How stupid governments are can be seen here:

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phase-out_of_incandescent_light_bulbs

  @kristine N

  Please explain why there a so many scenarios drawn by scientists on global warming if you assume the cause-effect relationship to be so clear?

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Global_Warming_Predictions.png

  Published: November 2, 2009 8:55 PM

• kristine N

  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geomagnetic_reversal
  vs.
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Vostok-ice-core-petit.png

  Ah yes, I see how the very non-periodic geomagnetic field reversals (which haven't changed in the last 700,000 years while we've had somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 glacial/interglacial cycles) have led to the very cyclic glacial/interglacial cycles that characterize the Pleistocene.

  Where do you hear this stuff? Are you and the guy who thinks there was an advanced culture living on an ice-free Antarctica before the Greeks talking to each other?

  If you think climate change is hard to model, you should try modeling the Earth's dynamo. It might be easier to predict the exact location of an electron at any given time.

  Published: November 2, 2009 9:06 PM

• kristine N

  Please explain why there a so many scenarios drawn by scientists on global warming if you assume the cause-effect relationship to be so clear?

  Because people aren't predictable (also why economic models are a bunch of bunk). Our response in terms of how much CO2 we continue to produce has a big impact on the future evolution of the climate.

  Published: November 2, 2009 9:08 PM

• Walt D.

  @kristine N
  "Ah yes, I see how the very non-periodic geomagnetic field reversals (which haven't changed in the last 700,000 years while we've had somewhere in the neighborhood of 7 glacial/interglacial cycles) have led to the very cyclic glacial/interglacial cycles that characterize the Pleistocene."
  
  I never said that it was the only cause. There are very few things that have a single cause, unless you happen to be a CO2 religious fanatic.(That is why predicting an increase in hurricanes based on a 3ppm increase in CO2 is silly).
  
  
  If you think climate change is hard to model, you should try modeling the Earth's dynamo.
  
  There are people doing this - google Jeremy Bloxham.
  
  "Where do you hear this stuff? Are you and the guy who thinks there was an advanced culture living on an ice-free Antarctica before the Greeks talking to each other?",
  
  Actually, I saw this on PBS. Jeremy Bloxham made the claim when the Earth's magnetic field was weak more cosmic rays will hit the Earth's atmosphere. From here, other researchers have postulated that this would mean higher cloud cover, since cosmic rays cause condensation, particularly the white clouds that reflect the Sun's radiation back into space. Proven? No. But not as far fetched as low CO2. Incidentally, this conjecture will be tested at CERN.
  
  I usually read fundamentalists posts and find them interesting.

  Published: November 2, 2009 9:40 PM

• kristine N

  So, what you're actually talking about is secular variation of the Earth's magnetic field. When the Earth's geomagnetic field weakens, the atmosphere does see more cosmic rays, which leads to the formation of more cosmogenic radionucliides (14C, 10Be, etc.). The last major weakening of the geomagnetic field happened about 420,000 years ago (called the LeChamp event--http://www.uvm.edu/cosmolab/papers/Valet_1993_311.pdf) does correlate with a glaciation, but there are no similar events that correlate with the other glaciations before and after.

  Published: November 2, 2009 10:11 PM

• newson

  tokyo tom:
  if you wish to load your posts with links, try shortening the url's with

  http://bit.ly/

  the ever-vigilant, mises.org censors are tireless in their pursuit of agw'ers.
  

  Published: November 2, 2009 10:18 PM

• TokyoTom

  fundamentalist:

  "As with the mic and amp, the tipping point occurs when the CO2 and temps quit falling and shoot straight up in a way they never have before. The hysterical crowd is saying that we have reached the tipping point, but we can back off from it, just as a speaker who encounters feedback can move the mic away from the amp's speakers and stop it."

  Roger, your words aren`t crystal-clear, but I`m pretty sure trhat it`s you and not the "hysterical" crowd who is suggesting that if man IS forcing the climate, we can turn reverse it on a dime.

  Is that what you mean to say, and if so, how can you possibly believe it? To "back away", all we have to do is stop using fossil fuels, paint the melting Arctic white, suck alot of CO2 out of the air with non-existent technology, and remove heat and enough chemicals to lower ocean H+ ions by 25-30%. Easy!

  Published: November 2, 2009 10:58 PM

• Bala

  Kristine N,

  " Ah yes, the real you shows up. I'm going to guess that no matter what evidence I show, there will be no "cause and effect" relationship good enough for you. "

  Actually, the point is that there is no "cause and effect" relationship that is good enough for you too. That explains why you are relying so much on climate modelling.

  Now that you have come out in the open acknowledging that basic point, let me now try to give a different direction to this discussion, which is why, I believe, Stephan started it off with Prof. Howard Hayden's letter in the first place.

  The simple point is that Climate Science is not deterministic but probabilistic. There is a distinct non-zero probability that you are right and that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the cause of the current GW & CC. At the same time, there is a distinct non-zero probability that you are wrong too.

  As a "scientist" (quotes intended for emphasis and not to be derogatory), are you ready to acknowledge the latter?

  If so, then how far are you ready to stretch yourself on a probability? Rather, in what manner are you prepared to stretch yourself based on your assessment of the probabilities? Are you ready to face the scenario in which governments, based on your probabilities and seeking your scientific "sanction", go around infringing people's rights to Liberty and maybe even achieve the goal of CO2 emission reduction, but such reduction does not address the issue of GW & CC? Are you ready to live with the possibility that you were party to the DELIBERATE destruction of a lot of lives?

  Personally, I am not. That's why I refuse to align with the GW & CC movement as long as they align themselves with governments and policies revolving around violation of Liberty and Property Rights.

  On the other hand, it is indeed probable that you are right. In that case, let me take the worst case scenario that no action is taken to cut CO2 emissions and we face all the consequences climate models are predicting. In that case, some people (for no fault of theirs) stand to lose a lot, but no one would have DELIBERATELY violated any one else's rights, notably Liberty and Property Rights.

  Therefore, I prefer to stand apart from all the hysteria over GW & CC and refuse to be party to the proposals to curtail emissions. I am prepared to face the prospect that I may have innocently and without any deliberate intent, caused harm to some people. That to me is better than the earlier prospect.

  At the same time, I think you as a climate scientist also need to be asking yourself searching questions as to why you are aligning yourself with the political establishment that seeks so actively and continuously to violate people's rights to Liberty and Property. Why is climate science being anchored by the IPCC (The Inter GOVERNMENTAL Panel on Climate Change), a body I have heard is dominated by bureaucrats and politicians and not by scientists, rather than a voluntary body of scientists? Why have you (not you individually, but the community of climate scientists) sought their help in advancing the legitimacy of your science?

  Why is it that you climate scientists are not asking the basic questions such as how else, apart from coercing people to emit less smoke, can CO2 emissions fall? What stands in the way of such actions? Why do you align yourself with the same Governments that restrict the very alternative that could go a long way in reducing CO2 emissions, a.k.a. nuclear energy?

  Why do you scientists not turn around and challenge government? Is it because they are your prime financiers right now?

  Tough ones, I guess. But in my assessment, that is the direction in which the answers lie.

  Published: November 2, 2009 11:46 PM

• Walt D.

  Kristine
  
  Here is the map of the magnetic field that they were using
  
  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Brunhes_geomagnetism_western_US.png
  
  They were arguing that glacial periods tended to occur at or after local minima rather actual reversal as I stated.

  Published: November 3, 2009 12:19 AM

• DixieFlatline

  Gil,

  If it's in the 'commons' then it can't be regulated in a way that's compatible with Libertarianism.

  If it is truly in the commons, government can't regulate it without creating more externalities. For the same reason that government's can't economically calculate, they cannot manage a commons any better than individual actors cooperating voluntarily in the market.

  Published: November 3, 2009 2:40 AM

• TokyoTom

  Stephan:

  - "I am not clear if you are proposing the following, or simply proposing discussing them"

  Your thoughts and those of others on my specific suggestions would of course be very welcome, but my point is that the best way for libertarians to have an impact on this matter is to be actively involved in debating policy, and that, as far as that goes, libertarians have a long, long list of deregulatory items that are relatively simple to explain (and some, rather easy to implement) that would actually advance the professed goals of the AGWers.

  Wouldn`t that be more effective - and truer to Austrian principles - than simply calling those who have different views of the science and differing preferences about how to manage UNOWNED, open-access resources names and scratching around for whatever scientific cover you think (however strongly) is available? Austrians know very well that resource battles very often become politicized as soon as government steps in; are "misanthropes" and "rotten watermelons" responsible for the state grant of public utility monopolies, the lack of court enforcement of common law rights to protect property from state-licensed corporation that led to massive pollution problems, the massive state role in the development of nuclear weapons (that you & George Reisman mock-seriously suggest the federal govt ought to start using again in the open atmosphere) and nuclear power that understandably underlies their nuclear paranoia? Are they responsible for the fact that states abroad "own" and allow their elites to steal the tropical forests from native inhabitants, or for the way the US government nationalized fisheries, turning exploitation into a tragedy of the commons?

  Just who IS the "misanthropist" here, anyway?

  And why, like a broken record, do I have to keep asking this question here?
  http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/tags/Enviro+Derangement+Syndrome/default.aspx

  newson: "the ever-vigilant, mises.org censors are tireless in their pursuit of agw'ers."

  Thanks for the suggestion, but my guess I simply violated anti-spam trigger, not an anti-AGW one!

  mpolzkill:

  "I hope they are aiming for secession (or massive, down the line nullification of all the laws that make possible the things you correctly condemn), that must be primary. If no one will listen to the truth or educate themselves as to what a Republic is, the fault lies with them. Back to one of my "walking" analogies: there can be *no* compromise between heading towards the mirage and the spring."

  While I understand where you`re coming from and appreciate the sentiment, it too is a mirage. "Secession" is a clear impossiblity, and otherwise escaping from the state (a la "seasteading") a fantasy. For better or worse, we are stuck with trying to improve what we`ve got. This means the hard work of rallying opinion, forming and strengthening organizations that can generate "moral suasion" (via public/community pressure, publicity, criticism, shunning and positive incentives), and trying to blunt new statist initiatives and to roll back others.

  Finally, let me note that John Quiggin, a leftist Australian economist, has picked up my post and, in a post of his own called "Libertarians and delusionism", made an attempt to engage libertarians: http://johnquiggin.com/index.php/archives/2009/11/02/libertarians-and-delusionism/

  Is anyone interested in helping others to better understand libertarian approaches and concerns regarding climate science and policy?

  Published: November 3, 2009 4:01 AM

• Gil

  That's bland reasoning Dixie, a government stopping people from dumping toxic waste is more beneficial than people dumping toxic waste willy-nilly. Besides I was talking current 'commons' such someone dumping waste in international waters and lawyers might well argue that the atmosphere is 'international' therefore outside the realm of sovereign rule and anyone can dump whatever they like there. You might as well say "government can't regulate or ban anything because of calculation problems".

  Published: November 3, 2009 6:08 AM

• Matt

  Bala: "The simple point is that Climate Science is not deterministic but probabilistic. There is a distinct non-zero probability that you are right and that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the cause of the current GW & CC. At the same time, there is a distinct non-zero probability that you are wrong too."

  True. But the bottom line is: which is more probable? And at the moment it's way more probable that GW is happening and is to a large part caused by humans then not. Of course you can put aside the opinion of 98% of the scientists and believe the tiny minority who still have some open questions. But I think that's silly. There are tens of thousands of scientists in all kinds of fields working at universities all over the world coming to the same conclusions. If a scientist does research and finds solid evidence opposing HMGW he can publish that. And he will. And there are enough publications having opposing views and asking critical questions. But the vast majority and the consensus is that it is real. Thinking that there is some world wide "conspiracy" going on restricting all scientists in what they do and say is ridiculous.

  
  "Are you ready to face the scenario in which governments, based on your probabilities and seeking your scientific "sanction", go around infringing people's rights to Liberty and maybe even achieve the goal of CO2 emission reduction, but such reduction does not address the issue of GW & CC? Are you ready to live with the possibility that you were party to the DELIBERATE destruction of a lot of lives?"

  How is reducing pollution of our environment and creating a cleaner world to live in destructing lives? I can't believe you're turning around things. Deliberately continuing this path of polluting and destroying our world is what is causing the harm.

  "In that case, let me take the worst case scenario that no action is taken to cut CO2 emissions and we face all the consequences climate models are predicting. In that case, some people (for no fault of theirs) stand to lose a lot, but no one would have DELIBERATELY violated any one else's rights, notably Liberty and Property Rights."

  Here in lies the problem. You think that your rights are more important then someone else's rights. You think that it is your right to live on your little piece of land, and dump toxic waste in the river that flows over your land, killing the people living down the stream. You think that your right to do whatever you want is more important then the right of someone else to live on this planet as well, have some clean water to drink and fresh air to breath. That's kind of selfish, isn't it?

  
  

  Published: November 3, 2009 6:14 AM

• method fan

  @Kristine N
  "Because people aren't predictable (also why economic models are a bunch of bunk). Our response in terms of how much CO2 we continue to produce has a big impact on the future evolution of the climate."

  Wrong! Their scenarios are a result not only of how much CO2 they assume but also because they use different variables in their models.

  The fitting word for this simulations would be junk.

  Published: November 3, 2009 6:54 AM

• Stephan Kinsella

  Tokyo:

  my point is that the best way for libertarians to have an impact on this matter is to be actively involved in debating policy, and that, as far as that goes, libertarians have a long, long list of deregulatory items that are relatively simple to explain (and some, rather easy to implement) that would actually advance the professed goals of the AGWers.

  Wouldn`t that be more effective - and truer to Austrian principles - than simply calling those who have different views of the science and differing preferences about how to manage UNOWNED, open-access resources names and scratching around for whatever scientific cover you think (however strongly) is available?

  If you define "policy" broadly enough, that is what we all do as libertarians; but I don't think we need only do this or that. We can debate policy, talk theory, mix it up, ponder, and criticize those we think err.

  What is AGW by the way?

  Austrians know very well that resource battles very often become politicized as soon as government steps in; are "misanthropes" and "rotten watermelons" responsible for the state grant of public utility monopolies, the lack of court enforcement of common law rights to protect property from state-licensed corporation that led to massive pollution problems, the massive state role in the development of nuclear weapons (that you & George Reisman mock-seriously suggest the federal govt ought to start using again in the open atmosphere)

  I don't remember Reisman's proposal, but I never said the feds should do it. I'm an anarchist, remember? The only thing I think the federal gov't should do is commit archicide.

  and nuclear power that understandably underlies their nuclear paranoia? Are they responsible for the fact that states abroad "own" and allow their elites to steal the tropical forests from native inhabitants, or for the way the US government nationalized fisheries, turning exploitation into a tragedy of the commons?

  I want all states abolished.

  Just who IS the "misanthropist" here, anyway?

  statists are.

  Published: November 3, 2009 8:00 AM

• mpolzkill

  Tom,

  Quiggen: "moderate libertarians...accept in principle that property rights are derived from the state") = State propagandist or complete ignoramus.

  Yeah, I'd like to help Quiggen begin to understand how the world actually works. You tell him for me to read lots of Lao Tzu, Bastiat and Mises. I don't think it will work though.

  I don't wish to sound overly-dramatic, but does it bother you, the comfort and aid you've provided to this particularly nasty Statist with the cartoonish depiction you've drawn of us all because Mr. Kinsella posted a letter? I, for one (the only one I speak for), have no position on GW, I'm not a scientist. I have a position against the criminal regime in D.C., that is all. If there is a disaster that needs to be prevented or dealt with because of carbon emmission they will do as bang-up a job on it as they did before and after Katrina.

  Finally, my position includes incredulity that you think you can positively influence this gang (unless it's the gang at the Hague you have in sight; same deal at any rate) and the teeming masses of infantile Americans. That would be the same gang who emits more carbon in stupidly policing the world than scores of entire countries emit in all activities. And that would be the same population whose greatest concern (collectively) is that they receive free medical services as a birthright.

  I'm beating a dead horse (or a dead Constitution), so I'll drop it for good after one more joke; just the punchline to an old one: "you can't get there from here."

  When exactly did secession become an impossibility, by the way? 1863? No, it couldn't have suddenly become a universal law of Nature at that time; there were massive secessions in and around 1989.

  You're lost, Tom. Sincerely, I'm sad about it.

  Published: November 3, 2009 9:27 AM

• newson

  quiggin showed himself up earlier this year in his piece on austrian economics. he's as likely to be open minded about austrianism as he is to shave off his beard.

  Published: November 3, 2009 9:31 AM

• newson

  for the filter, agw is spam.

  Published: November 3, 2009 9:34 AM

• Bala

  Matt,

  " How is reducing pollution of our environment and creating a cleaner world to live in destructing lives? "

  It's not the reduction in pollution but how you plan to go about achieving it that will be a violation of Liberty and Property Rights.

  " You think that your rights are more important then someone else's rights. "

  Wrong again. I am choosing a probability of violation of Property Rights over a certainty of violation of Liberty and Property Rights. As a human being faced with a choice, I can't see a better one.

  " You think that it is your right to live on your little piece of land, and dump toxic waste in the river that flows over your land, killing the people living down the stream. "

  This shows you fighting a straw-man because I never spoke of dumping toxic waste in a river. You did. In any case, I hope you realise that there is a world of difference between dangers of CO2 emission and the dumping of (known) toxic waste in a river. The problems cause by one are a probability and while those caused by the other are a certainty.

  " That's kind of selfish, isn't it? "

  You have a problem. You are talking to a guy who treats your "accusation" as a badge of honour :)
  

  Published: November 3, 2009 10:22 AM

• kristine N

  the point is that there is no "cause and effect" relationship that is good enough for you too. That explains why you are relying so much on climate modelling.

  Except that I referred you to data, not modeling results. The vast majority of ">http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676> this book is concerned with data, not modeling. And besides that, how can you claim models aren't cause and effect? They're math, not magic.

  There is a distinct non-zero probability that you are right and that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the cause of the current GW & CC. At the same time, there is a distinct non-zero probability that you are wrong too. As a "scientist" (quotes intended for emphasis and not to be derogatory), are you ready to acknowledge the latter?

  Reverend Bala, I'm pretty sure I'm more ready to acknowledge the possibility I'm wrong than you are, given you're attempting to 'convert' me from my heretical belief in global warming, or at least reinforce the faith of your adherents about how wrong those evil "scientists" are with their logic and data and most of all, their MODELS.

  That's why I refuse to align with the GW & CC movement as long as they align themselves with governments and policies revolving around violation of Liberty and Property Rights.

  So, because the government's out to get you, you'll choose to ignore science? THAT makes sense.

  Why is it that you climate scientists are not asking the basic questions such as how else, apart from coercing people to emit less smoke, can CO2 emissions fall?

  Carbon sequestration. There's a lot of research going on right now in how to sequester CO2.

  Why do you align yourself with the same Governments that restrict the very alternative that could go a long way in reducing CO2 emissions, a.k.a. nuclear energy?

  You really don't know many climate scientists, do you? Almost everyone I know supports nuclear energy--including me. I wish people weren't so afraid of it. Truly. Coal kills far more people than nuclear, especially with all of the safeguards that are required of nuclear plants.

  Why do you scientists not turn around and challenge government?

  I can't speak for all scientists, I can only speak for myself, but I do believe government can and does do a lot of good for people. I don't think people left to their own devices do such a great job of treating each other well or treating the world they live in well. Sure, some people do, but a lot of people just don't, either because they don't think what they're doing is a big deal or because they don't care. Or, because they see a profit can be made from ignoring the needs of others or the health of the world around them. Sorry, that's kool-aid I won't drink.

  Governments aren't perfect, but they're better than the alternative.

  Published: November 3, 2009 10:28 AM

• kristine N

  the point is that there is no "cause and effect" relationship that is good enough for you too. That explains why you are relying so much on climate modelling.

  Except that I referred you to data, not modeling results. The vast majority of ">http://www.nap.edu/catalog.php?record_id=11676> this book is concerned with data, not modeling. And besides that, how can you claim models aren't cause and effect? They're math, not magic.

  There is a distinct non-zero probability that you are right and that anthropogenic CO2 emissions are the cause of the current GW & CC. At the same time, there is a distinct non-zero probability that you are wrong too. As a "scientist" (quotes intended for emphasis and not to be derogatory), are you ready to acknowledge the latter?

  Reverend Bala, I'm pretty sure I'm more ready to acknowledge the possibility I'm wrong than you are, given you're attempting to 'convert' me from my heretical belief in global warming, or at least reinforce the faith of your adherents about how wrong those evil "scientists" are with their logic and data and most of all, their MODELS.

  That's why I refuse to align with the GW & CC movement as long as they align themselves with governments and policies revolving around violation of Liberty and Property Rights.

  So, because the government's out to get you, you'll choose to ignore science? THAT makes sense.

  Why is it that you climate scientists are not asking the basic questions such as how else, apart from coercing people to emit less smoke, can CO2 emissions fall?

  Carbon sequestration. There's a lot of research going on right now in how to sequester CO2.

  Why do you align yourself with the same Governments that restrict the very alternative that could go a long way in reducing CO2 emissions, a.k.a. nuclear energy?

  You really don't know many climate scientists, do you? Almost everyone I know supports nuclear energy--including me. I wish people weren't so afraid of it. Truly. Coal kills far more people than nuclear, especially with all of the safeguards that are required of nuclear plants.

  Why do you scientists not turn around and challenge government?

  I can't speak for all scientists, I can only speak for myself, but I do believe government can and does do a lot of good for people. I don't think people left to their own devices do such a great job of treating each other well or treating the world they live in well. Sure, some people do, but a lot of people just don't, either because they don't think what they're doing is a big deal or because they don't care. Or, because they see a profit can be made from ignoring the needs of others or the health of the world around them. Sorry, that's kool-aid I won't drink.

  Governments aren't perfect, but they're better than the alternative.

  Published: November 3, 2009 10:29 AM

• kristine N

  Wrong! Their scenarios are a result not only of how much CO2 they assume but also because they use different variables in their models.

  Methodfan, why don't you go read what the IPCC did and come back and tell the rest of the class. I have read the IPCC report and I'm telling you the different scenarios you linked to are emissions scenarios where the variable changes was CO2 emissions, nothing else.

  Walt--that figure isn't any more convincing.

  Published: November 3, 2009 10:34 AM

• Stephan Kinsella

  "kristine": "I do believe government can and does do a lot of good for people."

  Why do you believe this? Are you aware of how many people were murdered in the last 100 years by governments? Are you aware governments are purely parasitical and criminal and produce nothing, and do nothing well except kill, impede, and destroy?

  "Governments aren't perfect, but they're better than the alternative."

  How do you know this?

  Published: November 3, 2009 10:42 AM

• kristine N

  How do you know this?

  Africa.

  Published: November 3, 2009 11:00 AM

• Bala

  kristine N,

  " So, because the government's out to get you, you'll choose to ignore science? "

  Wrong!! I choose to ignore science that drags the iron hand of government into my house and to direct how I live my life. Rather, I will fight it, especially if it is a probabilistic science that could be as wrong as my current notions of that science could be.

  " but I do believe government can and does do a lot of good for people. "

  Fat lot of good they have done all these centuries. Could you please list out the "good" they have actually done apart from wars that killed millions and economic depressions that destroyed lives of many millions more?

  " given you're attempting to 'convert' me from my heretical belief in global warming "

  Selective reading and context dropping. That's what you are engaging in. My next sentence (which too you have reproduced next) was an explanation of why I would not fall for it.

  " Or, because they see a profit can be made from ignoring the needs of others "

  Oh!!! There you go... I am a selfish pig. I care only for myself and not for the needs of anyone else except when satisfying those needs can give me a benefit I desire.

  Published: November 3, 2009 11:10 AM

• mpolzkill

  Yeah, there's never been much government activity in Africa. (deep sigh)

  Published: November 3, 2009 12:18 PM

• DixieFlatline

  Gil,

  That's bland reasoning Dixie, a government stopping people from dumping toxic waste is more beneficial than people dumping toxic waste willy-nilly.

  And that is a false dichotomy. Order comes from the market, not from the state. Law can also come from the market. All the state does, is establish monopoly and dole out privilege.

  There is nothing to stop private actors from protecting property by buying it and enforcing their own rights via contract, defense or social pressure.

  Besides I was talking current 'commons' such someone dumping waste in international waters and lawyers might well argue that the atmosphere is 'international' therefore outside the realm of sovereign rule and anyone can dump whatever they like there.

  Lawyers are irrelevant (NOK). I suggest you check out Walter Block's scholarship on the topic of environment. Your inability to conceive solutions outside the statist paradigm don't preclude the possibility of those solutions.

  You might as well say "government can't regulate or ban anything because of calculation problems".

  That is exactly what I said.

  Published: November 3, 2009 1:43 PM

• Mill Town

  @Mike,

  "Agreed, Ribald. I think ethics is mostly the elevation of one's personal preferences to the level of some grand cosmic principle."

  I sincerely think that Bio-Ethics is the killing of life.

  A couple should be allowed to clone their child or choose what traits or advantages their child will have.

  An individual should have the right to use genetics, proteomics and gene doping to improve his body and mental performances if he chooses so.

  Those who oppose such bio-improvements do so on the basis of inequalities it would create against those who do not or cannot pay for such improvements.

  So Bio-Ethics isn't about Bio, it's about socialism and collectivism once again.

  It's about preventing individuals and couples from getting ahead of the masses by using bio-technologies.

  But humanity would benefit from the works of super-humans if such could be created.

  We should level-up, not level-down.

  I absolutely frown upon bio-ethics because it robs people from their body in the name of "equality".

  Bio-Ethics is communism in duisguise.

  Published: November 3, 2009 1:45 PM

• Mill Town

  Matt,

  I know this is off topic, but somehow your post has crossed with mine in the comments form. There seems to be a serious security breach on mises.org.

  Do you live in the USA or Canada ?

  Published: November 3, 2009 1:49 PM

• Mill Town

  Baxter,

  ""The earth’s heat content is 10^31 Joules. This heat naturally flows to the surface by conduction at a rate of 44.2 TW and is replenished by radioactive decay at a rate of 30 TW" "

  How can 30 TW "conduct" to produce 44.2 TW ? Has earth found the perpetual motion machine ?

  How can there be more energy at the surface of the earth after all that conduction than there is at it's core ?

  Published: November 3, 2009 1:56 PM

• Mill Town

  @Baxter,

  Oh, I get it, the 10^31 Joules radiates 44.2 TW while the earth's radioactive core generates 30 TW.

  30 TW is a very little amount of power if you consider the huge mass of the earth.

  Also, how could 10^31 Joules have ever been accumulated if the surface dissipates more energy than is being produced at the core ?

  Published: November 3, 2009 2:00 PM

• Mill Town

  @Baxter,

  30 TW is like exploding a hiroshima bomb at the center of the earth every second.

  Published: November 3, 2009 2:03 PM

• Lord Buzungulus, Bringer of the Purple Light

  Hey newson, check this shit out:

  http://austrianeconomists.typepad.com/weblog/2009/11/the-battle-of-the-toms.html

  Published: November 3, 2009 2:03 PM

• S.M. Oliva

  Mr. Norman --

  You should at least have the decency to disclose you're on the FTC payroll before you start spreading their lies.

  Published: November 3, 2009 2:33 PM

• matt

  @bala: so how do you propose takling the global problems of GW and pollution? Asking people to voluntarily drive less and voluntarily stop eating meat? I'm interested in hearing your solutions.

  "This shows you fighting a straw-man because I never spoke of dumping toxic waste in a river. You did. In any case, I hope you realise that there is a world of difference between dangers of CO2 emission and the dumping of (known) toxic waste in a river. The problems cause by one are a probability and while those caused by the other are a certainty."

  I'm not fighting a straw man. Pumping CO2 in the air, burning fossil fuels and polluting the air with the toxic gases, buying consumer goods made in factories that dump waste, etc are all the same thing. They are all things that if I do them it's for my own benefit but has a negative effect on you and other people. That is fact. If there were only a few people living on this planet the planet might cope. But it can't.

  "You have a problem. You are talking to a guy who treats your "accusation" as a badge of honour :)"

  Absolutely no problem, as I don't care about your personality, I'm just discussing the concepts here. There are some global problems and somehow they need to be solved. The notion that somehow in a world in which anyone just does what he wants these global problems will be solved is ridiculous. Most humans are selfish. If you don't agree together to all do something, it will not happen. It's as simple as that.

  Published: November 3, 2009 2:51 PM

• matt

  My, I'm the fancy homosexual today, aren't I? You people believe in the right to engage in pseudo-procreational activities, don't you? .
  

  Published: November 3, 2009 2:54 PM

• matt

  Since I've thought it over, you're all right. We need to preserve personal freedom and let the markets decide on this one.

  Published: November 3, 2009 2:56 PM

• ken macpherson

  Bastiat would be happy:
  In modern times just over in France there is:

  http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/3237329.stm

  It is neither very wide nor very deep, but it has provided an opportunity for France to launch another costly and bold "Grand Project".

  Here in the USA, Mises folks say we spend $96K per job created if there were 2Million created (my math yields million dollars per job.) At least in France there's the world highest bridge or Hoover damn supplying electricity to Las Vegas.

  Published: November 3, 2009 3:12 PM

• David K. Meller

  A thoughtful and intelligent answer to many of the critics of "capitalism". Of course, it is the case that the so-called "free market" that most of these critics claim to oppose is really a manifestation of the bad consequences of previous intervetentions (often advocated by the same types of people) and once more, a "free market" or "laissez faire" is blamed, NOT the interventions which either created or greatly worsened the problems in the first place!

  I believe that Joseph Schumpeter observed in his book "Capitalism, Socialism, and Democracy" that capitalism stands forever on trial before judges who have the sentence of death in their pockets. The most an effective defence can achieve is a change in the wording of the indictment.

  I don't think that the free market, and its advocates are quite as isolated and marginalized today, as that statement (written in 1942) would indicate. It certainly describes a central aspect of the mentality that we are dealing with, especially when such critics never subject their alternatives and quite frankly, utopias, to anywhere nearly the same degree or kind of criticisms, e.g. Is pollution inherent in the absence of private property rights and its attendent socio-economic order? How is Capitalism, or its underlying profit motive, related to expressions of racism, especially when reinforced with State power, and might racism be MORE virulent under socialism than under a (much maligned) free market and why? How great were the disparities of wealth in a largely free market economy and society, e.g. the Northern USA, before the war for Southern Independence, compared with disparities of wealth in twentieth century Marxist dictatorships, where members of the Central Committee, and their favored writers, scientists, and generals, had enormous privileges and wealth, and workers and peasants had almost nothing, and lived lives of utter misery? I don't know what this tells us about socialism per se, but it certainly suggest that any injustices inherent in economic inequality which socialists rant about have nothing to do with capitalism!

  PEACE AND FREEDOM!!
  David K.Meller

  Published: November 3, 2009 3:22 PM

• sean

  there seem to be an awful lot of poorly thought out arguments on this comments page. In particular, Wildberry mentions anecdotally an occurance of unfortunate decisions causing transportation issues. Unfortunately for Wildberry, it is very likely that hidden within the context of his point is vital information that that completely annihilates his argument. A little bit of research led me to the following: http://scplweb.santacruzpl.org/history/trans/railrd2.shtml
  http://www.rattenne.com/nrhs/santacruz/Santa_Cruz_line.html

  It seems like Wildberry's assertion was a bit of an untruth. Apparently, the rail route in question was very difficult to maintain, and after a particularly severe storm event caused mud slides and wash outs. Following this event the business determination was made that it was too costly to rebuild this route, particularly given that rail transit providers could not compete with bus service, given that the bus services were much cheaper to provide because they were in fact subsidized by public road building and maintenance, which in that case was for Highway 17. Thus, the rail route in question was not reopened because the private rail line could not compete with bus services BECAUSE OF GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION IN BUILDING THE ROADS!!! Thus the private rail service did not sell the right of way, as claimed by Wildberry, but instead abandoned it and give up the rail right of way. Therefore, Mr. Wildberry, you in fact have government planning to blame for altering the market structure that thus resulted in the limited transportation options that have prevailed for about the last 70 years and currently cause the transportation headaches you complained of.

  Published: November 3, 2009 3:49 PM

• Daniel

  Are those talks going to be published somewhere?

  Published: November 3, 2009 4:05 PM

• matt

  @bala: so how do you propose takling the global problems of GW and pollution? Asking people to voluntarily drive less and voluntarily stop eating meat? I'm interested in hearing your solutions.

  "This shows you fighting a straw-man because I never spoke of dumping toxic waste in a river. You did. In any case, I hope you realise that there is a world of difference between dangers of CO2 emission and the dumping of (known) toxic waste in a river. The problems cause by one are a probability and while those caused by the other are a certainty."

  I'm not fighting a straw man. Pumping CO2 in the air, burning fossil fuels and polluting the air with the toxic gases, buying consumer goods made in factories that dump waste, etc are all the same thing. They are all things that if I do them it's for my own benefit but has a negative effect on you and other people. That is fact. If there were only a few people living on this planet the planet might cope. But it can't.

  "You have a problem. You are talking to a guy who treats your "accusation" as a badge of honour :)"

  Absolutely no problem, as I don't care about your personality, I'm just discussing the concepts here. There are some global problems and somehow they need to be solved. The notion that somehow in a world in which anyone just does what he wants these global problems will be solved is ridiculous. Most humans are selfish. If you don't agree together to all do something, it will not happen. It's as simple as that.

  Published: November 3, 2009 4:18 PM

• newson

  buzungulus:
  i generally prefer to watch women mud or jelly wrestling rather than academics.

  i'm not acquainted with palmer (except for one of his ip papers which i liked). on business cycles, i've got to say that hülsmann's article on garrisonomics was insightful. but then, maybe i already was wary of garrison's free-banking predilection.

  http://mises.org/journals/qjae/pdf/qjae4_3_4.pdf

  Published: November 3, 2009 6:58 PM

• Bala

  matt,

  The real problem is your idea of a "global problem" that "needs to be solved". IMO, all problems are faced by individuals and it is the individuals concerned who have a need to solve them.

  Further, I have nothing against private non-coercive initiatives to tackle atmospheric CO2 levels or Climate Change. Who knows!! There could be a million good business opportunities out there. My opposition is to the involvement of Government in the process.

  On CO2 vs toxic waste, please note the point I made about probability of harm caused by CO2 and certainty of harm caused by toxic waste. That's why I think you are wrong in equating them.

  Published: November 3, 2009 7:05 PM

• Lord Buzungulus, Bringer of the Purple Light

  Newson,

  That is indeed a great article by Huelsmann, yet another example of important revisions he has made to conventional Austrian theory that has gone unremarked upon by the GMUers.

  BTW, if I'm not mistaken, you're not overly convinced by Huelsmann's article on error cycles, is that correct?

  Published: November 3, 2009 7:07 PM

• newson

  buzungulus:
  wrong. it's the definitive article on business cycles, in my view. in fact, it was that article that got me into reading anything hülsmann writes. his book on money production doesn't seem to have got anywhere near the emphasis that it deserves.

  Published: November 3, 2009 7:21 PM

• newson

  africa...the land that government forgot! wow, that throwaway line from kristine n. was worth all the tedious reading that preceded it.

  Published: November 3, 2009 7:26 PM

• Lord Buzungulus, Bringer of the Purple Light

  Sorry newson, I must have confused you with someone else. But I fully agree with you on the importance of Huelsmann's work, truly a visionary in many regards.

  Published: November 3, 2009 7:40 PM

• newson

  well, i am no bearer of light and liable to be mistaken for another.

  Published: November 3, 2009 8:05 PM

• method fan

  There is something strange going on here.

  I had the message user matt posted before in my comments-field and also his user-name in my name-field.

  Is this some sort of database-error?

  Published: November 3, 2009 8:48 PM

• Jake

  I had the same thing too, method fan.

  Published: November 3, 2009 9:43 PM

• kelvin

  I am a scientist that actually works on global heat loss of the solid earth, and thought I should correct some of the mis-statements made earlier by Baxter and Mill Town.

  Radioactive decay contributes a significant to a significant fraction of the Earth's heat loss (specifically uranium, thorium and potassium). However, they are not concentrated in the core as suggested, in fact very little radioactive material is located in the core. Radiogenic elements are in highest concentration in the crust, accounting for ~7 TW of heat loss. The upper and lower mantle add another 2 and 11 TW, respectively. The remainder of the heat loss results from radiogenic elements that have already decayed and "primordial heat." Primordial heat refers to heat generated by gravitational accretion as the Earth was created from dust and rocks in the solar nebula. Some additional heat is generated as a result of tidal friction, but it is very small (~0.4 TW). If you are interested, a paper discussing this can be found here:
  es.ucsc.edu/~thorne/TL.pdfs/LHB_cmbheat_naturegeo_07.pdf

  The 40-44 TW estimate is quite well known and is determined from > 60,000 measurements of heat loss in boreholes located all over the planet.

  Because the Earth started with a significant quantity of heat, lots of heat has accumulated due to radioactive decay, and the time scale for heat to be transported from the core to the surface is greater than a billion years, the heat loss can be significantly greater than the heat currently generated due to radioactive decay.

  Published: November 3, 2009 9:48 PM

• TokyoTom

  Stephan:

  - Yes, but not only "ending counterproductive public utility monopolies" libertarianism 101, but it` s highly relevant to one of the key perceived problems, namely gross inefficiency and lack of consumer choice in the power sector. Why do libertarian commenters, instead of pounding this and other points at every opportunity -and possibly find allies in increasing consumer choice - instead prefer to question the sanity and motives of frustrated consumers?

  - "If you are proposing that the state should in effect increase its taxation of corporations, all true libertarians disagree. First, corporations should not be taxed at all; this is just double taxation of shareholders and others. Second, no one should be taxed. Third, taxes should never be increased, even if only indirectly by means of eliminating a deduction."

  Thanks for schooling me again on libertarian principles, though I`m a bit disappointed that your lack of comprehension of my point here leads you to question my understanding of basic libertarian views (even as I do appreciate the response). If you`d just have bothered to read my first comment to you on this thread, I think you might have caught my drift, which was PRECISELY about ending or paring back corporate income taxes: "* accelerate cleaner power investments by eliminating corporate income taxes or allowing immediate amortization of capital investment".

  - What`s "AGW"? You show that you are posting outside your usual reading, but I`m surprised no one offered to clarify that is short for Anthropogenic Global Warming.

  - "you have to realize that if you are in fact pro-nuclear you are unlike most of your global warming ilk. Most of them are either too misanthropic or scientifically illiterate to favor nuclear power: they either do not understand why it would be superior in every way to other forms of energy production, or they do understand and and for this reason want to oppose it. None of your comrades are genuine environmentalists if they do not actively push for nuclear power. Instead they are rotten watermelons."

  Yes, I have always preferred nuclear over much dirtier coal, and you and I have had this conversation before.

  As for my "comrades", they keep telling me, on this very blog thread, that I don` belong here. I`m thinking of calling them "coconuts" - you know the kind of nut that is hard on the outside but empty on the inside. Would that be helpful?

  But this railing against anti-nuclear folks misunderstands them, and that their opposition has had its roots in an abusive big government (think of Hanoi Jane and China Syndrome), as is of a kind with that simply NIMBYism that arises because government has decided that it gets to license energy projects of every kind. If governments got out of the business of giving corporations licenses to do what locals oppose (and simply strictly enforced property rights instead - my separate point about limited owner liability related to this), we`d have none of this continuing fight over the wheel of government.

  While I prefer nuclear power, I think we need to get the federal government out of the way and not shower it with more subsidies. Jerry Taylor of Cato and others likewise argue for "tough love" for nuclear power: http://reason.org/blog/show/reason-roundtable-nuclear-powe

  "We can debate policy, talk theory, mix it up, ponder, and criticize those we think err."

  You mean we don`t HAVE to spend ALL of our time trying hard to dismiss climate science, and trying to fend off looming federal policy changes with incantations about "watermelons"? Welcome news!

  Tokyo (I`m excising the rest of my name for purposes of this thread; like you I agree that I should be kept at several arms` lengths)

  Published: November 3, 2009 10:02 PM

• Stephan Kinsella

  TokyoTom:

  - Yes, but not only "ending counterproductive public utility monopolies" libertarianism 101, but it` s highly relevant to one of the key perceived problems, namely gross inefficiency and lack of consumer choice in the power sector. Why do libertarian commenters, instead of pounding this and other points at every opportunity -and possibly find allies in increasing consumer choice - instead prefer to question the sanity and motives of frustrated consumers?

  Dunno dude. But I don't blame the victims or the few people on the right side for not finding the magic words to stop the statists from hurting us. And as for those who want "increased consumer choice," I dunno, maybe b/c they are just socialists who are not our allies.
  
  

  - "If you are proposing that the state should in effect increase its taxation of corporations, all true libertarians disagree. First, corporations should not be taxed at all; this is just double taxation of shareholders and others. Second, no one should be taxed. Third, taxes should never be increased, even if only indirectly by means of eliminating a deduction."

  Thanks for schooling me again on libertarian principles, though I`m a bit disappointed that your lack of comprehension of my point here leads you to question my understanding of basic libertarian views

  Wehter you understand or not is not my concern. I am stating my view of what the libertarian view is. If you agree, fine. If not, we disagree.

  - What`s "AGW"? You show that you are posting outside your usual reading, but I`m surprised no one offered to clarify that is short for Anthropogenic Global Warming.

  Oh, I thought you were talking about some spam acronym. Anyway as for my own backgroung it's a BS and MS in electrical engineering, not the typical math-phobic English lit background most lawyers have.

  - "you have to realize that if you are in fact pro-nuclear you are unlike most of your global warming ilk. Most of them are either too misanthropic or scientifically illiterate to favor nuclear power: they either do not understand why it would be superior in every way to other forms of energy production, or they do understand and and for this reason want to oppose it. None of your comrades are genuine environmentalists if they do not actively push for nuclear power. Instead they are rotten watermelons."

  Yes, I have always preferred nuclear over much dirtier coal, and you and I have had this conversation before.

  good man!

  But this railing against anti-nuclear folks misunderstands them, and that their opposition has had its roots in an abusive big government (think of Hanoi Jane and China Syndrome),

  Except that these people are for big government.

  as is of a kind with that simply NIMBYism that arises because government has decided that it gets to license energy projects of every kind.

  the anti-nuclear types are in favor of the state having the right to license these things.

  If governments got out of the business of giving corporations licenses to do what locals oppose (and simply strictly enforced property rights instead - my separate point about limited owner liability related to this), we`d have none of this continuing fight over the wheel of government.

  Okay. Sounds reasonable.

  While I prefer nuclear power, I think we need to get the federal government out of the way and not shower it with more subsidies.

  of course.

  Tokyo (I`m excising the rest of my name for purposes of this thread; like you I agree that I should be kept at several arms` lengths)

  no idea waht you are talking about

  Published: November 3, 2009 10:43 PM

• TokyoTom

  sean: "there seem to be an awful lot of poorly thought out arguments on this comments page."

  I`m inclined to agree; some comments seem entirely misplaced!

  mpolzkill: "does it bother you, comfort and aid you've provided to this particularly nasty Statist with the cartoonish depiction you've drawn of us all because Mr. Kinsella posted a letter?"

  Alot of things bother me, including the way that libertarians act in shallow and highly partisan ways that practically forces "cartoonish" pictures of themselves on others. Why does this bother me? Because it represents libertarians doing their best to blunt their own potential effectiveness, and because I care about the way we are destroying commons around the world:
  http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2007/09/28/too-many-or-too-few-people-does-the-market-provide-an-answer.aspx

  Quiggin has long experience with libertarians in his own neck of the woods; if I`ve influenced him at all it has been to show him that some libertarians can talk about practical climate politics, without reflexively discounting science or resorting to ad homs. If you think I`ve done anything unfair I`m all ears, but I think your focus is better directed at others here.

  - "incredulity that you think you can positively influence this gang (unless it's the gang at the Hague you have in sight; same deal at any rate) and the teeming masses of infantile Americans. That would be the same gang who emits more carbon in stupidly policing the world than scores of entire countries emit in all activities."

  Most recently, the gang that wants to police the world has been the "conservatives".

  But as to influencing "this gang", isn`t influencing others precisely what any libertarianism worth its salt is all about? If it`s a fool`s errand, then again, why does anyone here - or anywhere else, for that matter - bother?

  Aren`t there signs of hope, when the Nobel is given to people like Elinor Ostrom, precisely for pointing out how damaging centrally-led "development" efforts have been to community-managed open-access resources? http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/10/16/elinor-ostrom-austrian-praise-for-the-nobel-laureate-and-a-reprise-of-my-posts-on-her-thoughts-on-how-human-communities-successly-manage-commons.aspx

  I realize I may be lost; that`s why it shows up in my blog title. Thank you for trying to guide me.

  Tokyo
  Tom

  Published: November 3, 2009 11:33 PM

• matt

  Bala: "The real problem is your idea of a "global problem" that "needs to be solved". IMO, all problems are faced by individuals and it is the individuals concerned who have a need to solve them."
  Ok instead of calling it a "global problem" let's call it a problem that all individuals on this planet face, fine with me. The question remains, how are you going to solve that problem?

  "There could be a million good business opportunities out there. My opposition is to the involvement of Government in the process".
  The problem is that the only business interest is making money. And dealing with waste as a sideproduct of production only costs money and diminishes their profits. That's why there's so much illegal dumping of waste, because that's cheaper then having it recycled. And there is no cost to the company in pumping CO2 in the air. That's the whole problem. If it were a closed system the complete free market would work. If the costs of end waste products would have to be dealt with by each company and each individual the system would work perfectly. But the costs are not included.

  "On CO2 vs toxic waste, please note the point I made about probability of harm caused by CO2 and certainty of harm caused by toxic waste. That's why I think you are wrong in equating them."
  Your "probability" point doesn't make sense. Almost everything is a probability. If we cross a highway blindfolded the chances of dying are not absolute. They are very likely. That's why I say let's not do that. But you say: "you can not be sure we die when we cross the road blind folded, so let's still do it". Or the weather. If my weatherman says "there's a 90% chance of rain tomorrow" I decide to take my rain coat with me, just to be sure. You seem to say "there's still a 10% chance it stays dry so no need to take any precautions"
  Now, to get back to the CO2: the fact is that it's very likely it's causing global warming. Much smarter people then us, thousands of scientists around the world have discovered that in many decades of work.

  But it seems you don't believe them. So let's not discuss this any further. If you want, just answer my first question about how a system with no rules or regulation is going to solve the climate/pollution problem. As I see it, somehow, someone must set some simple rules, to steer the direction of the system. So as a simple example: at the gas station: tax the dirty gas with 25% and directly deduce that 25% from the cleanest gas (or clean electricity in the near future). It's too bad such a rule is needed, but it's the only way to steer the system in to a cleaner one. The involvement of government is minimal in this case. people are stll free to buy the dirty gas. But the incentives to choose the clean one are such that more people will choose that one. And then companies will jump on the opportunity to create clean vehicles that use that green energy. Etc

  Published: November 4, 2009 1:46 AM

• newson

  so matt, you believe the un is an effective organ?

  Published: November 4, 2009 3:33 AM

• TokyoTom

  Stephan, thanks for your response.

  - "I don't blame the victims or the few people on the right side for not finding the magic words to stop the statists from hurting us."

  Sure you do; we are all "victims" of public utility monopolies and their investors and regulators. You just like to bash those victims who want to do something about it, and who think that they have to be wrestling for control over the regulators (probably because they don`t understand the source of the problem or consider it worthwhile to pursue that angle). Are you really suggesting that consumers should just be quiescent, or are you not willing to think up libertarian-acceptable ways for them to change the situation?

  - "And as for those who want "increased consumer choice," I dunno, maybe b/c they are just socialists who are not our allies."

  My own view is that corporate statism, particularly in the power sector, virtually compels those want to see change to fight over government. I don`t see why libertarians can`t be sympathetic about the problem, while being resolute about the direction of change. Kinda like how Lew Rockwell was, here:
  http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/04/23/in-which-i-applaud-another-balanced-productive-post-by-dr-reisman.aspx

  - Of course I agree on corporate taxes, as was evident from my initial comment. It`s funny that your lack of reading (and assumption that I`m a comrade of rotten watermelons) leads you presume I think otherwise.

  - My background isn`t "the typical math-phobic English lit background" either; I had a full year of pre-med at Georgetown, and continued with physics, two years of economics, psych & more biology.

  - Yes, "the anti-nuclear types are in favor of the state having the right to license these things." My point is just that libertarians should not forget that the reason they are that way is the heavy role of government in the sector.

  - BTW, your comment on a "libertarian" approach to the open-air use of atom bombs intrigues me. You might recall that we discussed it at my blog on the above-linked Rockwell post. To move the discussion along, I think I`ll pull it out into a separate post.

  To mpolzkill & others: you might note my two comments to John Quiggin, here:

  http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/11/04/john-quiggin-plays-pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey-with-quot-libertarians-and-delusionism-quot.aspx

  http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/11/04/a-few-more-comments-to-john-quiggin-on-climate-and-libertarian-principles.aspx

  TT

  Published: November 4, 2009 4:02 AM

• Bala

  matt,

  " The question remains, how are you going to solve that problem? "

  So you are asking me how I am going to solve that problem. Which problem? I don't see any. I still haven't bought into what I call the hysteria. I'll worry about that if and when the problem hits me. Until then, I'll hedge my bets.

  " thousands of scientists around the world have discovered that in many decades of work. "

  And what have they discovered other than a truckload of probabilities and no certain answers? Ans what about all those bureaucrats on the IPCC? I guess they are engaged in scientific research as well.

  " If my weatherman says "there's a 90% chance of rain tomorrow" I decide to take my rain coat with me, just to be sure. "

  How would you like it if the government decreed that everytime the weatherman announces that there's a 90% chance of rain tomorrow, you will have to necessarily take your raincoat with you, failing which you are liable to pay a fine or, worse, face a jail sentence?

  Notice how your own example is one of very private action? That's exactly how it should be even if the GW & CC scare were real.

  " If you want, just answer my first question about how a system with no rules or regulation is going to solve the climate/pollution problem. "

  I am not the free market. I am just an individual leading my life. I am incapable of offering any solutions. So, what now? Is coercing me justified?

  " someone must set some simple rules, .... tax the dirty gas with 25% ..... It's too bad such a rule is needed, but it's the only way to steer the system in to a cleaner one. "

  Ah!!! There come your taxes. How do you plan to counter my fundamental opposition to taxes of all kinds as nothing more than robbery?

  And I guess, you can't make an omelette without breaking a few eggs, right?

  This is the heart of the problem. I am saying that even if there is a problem, leave it to to market and get the government out of it. You are insisting that the market cannot and will not handle it and hence the "benevolent" hand of government is necessary to "gently" coerce people along the "right" path.

  I think the divisions are now clear and we may stop this discussion with this. Thanks for pulling along.

  Published: November 4, 2009 4:39 AM

• matt

  "I am incapable of offering any solutions. So, what now? Is coercing me justified?."

  So indeed it is clear now. There are serious problems and you don't have any solutions. The only thing you do is reject the only solution - even if it's not perfect - that is available. That is very weak, to say the least.

  You have a problem with coercing. Well I have a problem with you polluting the clean air I breath and destroying the possibility of our children to live their lives as well. The whole issue you still fail to see is that your "freedom" is causing problems for me and others. I would be fine with you having unlimited freedom if you were living on a remote planet of your own. But you're not.

  Published: November 4, 2009 5:21 AM

• Shay

  matt wrote, "So indeed it is clear now. [some people believe] There are serious problems and you don't have any solutions [to these problems some people believe in]. The only thing you do is reject the only solution [to what you see as a non-problem] - even if it's not perfect [and assumes many unproven things and will exert huge costs on everyone] - that is available. That is very weak, to say the least."

  There, fixed that for you.

  BTW, there is a huge problem I believe exists, and I believe the only viable solution is for you to send me $10 a day for the next year. Contact me privately and I'll give you the address to send to. Thanks.
  

  Published: November 4, 2009 6:40 AM

• TokyoTom

  Bala:

  - "I am not the free market. I am just an individual leading my life. I am incapable of offering any solutions. So, what now? Is coercing me justified?"

  - "This is the heart of the problem. I am saying that even if there is a problem, leave it to to market and get the government out of it. You are insisting that the market cannot and will not handle it and hence the "benevolent" hand of government is necessary to "gently" coerce people along the "right" path."

  These questions are indeed the heart of the problem for any freedom-lover.

  Let me just point that in this case we are dealing with a true open access commons. Empircal research by Nobel Prize-winner Elinor Ostrom on many examples of the management of open-access (as well as your own common sense) tells us that these resources can be managed effectively only if there are usage rules and sanctions if the rules are broken. Even if we faced a perfect an-cap situation and there were no governments, our society would eventually evolve rules and sanctions to deal with the atmospheric commons, and to the individual, those rules and sanctions still look like coercion.

  Libertarians can say they prefer the rules that we would evolve in such a society, but they should realize that coercion will always be there.

  TT

  Published: November 4, 2009 7:18 AM

• Shay

  TokyoTom, I think the issue here is whether releasing CO2 into the atmosphere even poses a problem. If it's a problem, then it should be treated like dumping trash on someone else's property without permission. If it's not a problem, then it should be treated like releasing water vapor into the air.
  

  Published: November 4, 2009 7:54 AM

• mpolzkill

  Thanks for your reply to parts of my reply, Tom. I'll try tonight to read your replies to this Quiggin propagandist. Sorry, but it looks like his distortions pack a lot more punch than your reasoning. A lie can circle the globe before the truth can put its boots on, after all.

  In that vein, "I...smell a big, fat commie rat" (General Buck Turgidson):

  http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/energy/6491195/Al-Gore-could-become-worlds-first-carbon-billionaire.html

  Published: November 4, 2009 8:33 AM

• mpolzkill

  Time for one quick response, Tom, you said, "Most recently, the gang that wants to police the world has been the 'conservatives'."

  I don't understand the relevance. At any rate, you mean the Republican party I take it. "Most recent" is today, and it is now the Dem wing's turn to run the gang's perpetual war for perpetual peace, and that is what they are doing and will continue to do until they run us all into the ground. I can't see how anything is more important than withdrawing our consent and assistance in their crimes and convincing others to join us in ending this empire, however impossible you think that is.

  Published: November 4, 2009 8:45 AM

• matt

  me: how are you going to solve problem X?
  you: there is no problem X.
  me: if there were a problem X, how would you solve it?
  you: there is no problem X.

  Lol, that's one way to deal with problems. I'm still waiting for an answer.. guess I shouldn't expect one

  Published: November 4, 2009 9:05 AM

• newson

  let's call in team america, world police, they'll punch out a global solution to problem X.

  Published: November 4, 2009 9:29 AM

• Stephan Kinsella

  TT:

  - "I don't blame the victims or the few people on the right side for not finding the magic words to stop the statists from hurting us."

  Sure you do; we are all "victims" of public utility monopolies and their investors and regulators.

  Those who do the regulating, and cause it--and support it--are not victims.
  
  

  You just like to bash those victims who want to do something about it, and who think that they have to be wrestling for control over the regulators (probably because they don`t understand the source of the problem or consider it worthwhile to pursue that angle).

  I fail to see the relevance of your theories about who I like to "bash", whatever that means. The question is what actions and policies are just.

  Are you really suggesting that consumers should just be quiescent, or are you not willing to think up libertarian-acceptable ways for them to change the situation?

  Your query is incoherent and/or makes too many assumptions. Why would I have a view on what consumers "should" do. What do you mean, "quiescent"? What situation? Why should consumers, qua consumers, try to change "the situation"?

  My own view is that corporate statism, particularly in the power sector, virtually compels those want to see change to fight over government.

  Sure. And vice-versa: the statism of people makes corporatism inevitable.

  I don`t see why libertarians can`t be sympathetic about the problem, while being resolute about the direction of change.

  we can, but what does "being sympathetic" have ot do with anything? You environuts often get all liberal arts emotional on us.

  
  

  - Of course I agree on corporate taxes, as was evident from my initial comment. It`s funny that your lack of reading (and assumption that I`m a comrade of rotten watermelons) leads you presume I think otherwise.

  I don't see the relevance of your observation that something seems "funny" to you. And you are implicitly a comrade of rotten watermelons, are you not? They, like you, accept the state's line and are happy to cede power to the state to "make things better."

  - My background isn`t "the typical math-phobic English lit background" either; I had a full year of pre-med at Georgetown, and continued with physics, two years of economics, psych & more biology.

  Good, now that we have irrelevant credentials out of the way, let's stick to substance.

  - Yes, "the anti-nuclear types are in favor of the state having the right to license these things." My point is just that libertarians should not forget that the reason they are that way is the heavy role of government in the sector.

  the reason for this is the populace's false views about the legitimacy of the state. The people are to blame.

  Published: November 4, 2009 9:46 AM

• Gil

  Isn't that the point Shay - no one 'owns' the atmosphere? Hence a Libertarian lawyer in a 'natural law court' would argue anyone can dump whatever they like in the atmosphere. An example comes from The Simpsons Movie - Homer disposing of a bee's nest in Ned Flanders mailbox is in violation of private property whereas Homer disposing the manure silo in the lake didn't violate any rights as per Libertarianism because no one owns the lake.

  Published: November 4, 2009 10:02 AM

• Bala

  Matt,

  Here's my version of our conversation.

  You: I think I have a problem
  Me: What makes you so sure you have one?
  You: Now that you ask, I am quite sure I have a problem
  Me: Once again, what makes you quite sure?
  You: A lot of people who I think know a lot more than I do think I have a problem
  Me:And what is the problem?
  You: I think it is A
  Me: What makes you so sure it is A?
  You: The same lot of people who I think know a lot more than I do say my problem is A
  Me: OK!! So what?
  You: I think it is because of you
  Me: Me??? What did I do?
  You: You did B
  Me: What's the connection?
  You: I think there is a pretty strong connection. So strong that I think B causes A
  Me: What makes you think so?
  You: The same lot of people who I think know a lot more than I do say they think B causes A
  Me: But do you know why they think so?
  You: I don't know. But they say they think they are quite sure. 90% sure at that. I'm sure it can't get better than that.
  Me: OK! So what?
  You: You have to stop doing B. At least you need to do less of B. You can do X quantity of B
  Me: But then I do B with what is my property. Who are you to tell me what I can do with it?
  You: What do I care? See all the data gathered by the same lot of people who I think know a lot more than I do. It establishes with 90% certainty that B causes A
  Me: How does that make you so sure?
  You: 98% of all such people say they think they are quite certain. So, I think I am certain.
  Me: But then doing B is an integral part of my business.
  You: Oh!! Is that so? I thought it was a pastime. Rather, I thought you were an evil person out to make it impossible for me to live. OK. I'll grant a small concession. You could do more B provided you spend money doing C
  Me: But why C?
  You: Because I think it diminishes the problem A.
  Me: What makes you think so?
  You: the same lot of people who I think know a lot more than I do say they think so
  Me: What if I can't because I have just about enough time to run my business
  You: You are making life difficult for yourself. OK! You could buy extra permits to do B from P. He does a lot of C to earn permits which he can then sell to nasty people like you who insist on doing B
  Me: What if I do B without doing C or buying B-permits from P?
  You: Too bad. I'll have to call in the 800 pound Gorilla on my side. He's called Government. He'll beat the daylights out of you if you do not.
  Me: But then that's wrong because I would have done no wrong.
  You: So what? 99% of the people in this country think like me. The Gorilla is literally ours now. Or so we think.
  Me: ????
  

  Published: November 4, 2009 1:01 PM

• TokyoTom

  Stephan:

  - "They, like you, accept the state's line and are happy to cede power to the state to "make things better.""

  Except I DON`T "accept the state`s line", nor am I "happy to cede power to the state", which is precisely why I bother to interrupt your fantasies here.

  This, in fact, represents the fallacy that is at work in climate change discussions here - and that almost completely vitiates the libertarian message - namely, that if one concurs that we`ve got a potential problem, then they must then agree to the statist agenda.

  So instead of any effort to engage ON the libertarian agenda, we get guys like you pandering - with demonstrable nonsense from guys like Harvey - to libertarians who hope the statists and the purported problem will just kindly go away.

  What a great way for libertarians to muzzle themselves, and to stand by helplessly instead of weighing in.

  Trying to reassure yourself and your buddies that the man with a gun is either deluded or trying to take over the world is hardly either reassuring, or a step on the way to getting him to put the gun down.

  Nor is calling those who thinks conversation may be more efficiacious a "comrade to rotten watermelons" in any way helpful, unless the goal is simply to reinforce the echo chamber.

  Watermelons, ahh, watermelons! How helpful, and so much fun to bandy about this little bit of ad hom! Is it getting time for Austrians once more to gather `roun the fire, and roast some watermelons? Holiday joy: roasting "watermelons" on an open pyre! A little eliminationist fantasy is not that far away ....

  As I noted in my post:explaining the use of the "watermelon" ad hom:

  "watermelon" is a venerable ad hominem here, useful for Miseseans to put fingers in their ears and dismiss what practically everyone who disagrees with them on climate change - from our national academies of science on down - has to say.

  The trick is to first dismiss the evil "enviros" - you know, that class of rent-seekers that Rothbard and others tell us were created when statist corporations managed to subvert common law protections against polution damage to property - by focussing on their efforts to use the state to control corprations, while resolutely ignoring not only corporate statism but what Austrian economics tells us about how markets and private transaction are inefficient with respect to resources that are not clear owned or protected by enforceable property rights.

  Then, having dismissed those wacky "watermelons", we can simply ignore everyone else, by jeering at the enviros and thereby implicitly imputing to the whole scientific, economic, business and government community the same malevolent and stupid misanthropism.

  Neat trick, isn`t it?

  I

  OW, enviros should be burned at the stake for the heresy of trying to use the state to solve a possible problem, and everyone else, who have gullibly been corrupted by them, ignored. In this way, we can cleanse the body politic and avoid serious mistakes. See?

  Serious people know that only irreproachable commentators like Dr. Reisman get to suggest that we use the state to address possible climate change:

  "there is a case for considering the possible detonation, on uninhabited land north of 70° latitude, say, of a limited number of hydrogen bombs. ... This is certainly something that should be seriously considered by everyone who is concerned with global warming and who also desires to preserve modern industrial civilization and retain and increase its amenities. If there really is any possibility of global warming so great as to cause major disturbances, this kind of solution should be studied and perfected. Atomic testing should be resumed for the purpose of empirically testing its feasibility."

  We can distinguish you from Dr. Reisman, Stephan, since you helpfully insist that the state should not engage in this testing, so that we must first e the holding of nuclear weapons, so the firms and individuals, unhindered by the state can engage in such experimentation. Such clear-mindedness is commendable, since freedom-loving commenters here or elsewhere seldom consider the difficult statist elements implicit in most discussions of active "geo-engineering" to dampen or reverse any climate change problem.

  But while we`re on the subject of criticizing "watermelons" and their supposed "comrades"-in-arms, one wonders when aloof purists like you will ever deign to criticize fellow libertarians like Rob Bradley and Bob Murphy, who are also - actively engaged in this statist discussion shame! - but on behalf of the fossil fuel firms and utilities that until now have been the most successful rent-seekers.

  So far, all we see to with regard to the way libertarians actively defend successful rent-seeking is a studied indifference.

  - "now that we have irrelevant credentials out of the way, let's stick to substance."

  Absolutely; I was just concerned not to leave you hanging out there on the "irrelevant" limb all by yourself.

  Best,

  TT

  Published: November 4, 2009 10:54 PM

• TokyoTom

  mpolzkill: "A lie can circle the globe before the truth can put its boots on, after all."

  Well said; see here: http://www.google.com/search?q=Howard+Hayden+letter+to+EPA

  As far as Quiggin goes, libertarians clearly have themselves to blame for their lack of engagement, and their implicit support for a smelly status quo.

  Published: November 5, 2009 12:23 AM

• matt

  @bala:
  Why don't you answer my question? Here I am, genuinly interested in hearing how a global problem -like- global warming could be solved withouth government involvement, and you don't want to answer the question. Now I'm left thinking there is no such solution.

  And again, we're not talking about the question if HMGW is real here. Maybe if it's too difficult for you to separate the two questions, just imagine another global problem. Like the pacific plastic garbage patch. You can take a boat and see the plastic floating around for yourself. Currently each bird on this planet has a few dozens to a few hundred pieces of plastic in it's stomach. And that amount is increasing. Maybe that's easier then thinking about CO2.

  Now back to the question: how would you imagine a problem like that is going to be solved? And really, I'm fine if we can leave any government out. But I need a real solution. So far the only thing I've heard is "there is no problem" and "even if there's a problem, it's not mine". Hope you can do better then that.

  Published: November 5, 2009 1:28 AM

• Bala

  matt,

  " Here I am, genuinly interested in hearing how a global problem -like- global warming could be solved withouth government involvement "

  Why are we wasting each other's time seeking solutions to problems we aren't even sure exist? I am sure we all have better things to do in life than look for fairies and goblins.

  The only reason I am talking about this issue is that there are a lot of people out there who are ready to violate by Liberty and Property Rights because they think they have a (non-existent) problem which they think I am guilty (without clinching proof) of causing. What they propose to do is going to harm not just me but every living person on this planet.

  The only solution I can think of to this current mess is to take Climate Science out the "hands" of that monstrosity called the IPCC (maybe even get it disbanded) and the governments that formed that monstrosity. That solution lies in the hands of the scientists currently cooperating with the IPCC. The sooner they boycott this abomination, the earlier we will have a solution. This does not mean that I see this happening.

  In the meantime, the only thing that people like you and me can do, and which LvMI and people like Stephan can do, is to spread the message that Climate Science is not settled, that the real problem is the politicisation of Climate Science and the danger that we are all about to lose a lot of our freedoms as a result of this politicisation. At the very best, we can do it in our respective small circles of friends, family and colleagues. Fora like this "comments page" can be additional places to talk about this.

  The more the number of people aware of this problem, the better off we are.

  Finally, you said

  " And really, I'm fine if we can leave any government out. But I need a real solution. "

  Good to see that you are prepared to leave Government out. However, I can only repeat what I said earlier - I do not have any solutions because I am not the free market. That is the only agency capable of solving this problem (if it exists).

  p.s. In case you need to understand how dangerous politicisation of science can be, I suggest you read up on Eugenics. A Google search should do.

  Published: November 5, 2009 2:16 AM

• Bala

  matt,

  Just adding a couple of thoughts to my earlier reply. I said

  " This does not mean that I see this happening. "

  I don't see it happening as long as Climate Scientists insist on engaging in research that a free market would not be ready to fund thus making them ripe for "recruitment" by Governments and the IPCC.

  As an example, read Kristine N's response to my earlier query where she proudly claimed that Carbon Sequestration is a solution being pursued very seriously.

  As I understand it, sequestration is nothing more than the trapping of atmospheric CO2 and putting it in some form somewhere such that it won't get back in the atmosphere for some time. I don't see why a private profit-seeking entity would fund this kind of research, unless of course there is a way to make money out of sequestration that I am not aware of and lies outside the free market.

  However,the one thing that I can understand is that it is going to cost an ungodly sum to keep this kind of work going. Who else do we have on Earth to fund such money-losing projects in perpetuity but for Governments? Should we then be surprised that these same Governments trot out these projects aimed at "saving the world" as reasons to further infringe upon our Liberty and Property Rights?

  Published: November 5, 2009 2:37 AM

• newson

  quiggin is a career socialist. good luck to anyone who can shake a lifetime's marriage to keynes. look at his attempt of earlier this year dissecting the austrian school to see how shallow is his understanding even of where we're coming from.

  Published: November 5, 2009 3:24 AM

• matt

  Ok we're getting a tiny bit further in our discussion.
  - On gov. involvement: as I said, if there is a solution which doesn't involve gov, I'm fine with that. I only see a role for a gov involvement if any other solution fails.

  However, what is still an unanswered question, and you keep ignoring it, is what alternative solution there is. I don't see how the free market is going to take care of externatility problems like polution. Let's forget the CO2 story for now, as the "scientists" who have been paid by the oil/energy industry to spread confusion around seem to have been successful with you. So take any other form of pollution, like the plastic pollution. How is a free market going to solve that problem? It's in no single person's own interest to quit using plastic. Everybody thinks "I'm not going to do anything unless everybody else does something as well". So the end result is that nobody does anything. Companies have even less interest in doing anything about it. The only concern of a company is money. The cheapest and most profitable way to do business is to dump any waste they have straight into the ocean. So please answer me: how exactly is a free market going to solve this? And don't say there are no problems.

  Published: November 5, 2009 4:43 AM

• Bala

  matt,

  " Let's forget the CO2 story for now, as the "scientists" who have been paid by the oil/energy industry to spread confusion around seem to have been successful with you. "

  Now, you are getting really nasty. If you have any doubts, read the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC and tell me if they are certain that GW & CC are caused by Anthropogenic CO2 emission.

  I fail to understand why such discussions always end up with me and my sources of knowledge getting smeared.

  " I only see a role for a gov involvement if any other solution fails. "

  Oh!!! The 800 pound gorilla might still end up beating the daylights out of me, would he?

  Let's do one thing. You first leave your gun outside this discussion "room". No discussion worth mentioning can happen at gunpoint.

  Published: November 5, 2009 4:56 AM

• Bala

  TokyoTom,

  You said

  " these resources can be managed effectively only if there are usage rules and sanctions if the rules are broken. "

  The question is not whether or not there should be rules or what those rules are but who gets to formulate and implement those rules and how those "subject" to the rules become "subject" to them.

  As for the "sanctions", that too depends more on what the sanctions are, how they are implemented and who implements them.

  " .... those rules and sanctions still look like coercion "

  I am saying that they would be coercive if a Government did it. If the set of users did it, I don't see how it could be coercive unless you define what you mean by sanctions.

  Published: November 5, 2009 5:10 AM

• matt

  "read the 4th Assessment Report of the IPCC and tell me if they are certain that GW & CC are caused by Anthropogenic CO2 emission."
  You have to understand something about how science works. No single scientist is ever 100% certain of something. That's the whole idea of science. There is always uncertainty. So nobody will ever be able to say that GW&&CC is certainly caused by humans. That's why they say it's "very likely". In their previous report it was "likely", if I remember well. If you take an aspirin, there's no certainty it will have an effect. But in 99% of the cases it will. Or 95%, doesn't matter. It's all about chances. So even though a scientist will never say he is 100% sure of something, that doesn't mean it's suddenly 100% false.

  But anyway, that doesn't matter for my question.

  "Let's do one thing. You first leave your gun outside this discussion "room". No discussion worth mentioning can happen at gunpoint."
  Not sure I understand what you mean. I don't like guns anyways, so no worries :)
  I said I'm interested in hearing your solution to a problem -like- global warming or global pollution in a system -without- a government. Again, if you don't believe in GW take a different example, like plastic pollution. Now lets assume we ditched the governments. How can such a problem be solved? Hope my question is clear now

  Published: November 5, 2009 9:50 AM

• kristine N

  Matt--I applaud your doggedness. I am convinced Bala is fully aware of the 1% uncertainty and is exploiting that to say that because there's any uncertainty at all we can't know that climate change is happening or that it's man-made.

  We engaged in what could loosely be termed a conversion narrative, in which he disingenuously claimed to not understand, raised a series of "questions," the answers to which he completely ignored, followed by a profession of his "knowledge" (testimony) as to the falseness of climate change science.

  As Bala said, "I choose to ignore science that drags the iron hand of government into my house and to direct how I live my life. Rather, I will fight it..." He's a religious zealot, whether he realizes it or not, simply because there is no test or set of data one could measure that would convince him.

  Published: November 5, 2009 10:44 AM

• Bala

  Matt & Kristine N,

  The answer to Matt's question is actually simple (and I am stupid not to verbalise it earlier). On a free market, if you think plastic waste is a problem, you shall be free to organise the activity of collecting all the plastic garbage that you wish to using all the means that you are able to gather without initiating force against anyone at all. If you make it a profitable venture, I shall be the first to say "Hats off to you for being smart enough to extract wealth from waste". If not, you still have the option of seeking voluntary contributions from people who, like you, think the problem of plastic waste is serious enough to need a solution and are ready to part with a portion of their wealth to help you tackle it.

  No one shall prevent you from undertaking this activity. But no one shall be free to force me to support you or anyone else in this activity.

  That's how a free market works. It would be the same way for CO2 emissions.

  Published: November 5, 2009 11:05 AM

• Bala

  Kristine N,

  " there is no test or set of data one could measure that would convince him. "

  A good beginning would be to show 1 climate model that works - 1 model that predicted the cooling of the last decade and all the other climatic events of the same period - Just the way Dr. Howard Hayden mentioned. Following that, you could give more demonstration of your model by making a few predictions. Once these predictions come true, not just me, but a whole host of people who are currrently skeptical would turn believers.

  Until you find that 1 model, I am waiting :)

  Published: November 5, 2009 11:32 AM

• Michael A. Clem

  It is the people who wish to engage the coercive apparatus of government, and not let the market process work, who are being irrational and unreasonable. People keep asserting AGW, in ALL CAPS and plenty of exclamation points in order to cause panic and hysteria without having to make valid proofs and arguments. In something as complex and uncertain as global climate change is, it makes even less sense to do anything rash and drastic without exploring all possibilities and alternatives. After all, you don't want to make things worse than they are, do you?
  
  And we know government NEVER does anything to make situations worse, right? The politicians can't understand what's the problem with central banking, public education, government welfare, interference in health care, etc., but surely they can be trusted to take care of the environment and Global Warming? I've got some federal clearcut forests to show you if you believe that!

  Published: November 5, 2009 12:13 PM

• matt

  I'm not going further in the discussion of GW, but the idea that there was "cooling in the last decade" is a myth. '98 was an unusual warm year, recently there has been a cold year. Now any statistician can tell you that drawing a straight line through those two points might give you a downward slope, but that doesn't say anything about the real trend, which must be measured over many decades. It's the same as saying this month was very hot so the GW must be going faster.
  http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_SCI_GLOBAL_COOLING?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

  @bala: thanks for explaining your idea for a solution. Pretty sure it won't work, as I don't see how other people are going to volunteer to clean up after you or me. And besides, the majority of the mess can not be cleaned up, that's the problem. Once burned, a toxic in the air can never be filtered out again. Once in the ocean, a piece of plastic can never be recovered.

  But at least I now know what your ideas are, thanks for clearing that up.

  Published: November 5, 2009 12:40 PM

• jc fry

  Does Hayden agree to apologize publicly in ten years for the stuff he writes? One example: he writes "not a single climate model predicted the current cooling phase". ? Is that so? He is dead wrong, soon to be hopping on his two feet from the pain of having shot himself through both. It is quite easy to rebuke just about anything if one is prepared to cheat or if one does not know what one is talking about. Global dimming predicted the present cooling phase AND its consequences. Hayden is as qualified to speak about the climate as the two diplomaed physicists who predicted that the LHC will be blocked by a Higgins boson from the future. You all don't get it, do you? But then you are from a society where one in five adults still believes that the sun evolves around earth (Miller, Chicago U, 2006, study on science awareness in US adults). This blog is crap, and the comments are idiotic.

  Published: November 5, 2009 1:47 PM

• Walt D.

  Since we know how much oil and coal we burn, we know that over the past 10 years we have pumped about 300 billion tonnes of CO2 into the atmosphere. Since we know the CO2 ppm 10 years ago and now, and the change is of the same order of magnitude, it is reasonable to assume that a large proportion of this CO2 increase is due to this 300 billion tonnes.
  
  The climate warming models predict that ocean temperatures should have warmed by 0.5F to 2F. The problem is that this has not happened - the ocean temperature has not increased at all.
  
  What could explain this? The the heating of the ocean is being mitigated by some other transient effects, and when these transient effects subsides, the oceans will warm up as predicted. Or the actual amount of ocean temperature rise per 300 billion tonnes of CO2 is much lower that predicted. The recent paper by Lindzen and Choi, based on actual satellite data, predict the heating to be about 1/6th or 1/7th of the IPCC prediction (which was inferred from computer models and not from direct measurements). Lindzen and Choi's analysis gives an explanation as to why we have not seen an increase in ocean temperatures over the last 10 years.
  
  Who is correct?
  
  Bala said.
  
  "Following that, you could give more demonstration of your model by making a few predictions. Once these predictions come true, not just me, but a whole host of people who are currrently skeptical would turn believers."
  
  It is not enough for the predictions to be true - they have to be right for the right reason. This is why many people use Popper - if the predictions are false then the model is wrong. Here the climate models predicted that the ocean temperatures would rise as the atmospheric CO2 rose. This did not happen. Ergo the climate models are false.

  Published: November 5, 2009 3:00 PM

• Beefcake the Mighty

  Tom G. Palmer is clearly suffering from AIDS-related dementia.

  Published: November 5, 2009 3:17 PM

• Bala

  matt,

  " And besides, the majority of the mess can not be cleaned up, that's the problem. Once burned, a toxic in the air can never be filtered out again. Once in the ocean, a piece of plastic can never be recovered. "

  Your business in the area of plastic waste or CO2 emissions can even work on them even before the problems occur. For instance your plastic waste business can focus on "segregation at source" and use a more wide-spread collection network. Your CO2 emissions handlig business could find a way to make people pay voluntarily for sequestration. You could even find a way for others to do their business better without the CO2 emissions. There are a lot of possibilities.

  However, the reality that I have to recognise is that whatever I say, the 800 pound Gorilla is going to beat the daylights out of me. 'Coz you have pre-conceived notions that you have no intention to get rid of.

  Published: November 5, 2009 7:59 PM

• TokyoTom

  Bala, think of a homeowner defending his property against intruders, or Maine or Nova Scotia lobstermen, from outsiders or each other:

  "In Nova Scotia, we burn boats, Ma’am"
  http://thechronicleherald.ca/Opinion/1150382.html

  To be effectively managed, all "property", whether community or private, must be defended. Even a dog growling over a bone knows this (as do owners of junkyard dogs).

  Eventually, we`ll have SOME system of property rights related to the atmosphere, even if we don`t all agree.

  Published: November 5, 2009 11:53 PM

• matt

  Bala,
  the problem is that there is no current cost associated with waste or pollution. I'm a firm believer in free market system (I run my own business). However, a free market system only works if there are prices/costs associated with something.
  Now, it is very, very simple market 101. If I burn my waste in my garden, there is no direct cost to me from the toxins that go in the air. If a company dumps its waste, there is no direct cost to that company. There is also not a single penny profit to be made for me to deal with cleaning up that waste or preventing it.
  Of course there is a cost, but it's a cost that is indirect and postponed. If I throw away a plastic bag now, there's no consequence for me. However, if 6 billion people do that, in 50 years from now the oceans and world will be completely destroyed. Even now, the first signs of problems can be seen. Certain fertility problems in humans and animals are directly caused by toxins in the surroundings, food and water. A certain percentage of the sand on our beaches is not real sand, but (toxic) plastic particles. Etc.

  Currently, some rules about what people and companies are allowed to do, prevent to a certain extent that too much pollution takes place. A company has to proof that it dealt with its waste in a sensible matter, for example. If I dump my waste I get a fine. The worst toxins are being tracked, etc

  So I fail to see how -removing- the only rules that currently prevent things from getting even worse, is going to solve the problems. It's going to make things much worse

  In theory, an anarchistic free market system could work if the real price of clean air and water would be taken into account. That real price would be almost infinitily high. So it would be highly profitable for companies to make money out of that. However, it's impossible to set that price. In theory, you could solve the problem by dividing all natural resources over all people on this planet. So everybody would own an equal part of the earth, air and water. Now that would make driving your car very, very expensive, since you would now have to pay other people for using up their clean air. But of course, for this theoretical system to work you'd have to be able to buy and sell each piece of natural resource. Which is impossible. So you'd have to have massive control institutions in place to regulate everything. Exactly what we don't want.

  Published: November 6, 2009 1:06 AM

• Bala

  TokyoTom,

  That sure was an interesting story. However, there are a few points, clarity on which can add a lot to how we think of these issues.

  Your statement is incorrect to the extent that the need to "effectively manage" is not the reason property needs to be defended. That which is not/would not be defended from encroachers / "grabbers" is not property. That which cannot be defended can never become property.

  IMO, the problem with fishing grounds is that they are difficult to homestead unlike a plot of land which can be marked out. In fact, like common grazing grounds, they constitute a typical case of a resource that is necessarily amenable only to use as a community of users.

  No individual who intends to use it as a source of useful products will find it worth their while to homestead the entire generally used fishing area, especially given the resources such people generally have at their disposal. There is no need too for a person to homestead the grounds as he does not lose what he hopes to get from that fishing area given his limited resources. A number of people can simultaneously extract resources from the same pool without depleting the resources in the long-term and with none of them experiencing a shortage in the near-term. This possibility of simultaneous use without conflict is what makes it a "community" resource.

  Sustainability comes when rate of consumption

  Typically, these rules prevent conflict and get worked out within the community. In such cases, conflict is resolved locally as well.

  There are, in my assessment, 2 sources of conflict
  1. Usage well over "agreed" amounts by a few members of the group - This type is usually diddicult to handle because everyone in the group would naturally see greater requirement as an improvement in their station (like the ability to own 10 cows instead of 5). That's when the situation moves towards the "Tragedy of the commons". Succesful communities are those which manage to stave this off.
  2. Entry of external competition for the same resources - This usually becomes a problem when the external competition is not aware of or is not interested in abiding the rules that the community developed to use the resources. The outcome is conflict between the community and the external competition. The conflict becomes all the more intense if the intruder displays behaviour that adversely affects the sustainability of the resource pool. That's why the Nova Scotians burn boats.

  However, viewing the actions of the Nova Scotians as "aggression" (I'm not saying you are doing this) requires us to assume that they are defending that which has they have not homesteaded and which is hence not their property for them to defend thus. This error can only occur because we fail to see that the seas can be just as well homesteaded as land. The difficulty of homesteading (e.g., planting fences around a plot of land to indicate that it is private property) that comes naturally in the deep sea should not lead us into this error.

  I am however not sure how you think this forms an effective parallel to the "eventual" evolution of property rights on the atmosphere, especially with respect to CO2 because it is neither proven nor widely accepted (as a means of settling disputes) that CO2 emission by one person is a violation of the Liberty and Property Rights of another. Your statement "Eventually, we'll have SOME system of property rights" assumes one of the following

  1. That it will soon be proven that anthropogenic CO2 emission is the cause of the current GW & CC, that it will eventually affect some people's property rights unfairly and that the resultant conflict will lead to the system you are referring to
  2. That those who currently make these claims will anyway enforce these rules whether or not prove their point through scientific research, conflict or no conflict.

  In the former case, you are revealing the possibility that you have bought into the hysterical campaign on GW & CC. Someone like me who hasn't yet done so be sufficiently skeptical and would hence see no need to engage except to educate the scientific community not to cooperate with the political etablishment and give scientific legitimacy to their soon to come acts of tyranny. As I see it, the real problem is not GW or CC but politicisation of science.

  In the latter case, there would in any case be no need to engage because we face an eventuality - fight or flight. Unfortunately, we have nowehere else to fly to but Earth. That's why fighting is the only option. If you have to fight anyway, you are better off gathering more like-minded people for the fight.

  Stephan's putting out articles like this serves both purposes very well. So, I am unable to accept your criticism of Stephan as a valid one.

  Published: November 6, 2009 3:26 AM

• TokyoTom

  Michael:

  You make valid points, though some are overstatements.

  "And we know government NEVER does anything to make situations worse, right? The politicians can't understand what's the problem with central banking, public education, government welfare, interference in health care, etc., but surely they can be trusted to take care of the environment and Global Warming? I've got some federal clearcut forests to show you if you believe that!"

  Sure. My point, however, is that the concerns of others about climate presents OPPORTUNITES to libertarians to seek to roll back some of the statist nonsense that underlies green frustration and leads directly to the escalating fight over the wheel of government.

  Libertarians who agree with me can be found at AEI, Cato and elsewhere.

  Published: November 6, 2009 4:46 AM

• Bala

  TokyoTom,

  " My point, however, is that the concerns of others about climate presents OPPORTUNITES to libertarians to seek to roll back some of the statist nonsense that underlies green frustration and leads directly to the escalating fight over the wheel of government. "

  As I said elsewhere, you are wrong because following your advice would give implicit acknowledgement to the position of the GW & CC hysteria crowd. That's something one should not do if one does not trust their science, its methods and its conclusions.

  Further, your claim that the statist nonsense underlies green frustration is, IMO, completely erroneous. It is you who need to rid yourself of this wrong notion.

  If your proposals about deregulation have merit (I am not commenting on that because their merit is not the issue here), you are better off NOT trying to link it up with the GW & CC hysteria crowd's agenda.

  Published: November 6, 2009 5:29 AM

• mpolzkill

  Complete tools who call themselves libertarians can be found at AEI, Cato and elsewhere, Tom. I liked your dog analogies. The Cato and Reason crowd are like little ones whimpering under the dinner table and occasionally wagging their tails when they get a scrap. Also, a lot of people who want to be considered "cosmopolitan" and/or want to kill Muslims can be found in these places (the main reasons most of them hate Ron Paul)

  You keep asking why we type and I keep giving answers. Here's a new one: hopeless, powerless people still have feelings. Deluded jabbering or just plain jabbering is soothing.

  You are not represented. First order of business: since most people are hopelessly in love with government (see Matt and Kristine here), educate them on what *exactly* the only kind is under which they can still be full human beings. That's a Republic, and this ain't it. In this world today there are three kinds of people: the power elite, lap dogs and jabberers.

  Published: November 6, 2009 7:28 AM

• TokyoTomt

  Bala, I don`t get you, Stephan or many others here, for whom it`s a mistaken ideological purity uber alles.

  Rothbard, Block, Cordato and others have written extensively (1) on the roots of environmental regulation in corporate statism and failure of courts to protect property rights, generating an air and water tragedy of the commons, (2) about the focus of Austrian economics not in denying the preferences of others, but in aiding conflict resoluion and the expression of preferences via cooperation and market transactions and (3) about the enduring political battles that ensue when governments own and administer resources.

  Enviros simply don`t fully understand "markets", and mistrust nuclear power, all of which is hardly surprising given the heavy role of the government in the economy - from the grant of limited liability to corporate owners, to the development of nuclear weapons and power, wars, the provision of roads, and the grant of local monopolies to power companies, etc.

  We should oppose wrong-headed proposals of course, but shouldn`t be surprised when, they think instead of trying to create free markets in things like electricity that haven`t been free for many decades the right course of action is to get the government to do something. Indeed, far from simply OPPOSING bad policy, Austrians ought to be trying hard to EXPLAIN what good policy is, and maybe even get their hands dirty in suggesting policy changes.

  Lew Rockwell did this a couple of years ago on power deregulation, http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/04/23/in-which-i-applaud-another-balanced-productive-post-by-dr-reisman.aspx
  and I`ve pulled together here a number of posts of libertarian work on climate and environmental issues: http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/11/03/a-libertarian-immodestly-makes-a-few-modest-climate-policy-proposals.aspx

  Engaging with what you call the "GW & CC hysteria crowd" (leaving aside for a minute all of the non-enviros who are concerned about CC risks) need not give ANY acknowledgment to their position; rather, it stands a chance of winning them to OUR position, and to pushing policy in directions WE like. Many of them are questioning the merits of the cap-and-trade bill/pork machine, and are very interested in hearing alternatives that will help reduce our impact on nature; in fact, there are plenty of voluntary efforts underway, with business catering to it and trying to monitor their own carbon footprints. Enviros are also reluctantly moving away from their adamant opposition to nukes: http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/search.aspx?q=nuclear

  I seriously question your opposition to venturing to discuss policy alternatives with enviros; it stands in opposition to Austrian approaches and looks instead like simple tribal pigheadedness.

  On the question of labels and ad homs, would it help if I called purported Austrians like you "coconuts"? You know, hard on the outside, but mostly empty inside? Just curious.

  Published: November 6, 2009 7:47 AM

• mpolzkill

  After you let them narrow parameters (their main tool) by accepting what they say is possible and not possible (still curious about when it was you think secession became impossible) and join in their game, you get more than your hands dirty, Tom. Cato hands are stained with Muslim blood, for instance (mixed metaphors, but I'm in a hurry, haha)

  It's a language thing primarily. You probably blanch at my use of "they". I feel the same way about your "we" and "our".

  Published: November 6, 2009 8:32 AM

• Stephan Kinsella

  Tokyotom: "Bala, I don`t get you, Stephan or many others here, for whom it`s a mistaken ideological purity uber alles."

  What are you talking about, exactly? My view is easy to follow, and I laid it out above. I don't believe there is AGW. I think the advocates of this are political partisans and pseudo-scientific charlatans.

  Published: November 6, 2009 9:15 AM

• Bala

  TokyoTom,

  " Bala, I don`t get you, Stephan or many others here, for whom it`s a mistaken ideological purity uber alles. "

  No wonder you don't get me. My objection is not ideological but practical. I have no delusions about the enviros. They are whackos, plain and simple. You just cannot reason with them.

  " Enviros simply don`t fully understand "markets", and mistrust nuclear power "

  But more than all this, they trust the State. Check out the posts of kristine N and matt to verify my statement.

  I have said this before, but let me repeat it. The real problem is the politicisation of science. As long as there are masses of scientists happy to feed at the public trough waiting for the grants to come from the State machinery, you don't have a hope in hell of getting them to listen to your reasoned arguments

  " I seriously question your opposition to venturing to discuss policy alternatives with enviros "

  Firstly, if you imagine enviros have any influence on policy, then, I am sorry to use a strong word, you are labouring under a delusion. The enviros just serve the Statists purpose of kicking up a furore and getting enough support from all the lambs-for-slaughter (that's the 4th category mpolzkill missed out on) for all the policies they intend to bring in with the aim of further enhancing their iron grip on our lives.

  Secondly, I doubt your "nuclear alternative" will cut any ice with the enviro crowd. They are busy cheering every small move made in the development of solar, wind, tidal, geothermal and all other forms of energy that they think are sustainable and without the side-effects of thermal and nuclear power. They are too caught up in the clamour for more funds from the State trough for research and subsidies directed at these for any of them to even give you half a hearing.

  You're better off trying to get a few more scientists off the rolls of the State than by canvassing for the support of a few whackos.

  " would it help if I called purported Austrians like you "coconuts"? "

  It wouldn't. The real reason for that is that I don't even claim to be a purported Austrian. As I said right upfront, I am a Randroid (in the words of a good friend of mine out here) who thinks a lot (or most) of what Austrians say makes a lot of sense.

  Published: November 6, 2009 10:19 AM

• Michael A. Clem

  What's hard to understand, Tom? If I were to say that I don't believe that government has any business running schools, would you say that I should be practical and try to change the public school curriculum to include libertarian ideas? What makes the climate change debate difficult is that it is not simply a matter of being for or against it--there's a whole spectrum of positions one can take.
  
  One can believe that global warming is occurring or not occurring.
  
  If one believes GW is occurring, one can believe that it has purely natural causes, and not human causes.
  
  If one believes GW is occurring, and that it has human causes, one can still believe that a political solution is inappropriate or won't solve the problem. One can believe that the consequences of GW will be beneficial, and not disastrous, and thus, no real problem exists that needs to be solved;
  
  and so forth.
  

  Published: November 6, 2009 10:48 AM

• matt

  mpolzkill
  "First order of business: since most people are hopelessly in love with government (see Matt and Kristine here), educate them on what *exactly* the only kind is under which they can still be full human beings."

  Bala
  "No wonder you don't get me. My objection is not ideological but practical. I have no delusions about the enviros. They are whackos, plain and simple. You just cannot reason with them.
  " Enviros simply don`t fully understand "markets", and mistrust nuclear power "
  But more than all this, they trust the State. Check out the posts of kristine N and matt to verify my statement."

  Thanks for the nice words guys. Here I am, interested to learn something about different points of view. Asking very simple questions. Never getting a normal answer. Repeat: never. And then being accused of "being wacko" or being "hopelessly in love with government". Saying things like that doesn't mean anything to me and only reflects badly on the person saying it.

  Tell me, if you care so much for individual freedom, and you believe in a world in which free, rational, individual people will take care of things and are free to decide for them selves what is right and what is wrong, why don't you give me the right to think freely and have my own opinion? If we want to live in a free world, we should at least respect each others opinions, shouldn't we? Or am I, in a free world, only allowed to agree with you?

  I would suggest to think about that for a moment.

  "They are whackos, plain and simple. You just cannot reason with them". Maybe we do agree on something ;)

  Published: November 6, 2009 3:02 PM

• Bala

  matt,

  " If we want to live in a free world, we should at least respect each others opinions, shouldn't we? "

  I still respect your RIGHT to have your opinion. That's the effect of my respect for your Individual Rights.

  What I don't agree with is your opinion because I consider it ill-founded. That I am free also means that I am free to judge and even express my judgement on your opinion, all the more so when converting your opinion into action automatically involves a violation of my Liberty. This is especially on a forum like this where all people like us do is "jabber away" just to clarify our own thoughts to ourselves and get rid of the cobwebs when we find that they exist in our own minds.

  Published: November 6, 2009 9:14 PM

• mpolzkill

  matt says,

  "Tell me, if you care so much for individual freedom, and you believe in a world in which free, rational, individual people will take care of things and are free to decide for them selves what is right and what is wrong, why don't you give me the right to think freely and have my own opinion?"

  As Bala might say, "bad premises", Matt. I don't believe in a world in which free, rational people take care of things, I know that I'm in a world where rational people take care of *everything* with whatever small freedoms are left to them (and the useful things the State does are done with the resources extracted from said individuals). Secondly, you should only be free from crime, not free from criticism. And finally, no, people aren't free to decide everything that is right and wrong. You for instance are dead wrong in wanting anything from the State other than its punishing assault, theft and fraud. You (and Tom too) clearly have misconceptions about what the State is. It is my experience that once a child is trained (by the State) to hold these misconceptions, it is very rare that they can shake them. Prove me wrong, Matt. That would be great, but I won't hold my breath. (Or for Kristine. Africa? Africa?!?)

  Published: November 7, 2009 2:10 AM

• matt

  But that's the thing guys. You are the ones who keep getting the government involved in this discussion, not me! Time and again I ask the question how certain problems can be solved in a free market. Without government. Without. No government. Nada. How can I be any more clear than that? I thought you guys could imagine a world without government? Well then, answer the questions I have posted. So far I haven't seen any answer. Whatever I say, my questions gets ignored or answered in a strange irrational way. It's as if I'm in the middle of a Monthy Python sketch or something.

  I ask a normal question and Bala thinks I want to violate his liberty, while mpolkill is asking me to prove I haven't been indoctrinated in my childhood by evil government. Instead of answering a simple question you guys assume things about me and attack me for that. Now, who is the one with a bad premise here?

  It's you guys who leave me no other option then to conclude that so far there is no answer to my question about pollution.

  Published: November 7, 2009 4:31 AM

• mpolzkill

  matt, in your very first sentence: "anarchy cannot work". So what do you want Matt? If you don't mouth the magic word "government" you're somehow not talking about it?

  "someone must set some simple rules, to steer the direction of the system"

  Again, who is that, Matt? This is followed by your speculating on your super-men using the right taxing scheme to get done what you believe needs to be done. Then there is whole lot more of your amateur blah, blah, blah. I'll skip that. Your latest tactic here (I thought you were the same statist I talked to elsewhere, now I'm really sure because of this):

  "mpolkill is asking me to prove I haven't been indoctrinated in my childhood by evil government."

  I never asked any such thing (never said "evil" government, btw, I strive to cut out redundancy within sentences) Your default setting appears to be that whatever you think is wrong and can't be solved to your satisfaction by random people on the internet must be fixed by the State. Where on earth did you get this idea (and why do you and almost everyone else have such meager skills in basic logic?) other than directly through the *state run* schools, or through your fellow peasants who also all went through the same schools (not to mention the joke of a media we have)? Bala and I don't have to explain one damned thing to you to reject your notion that you can steal from us. The onus is completely on you to tell *us* why your morons who confiscated our money to work their miracles in New Orleans and Iraq should be trusted with *anything*.

  Finally, you are full of it when you say you are here to learn. You are here to propagandize for the State (unconciously or not) and show all how smart you think you are (and you get almost nada from me in return because you don't rise to a level that would stir my attention except as an example as to why the State is here to stay, or at least until your generation dies out). If you really want to learn anything, ask for a reading list. You will not be educated in these silly boxes, at any rate. Go ahead, ask and I'll start off sending you the first lessons as to what exactly the State is (such a mystery why your schools didn't alert you to these great writings, or denigrated them through false logic!?!)

  Published: November 7, 2009 8:55 AM

• Bala

  matt,

  " You are the ones who keep getting the government involved in this discussion, not me! "

  Interesting how you try to twist the discussion. If you remember, Government was an integral part of the discussion on GW & CC for good reason. From there, the moment you realised you had nothing to say and started smearing me, you tried diverting the discussion to what I considered a fairly irrelevant point on plastic waste. In the middle of that discussion (which YOU started, not I), you said

  " I only see a role for a gov involvement if any other solution fails. "

  This is a fairly significant statement from you because I don't see a role for government even if any other solution fails. That's the difference between you and me - your readiness and my complete aborrence for a role for government in what essentially lies outside the purview of the most minimalist government (which is all I may be ready to tolerate).

  And then you tell me I am dragging government into the discussion. Selective amnesia is not a good way of taking a discussion forward.

  Published: November 7, 2009 8:56 AM

• Gil

  Oh come on mploz and Bala. You two know that commons can't be regulated by market forces. It's akin to you two walking down a path in a forest being litterbugs while encountering matt walking in the opposite direction. If he says "quit being litterbugs". Either you would reply "it's not your land to be givingo orders". If either of you say "so what? what are you going to do about it?" and if matt laid a finger on either one of you then that would be initiation of force. Littering in the commons isn't initiation of anything. Hence the commons can't be enforced through market forces.

  Published: November 7, 2009 9:42 AM

• mpolzkill

  Same thing for you, "Gimme-My-Nukes-Gil", the onus is on you to show how your supermen are supermen and why they must keep stealing and why we should like it. Apply your scenario here to your beloved State:

  Hey D.C., stop your massive littering, especially in Iraq and "Afpak".

  Voluntarism, Gil, look it up. More you read, less you talk.

  Published: November 7, 2009 9:54 AM

• Bala

  Gil,

  " if matt laid a finger on either one of you then that would be initiation of force. "

  If matt laying a finger on me is an initiation of force, then how is Government laying a finger on me not an initiation of force? Does Government, by any logic, own the commons till someone homesteads them?

  Published: November 7, 2009 10:31 AM

• Back up your claims

  An interesting letter and rebuttle to the term Climate Change. Where were the references to supporting data to help strengthen the claims made in your argument?

  Personally, irrespective if the world is warming or not, I feel it would be better to stop abusing the earth and live more in harmony with it.

  Published: November 10, 2009 6:25 PM

• No need to

  @previous poster: no need to back up a claim, since any scientists' work can be thrown out the window here.

  About the abusing of the earth: that's everybody's individual right, according to the opinion here. So we just have to hope not too many people think like that.

  Published: November 11, 2009 4:02 AM