EclectEcon

I am willing to be convinced that

1. Global Warming is occurring,
2. Global warming is the direct of human behaviour, and
3. it is most efficient for us to do something about it, likely via carbon taxes.

Yes, I could be convinced, perhaps. But every time I begin to think, "Well, maybe....", something like this drops into my mail box: [h/t to Judith]

Environmental extremists routinely assert a “scientific consensus” that global warming is occurring, and that human activity somehow causes it. This week, however, over 31,000 scientists spoke up and reduced that myth to a smoldering rubble.

The environmentalists’ alleged “scientific consensus” is much like the curtain in The Wizard of Oz, behind which the supposedly infallible wizard dictated to his minions. Beyond that curtain, however, the wizard was nothing more than an ordinary little man perpetrating a fraud upon those who worshipped his doctrine. And once Toto removed that curtain, the fraud was exposed for all to see.

Similarly, environmentalists’ mythical “scientific consensus” has served as a shroud behind which they have sought to maintain an air of infallibility. By falsely claiming a closed consensus and excoriating anyone who speaks out against their flawed orthodoxy, environmental extremists seek to prevent any objective, scientific debate that might inhibit their political agenda.

That shroud, however, was further torn this week by a 31,000-strong petition organized by the Oregon Institute of Science and Medicine (OISM). According to the OISM’s board of scientists, “a review of the research literature concerning the environmental consequences of increased levels of carbon dioxide leads to the conclusion that increases during the 20th Century have produced no deleterious effects upon global weather, climate, or temperature.”

To the contrary, the OISM notes that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide have actually increased plant growth rates, among other positive effects. On this basis, the OISM concludes that “predictions of harmful climatic effects due to future increases in minor greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide are in error and do not conform to current experimental knowledge.”

My additional concern, even if global warming is occurring and even if it is caused by humans, is that

• Even if the EU, Canada, and the US impose carbon taxes, these taxes would have a minimal impact on carbon emissions, given the rates of economic growth in the rest of the world, and
• it might be more efficient to build levees and dikes, if necessary, than to try to curtail carbon consumption.
  
  Just call me a major skeptic.
  
  Addendum: For more, see this at SCSU Scholars.
  
  And check out the Global Warming DoomsDay Called Off video from, surprisingly, the CBC.

  Addendum #2: For more, see this about the decline in sunspot activity and possible global cooling. [h/t Newmark's Door].

A regular reader forwarded this link to me. The conclusion of the article summarizes the major points with this set of graphs:



Taken together, these graphs seem to indicate two important points:

• Global warming (assuming it can be measured reliably) seems to move more closely with solar activity than with the burning of hydrocarbons.
• Rising sea levels (albeit very small rises) and glacial shortening seem to have begun long before the major increases in the burning of hydrocarbons.

If these relationships continue to hold up, perhaps it is time to stop worrying about the possibility of human-induced global warming.

Perhaps, too, it is time to revoke Al Gore's Nobel Prize.

Yesterday, Craig Newmark linked to this article which rates the attractiveness of the women on various university campuses and then ranks the universities from 1 - 50.

As I scanned through the article to which he linked (yes, scanned; I'm old enough that there's no point in lingering), it struck me that the top 10 list includes only southern schools. Further, the schools ranked 11th - 20th are all from the south or from the west coast.

Where, I wondered, are the schools from the Midwest ranked? And sure enough, there were several in the list from 21st - 30th.

Why might the Big Ten and similar schools be ranked so low? To say there are fewer or less attractive women in such schools is not an adequate answer; the question is, if so, why?

Is there a selection bias in the admissions policies of southern schools (submit a photo with your application)?

Is it possible that women who are very attractive prefer warmer climates to show off their attractiveness, whereas those less well-endowed(?) are happy to attend universities where the weather mandates covering up more [with the attendant "I don't much care anymore" attitude by young males when the warm weather finally arrives]? If so, what will be the impact of global warming on these rankings in the future?

Is it possible that the selection bias arises because the women in the Midwest are every bit as attractive as elsewhere but there are fewer photos of them from which to judge because there is less warm weather in the Midwest? [an informal poll of colleagues tells me there's much more cleavage seen at schools in warmer climates, so this possibility has some merit]

Is it possible that the women in the Midwest and North are every bit as attractive, potentially, as the women of the South and West, but they choose to invest less in the raw materials of looks and more in the raw materials of other forms of human capital? If so, why?

Is it possible that there is an inverse correlation between female attractiveness and female intelligence and that the schools in the Midwest are better schools, attracting (!) smarter but less attractive women? and related,

Is it possible that northern men care less about superficial beauty, preferring the inner depths of knowledge and personality [yeah, sure], and hence the women respond to those incentives accordingly?

Or is it possible that southern men care more about superficial beauty, ...?

Or do Northern and Midwestern schools for some other reason attract women who, by the standards of the piece to which Craig Newmark linked, are less attractive?

How would Canadian universities come out in this ranking? Are the most beautiful women more likely to attend schools on the west coast? Rumour has it that Country Club U [aka UWO] in Ontario would do very well in this ranking, though.

Addendum: A radio commentator I happened to hear last evening was very confident that many of the photos accompanying the original article were of models wearing clothing with the school logos. If so, that raises other possibilities, such as:

Are administrators of southern and western schools able to hire better-looking models? If so, why? Is it because better-looking models prefer to live in the south or west coast? And, again, if so, why them and not the less attractive models?

It is amazing/revealing that so many scientists who once accepted the claims that human discharge of C02 into the atmosphere is causing global warming have changed their minds. From the Adam Smith Blog,

A new 'Manhattan Declaration on Climate Change' was initiated stating "that carbon dioxide (CO2) is not a pollutant but rather a necessity for all life." Senator Inhofe’s register, put together by the USA Senate's Environment and Public Works Committee, already contains more than 500 scientists who previously endorsed the IPCC views but have meanwhile changed their mind. The sceptics have reached a consensus on four key points:

1) The Earth is currently well within natural climate variability. 2) Almost all climate fear is generated by unproven computer model predictions. 3) An abundance of peer-reviewed studies continue to debunk rising CO2 fears and, 4) "Consensus" has been manufactured for political, not scientific purposes.

Contrary to expectations the media coverage was excellent – that’s the new momentum.

And let me add that even if those who disagree with the skeptics are correct, it might be cheaper and more efficient to deal with the effects of global warming rather than try to stop it.

Remember how RFK, Jr. blamed the hurricanes during the summer of 2005 on global warming? I wonder what he makes of this [h/t to Brian Ferguson]:

Scientists: Warm seas may mean fewer hurricanes
Following in the footsteps of an earlier study, government scientists on Tuesday said warmer oceans should translate to fewer Atlantic hurricanes striking the United States.

The reason: As sea surface temperatures warm globally, sustained vertical wind shear increases. Wind shear makes it difficult for storms to form and grow.

"Using data extending back to the middle 19th century, we found a gentle decrease in the trend of U.S. landfalling hurricanes when the global ocean is warmed up," Chunzai Wang, a physical oceanographer and climate scientist with NOAA's Atlantic Oceanographic and Meteorological Laboratory in Miami, said in a prepared statement.

My guess is that the rhetoric will now change to: "The reason we have had fewer hurricanes on average over the past is because we have had global warming. While we are happy to have had fewer hurricanes on average, we see this as further evidence that we are flirting with danger in the way we treat our planet."

As I noted last summer, the evidence about global warming, its existence, its causes, its effects, and its costs is pretty darned unconvincing. Here's another bit that will surely be used and misused by the advocates writing about the issues.

For a sensible look at the issues, I highly recommend Taken by Storm, by Canadians Chris Essex and Ross McKitrick:
.

Ethanol made from Rapeseed (or Canola) or maize (aka corn in the US) creates more greenhouse gases than gasoline. From the UKTimes [h/t to Brian Ferguson],

Measurements of emissions from the burning of biofuels derived from rapeseed and maize have been found to produce more greenhouse gas emissions than they save. ...

Rapeseed and maize biodiesels were calculated to produce up to 70 per cent and 50 per cent more greenhouse gases respectively than fossil fuels. The concerns were raised over the levels of emissions of nitrous oxide, which is 296 times more powerful as a greenhouse gas than carbon dioxide. Scientists found that the use of biofuels released twice as much as nitrous oxide as previously realised. The research team found that 3 to 5 per cent of the nitrogen in fertiliser was converted and emitted. In contrast, the figure used by the International Panel on Climate Change, which assesses the extent and impact of man-made global warming, was 2 per cent. The findings illustrated the importance, the researchers said, of ensuring that measures designed to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions are assessed thoroughly before being hailed as a solution. ...

Maize for ethanol is the prime crop for biofuel in the US where production for the industry has recently overtaken the use of the plant as a food. In Europe the main crop is rapeseed, which accounts for 80 per cent of biofuel production.

Professor Smith told Chemistry World: “The significance of it is that the supposed benefits of biofuels are even more disputable than had been thought hitherto.”

It was accepted by the scientists that other factors, such as the use of fossil fuels to produce fertiliser, have yet to be fully analysed for their impact on overall figures. But they concluded that the biofuels “can contribute as much or more to global warming by N2 O emissions than cooling by fossil-fuel savings”.

The research is published in the journal Atmospheric Chemistry and Physics, where it has been placed for open review.

A consistent theme running through the famous article, "The Problem of Social Cost" by Ronald Coase is that it is not always efficient to charge a tax on some activity that generates costs borne by others. As I reflect on the social costs that might be attributable to global warming, despite what I have written earlier, I wonder whether maybe Pigouvian taxes imposed on carbon-based fuels might not be the best way of dealing with the risk of global warming.

I used to think that if carbon emissions are a problem, then we should just "tax the snot out of 'em". I wrote about this earlier in a posting titled "To Pigou or Not To Pigou," but even then I had concerns about whether the implementation of Pigou taxes on carbon-based fuels would be practical or politically feasible.

As I ponder it more, I am even less certain that Pigou taxes are the most efficient route to take. Maybe it would be more efficient just to let global warming happen (especially given the uncertainty about whether humans can do anything about global warming, and given some questions about whether it is occurring, and if it is, whether it is attributable to human action: see this). Maybe, given the costs of trying to implement any other policy, and given the risk that "doing something" now might involve high costs with little or no benefits,... maybe we should just let it happen, and if it does, then deal with it.

Waiting; and then building dikes and moving people could well be a whole lot cheaper. That doesn't mean it would be efficient not to consider other options. That doesn't mean it would be efficient not to plan strategically for the building of dikes and levees. That doesn't mean it would be efficient not to plan for the future. It just means that the planning should include the possibility of not trying to prevent global warming but instead coping with it, should it occur.

The joint-award of the Nobel Prize for Peace to US failed-Presidential candidate, Al Gore, is a dangerous disgrace, although one entirely to have been expected. ... ‘global warming’ is now the PC “clamour of the times”, especially in Old Europe - and Norway is Very Old Europe. The temptation to give George W a kicking just can’t be resisted. Moreover, this new secular religion of the liberal elites must have its saints to carry the Green Flag, however questionable their qualifications. The names of recent Nobel Peace laureates read like a list of bien pensant characters from the political left: Jimmy Carter (surely one of the worst of US Presidents) (2002); Yassir Arafat (1994); and Rigoberta Menchu (1992). Al Gore joins a highly predictable bunch. ...

In Europe especially, ‘global warming’ is the chosen trope of the political classes. It is a powerful Barthesian myth, and its aim is to exclude all other constructions of knowledge from debate. Al Gore’s ‘elevation’ is simply part of this process of exclusion, namely the trampling down of any dissent by an increasingly assertive, self-referential, grand narrative in the style of Marxism. This must not be allowed to happen. [emphasis in the original]

The above is from this blog [h/t to Melanie Phillips].

Yesterday, Jack sent me this from the Financial Post. It is a scathing attack on "An Inconvenient Truth" and the British School System's attempts to indoctrinate children using Al Gore's film.

... The 11 inaccuracies that the court found are not quibbles. They represent the film's most spectacular claims about the dangers of global warming, and form the very basis of the film. Were the film to be edited to have these inaccuracies removed, in fact, vanishingly little would be left.

- The film claims that melting snows on Mount Kilimanjaro demonstrate global warming. The government's expert was forced to concede that this is not correct.
- The film suggests that evidence from ice cores proves that rising CO2 caused temperature increases over 650,000 years. The court found that the film was misleading: Over that period, the rises in CO2 lagged behind the temperature rises by 800 to 2,000 years.
- The film uses emotive images of Hurricane Katrina, which it suggests was caused by global warming. The government's expert had to accept that it was "not possible" to attribute one-off events to global warming.
- The film attributes the drying up of Lake Chad to global warming. The government's expert had to accept that this was not the case.
- The film claims that a study showed that polar bears had drowned due to disappearing Arctic ice. It turned out that Gore had misread the study: In fact, four polar bears drowned because of a particularly violent storm. - The film threatens that global warming could stop the Gulf Stream, throwing Europe into an ice age. The claimant's evidence was that this was a scientific impossibility.
- The film blames global warming for species losses, including coral reef bleaching. The government could not find any evidence to support this claim.
- The film suggests that the Greenland ice covering could melt, causing sea levels to rise dangerously. The evidence is that Greenland will not melt for millennia.
- The film suggests that the Antarctic ice covering is melting. The evidence was that it is in fact increasing.
- The film suggests that sea levels could rise by seven metres, causing the displacement of millions of people. In fact, the evidence is that sea levels are expected to rise by about 40 centimetres over the next 100 years, and that there is no such threat of massive migration.
- The film claims that rising sea levels have caused the evacuation of certain Pacific islands to New Zealand. The government was unable to substantiate this claim and the court observed that this appears to be a false claim.

The judge's final decision is expected within the week. It promises to change how and what students are taught, and to empower teachers and students alike who choose to think for themselves. In classrooms in Canada and elsewhere around the world, meanwhile, our children are not empowered to question the conventional wisdom on climate change, and teachers continue to show An Inconvenient Truth without any guidance to the children in their charge.

Update: That he won the Nobel Peace Prize only renews and deepens my disrespect for that committee and its processes. Fortunately, the economics Nobel is decided by different people. For more, see this from WaPo.

We may hear news stories about the receding glaciers in some places, but we never hear in the MSM about how temperatures in Antarctica are falling and the ice pack is growing. From Icecap [h/t to Melanie Phillips],

While the news focus has been on the lowest ice extent since satellite monitoring began in 1979 for the Arctic, the Southern Hemisphere (Antarctica) has quietly set a new record for most ice extent since 1979.

This can be seen on this graphic from this University of Illinois site The Cryosphere Today, which updated snow and ice extent for both hemispheres daily. The Southern Hemispheric areal coverage is the highest in the satellite record, just beating out 1995, 2001, 2005 and 2006. Since 1979, the trend has been up for the total Antarctic ice extent...

While the Antarctic Peninsula area has warmed in recent years and ice near it diminished during the Southern Hemisphere summer, the interior of Antarctica has been colder and ice elsewhere has been more extensive and longer lasting, which explains the increase in total extent. This dichotomy was shown in this World Climate Report blog posted recently with a similar tale told in this paper by Ohio State Researcher David Bromwich, who agreed “It’s hard to see a global warming signal from the mainland of Antarctica right now”.

Indeed, according the NASA GISS data, the South Pole winter (June/July/August) has cooled about 1 degree F since 1957 and the coldest year was 2004....

This winter has been an especially harsh one in the Southern Hemisphere with cold and snow records set in Australia, South America and Africa.

Selective reporting in the MSM? I am so disappointed.

I have always felt uneasy with arguments (and especially arguers) on both sides of the global warming questions. I have a sense that people from both sides make selective use of data and examples, and I am quite put off by the ad hominem arguments that are made (particularly by those who label the questioner-skeptics as "deniers" and pawns of the carbon-based fuel industries).

This uneasiness that I have felt probably explains why I continue to encourage readers to avoid the ad hominems and to look at the arguments put forward by the questioner-skeptics with an open mind. Here and here [h/t to Cafe Hayek] are two columns from The Boston Globe that raise very important questions about global warming and the extent to which it

• (a) is or is not occurring
• (b)is caused by human burning of fossil fuels
• (c) can or should be ameliorated and
• (d) can be controlled in any sense that might be considered "cost-effective".

After reading those two items, it is difficult not to be skeptical or at least less zealous about promoting the Kyoto agreement.

And speaking of the Kyoto Accords, if you have the time, watch this scathing attack on the global warming zealots (I'm really not trying to name-call here, but that term applies to many of the people I've talked with [h/t to Judith]).

If you have an open mind, and if you must rely on appeals to authority, after watching this video and after reading the articles from The Boston Globe, at the very least you will be saying, "hmmmmm....maybe things aren't quite as they are presented by the major media when it comes to global warming..."

That's the phrase used by Mark Steyn in yesterday's column, in which he points out that NASA's reported data about temperatures in the US have been revised downward for the 1990s and early 21st century:

Something rather odd happened the other day. If you go to NASA's Web site and look at the "U.S. surface air temperature" rankings for the lower 48 states, you might notice that something has changed.

Then again, you might not. They're not issuing any press releases about it. But they have quietly revised their All-Time Hit Parade for U.S. temperatures. The "hottest year on record" is no longer 1998, but 1934. Another alleged swelterer, the year 2001, has now dropped out of the Top 10 altogether, and most of the rest of the 21st century – 2000, 2002, 2003, 2004 – plummeted even lower down the Hot 100. In fact, every supposedly hot year from the Nineties and this decade has had its temperature rating reduced. Four of America's Top 10 hottest years turn out to be from the 1930s, that notorious decade when we all drove around in huge SUVs with the air-conditioning on full-blast.

If all this is right, why are Al Gore, David Suzuki, and the other global warming fanatics still being listened to? If all this is right, then surely people will eventually stop paying as much attention to the warm-mongers.

I am skeptical about the various concerns many people have about global warming. But suppose they are right. Even if they are, devoting scarce resources to fight global warming is not win-win, as Hilary Clinton has recently argued: to create jobs in industries that spring up to help fight global warming is to attract those scarce resources away from some other use. That is a cost to society, not a benefit! Those employees, those machines, supplies, and buildings, all have some alternative use. And by attracting them to the fight against global warming, we must give up the alternative use -- a forgone opportunity, an opportunity cost.

From James Pethokoukis:

"This issue of energy and global warming has the promise of creating millions of new jobs in America. It can be a win-win, if we do it right."—Sen. Hillary Clinton, at last night's Democratic debate in South Carolina

And with that, Clinton seemingly stumbled into the classic economic trap known as the Broken Window Fallacy. As described by the French economist Fredric Bastiat, the fallacy imagines some punk kid chucking a rock through a store window. A bad thing, right? Yet a contrarian onlooker offers that the troublemaker may have actually helped the economy because now the storeowner will have to hire a glazier, who will make money replacing the window. Then the glazier will use that money to buy bread from a baker, who then might buy shoes from a cobbler. And the "multiplier effect" goes on and on, creating a more prosperous economy.

But Bastiat points out that such reasoning ignores the hidden costs to the shopkeeper, who was forced to spend money on windows instead of something else that may have had higher value to him or society, like a new suit or investing in a start-up tech firm.

Yet another reason policy makers need to learn more about the "natural unemployment rate" (even with its failings) and stop talking about "job creation".

As I have written often, I am skeptical about the concerns over global warming. Here is one reason: the predictions of the climate models have spectacularly wide confidence intervals and even lead to wildly different conclusions. From Melanie Phillips:

... [G]lobal warming is a truly miraculous theory. It means that, without a shadow of a doubt, we will have dry summers and wet winters, and wet summers and er, well, wet winters. As Dr Stott says:

‘In the UK wetter winters are expected which will lead to more extreme rainfall, whereas summers are expected to get drier. However, it is possible under climate change that there could be an increase of extreme rainfall even under general drying.’ (my emphasis [M.P.])

As it gets dryer, it will get wetter. Truly, this global warming theory has some extraordinary properties.

Bewildered? Wake up at the back there —haven’t you got it straight yet? We’re going to be frying and freezing, drowning and dehydrating at the very same time. And carbon emissions will be to blame for the planet getting hotter and getting colder, getting wetter and getting dryer. Because global warming means that whatever happens to the weather, wet dry, hot, cold— it’s all our own fault.

Those who still nurture an old-fashioned regard for facts as opposed to tendentious and indeed ridiculous hypothesis might like to bear in mind that these torrential downpours are not unprecedented in Britain at all. Indeed, we have had worse in the past. As Michael Hanlon reports in the Daily Mail:

On May 29, 1912, nearly five inches of rain fell in three hours near the town of Louth in Lincolnshire. The flood-water practically razed the town and killed 22 people. Even more spectacular was the deluge that occurred three months later in Norfolk: Brundall, near Norwich, experienced more than eight inches of rain on one hellish August day — roughly double the total measured anywhere in the recent floods. Much of Norfolk was still under water six months later.
And on August 15 that year, a depression moving up the Bristol Channel deposited nine inches of rain over Exmoor, spawning the lethal flood that was nearly to wash away the village of Lynmouth. More than 30 people were killed. The record for rainfall in one 24-hour period occurred on July 18, 1955, when nearly 12 inches of rain fell on parts of Dorset. So there is certainly nothing unprecedented about these floods, and similar deluges occurred long before we worried about global warming.

But then global warming theory represents the ultimate triumph of hypothesis over experience, as the latest distinguished scientist in the Canadian Financial Post’s series of climate change sceptics recently made clear. Tom V. Segalstad, head of the Geological Museum at the University of Oslo and formerly an expert reviewer with the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, says the whole theory is nonsense.

Why does he say it is nonsense? Because it relies on a crucial assumption that the CO2 being produced will hang around in the atmosphere for 50 years or more rather than be absorbed by the oceans, whereas all the evidence to date suggests that C02, on average, stays in the atmosphere for no more than 5-10 years.

Amazingly, the hypothetical results from climate models have trumped the real world measurements of carbon dioxide’s longevity in the atmosphere. Those who claim that CO2 lasts decades or centuries have no such measurements or other physical evidence to support their claims. Neither can they demonstrate that the various forms of measurement are erroneous. ‘They don’t even try,’ says Prof. Segalstad. ‘They simply dismiss evidence that is, for all intents and purposes, irrefutable. Instead, they substitute their faith, constructing a kind of science fiction or fantasy world in the process.’

In the real world, as measurable by science, CO2 in the atmosphere and in the ocean reach a stable balance when the oceans contain 50 times as much CO2 as the atmosphere. ‘The IPCC postulates an atmospheric doubling of CO2, meaning that the oceans would need to receive 50 times more CO2 to obtain chemical equilibrium,’ explains Prof. Segalstad. ‘This total of 51 times the present amount of carbon in atmospheric CO2 exceeds the known reserves of fossil carbon– it represents more carbon than exists in all the coal, gas, and oil that we can exploit anywhere in the world.’

Global warming: religion, not science.

Recently, Jack sent me a link to a World Clock site. The site appears to offer the exact time for whatever time zone you are in. But it also presents what can only be termed estimates, at best, for the number of births, deaths, abortions, U.S. divorces, etc. since the beginning of the the year.

And it also purports to provide the earth's average temperature, a figure which Chris Essex and Ross McKittrick argue has no meaning in the realm of thermodynamics (see this).

From the AFP (courtesy of Jack):

The world is smaller than first thought, German researchers at the University of Bonn said on Thursday.

They took part in an international project to measure the diameter of the world that showed it is five millimetres (0.2 inches) smaller than the last measurement made five years ago.

Dr Axel Nothnagel, who led the Bonn researchers, told AFP the difference was crucial in the study of climate change.

"It may seem a very small difference, but it is essential for the positioning of the satellites that can measure rises in sea level.

"They must be accurate to the millimetre. If the ground stations tracking the satellites are not accurate to the millimetre, then the satellites cannot be accurate either."

Jack suggests, tongue-in-cheek I hope, that the earth is shrinking because of global warming.

Regardless, I blame the shrinking earth for all the difficulties I have locating caches with my handheld GPSr when we are out geocaching.

Russ Roberts at Cafe Hayek has posted an excellent Global Warming Quiz:

It's a one question quiz:

Suppose we discovered that the earth was cooling rather than warming due to a natural cycle. Would you encourage people to drive more and use more carbon-based energy as a way of warming the earth?

I know, and you know, too, that most people who fret and wring their hands about global warming would do no such thing.

Instead they would argue that it's the particulate matter of our human-created pollution that is cooling the earth (with plenty of historical references to the effects that volcanoes had on global cooling) and therefore we need to have public policies in place to limit the amount that people drive, especially gas-guzzling SUVs. Global warming? Global cooling? It doesn't matter: we should drive less and burn less fuel; we should repent and sin no more, or maybe a bit less anyway (and heaven forbid relying on the market system to provide this guidance!).

In other words, their insistence that we cut back on our use of fossil fuels has little or nothing to do with global warming and has much more to do with some sort of elitist paternalism, wanting to insist that the rest of us live more austere lives. Digressive rant: and yet they would oppose a value-added tax as being regressive — they not only want us to cut back on our consumption, they want to control us and tell us what to do.

This question about global warming reminds me of the 1960s criticism of then-popular Keynesian economics and fiscal policy. We were all taught that it was a good idea to increase gubmnt spending and cut taxes to get the economy out of a recession. Rarely however, did politicians propose cutting gubmnt spending across the board to reduce inflationary pressures. So much for using fiscal policy to offset the swings of the business cycle. And so much for some of the rants about global warming.

Update: Also see this, sent to me by both BenS and Brian Ferguson:

The alleged solutions have more potential for catastrophe than the putative problem. The conclusion of the late climate scientist Roger Revelle—Al Gore's supposed mentor—is worth pondering: the evidence for global warming thus far doesn't warrant any action unless it is justifiable on grounds that have nothing to do with climate.

Ms. Eclectic and I have a subscription to MLBtv, which means we can watch any games not involving the Trono Blue Jays via broadband over the internet. Here are two photos I took of the game on Friday between the Seattle Mariners and the Cleveland Indians (in Cleveland)



Those are leaf-blowers the ground crew is using to try to remove the snow.

By the way, I'm not at all pleased with the MLBtv product.

1. Technically, it freezes up and jerks way too often, even in the crappy low-res format.
2. The black-outs of the Blue Jays are annoying since our cable system doesn't carry the away games that are blacked out.
3. And most amusing of all, I called them to ask about the black outs and was kept on hold for an hour and and twenty minutes before someone came on the line to explain that even though my cable company didn't carry the Blue Jays away game in Tampa Bay on Friday night, they couldn't lift the black out anywhere in Canada because Rogers was making the game available to some customers on its cable network.

I have a feeling MLBtv will not be a product we buy again in the future. I can live without watching baseball while I'm in England.

Chris Essex, Ross McKitrick, and Bjarne Andresen recently published a paper [Jl. of Non-Equilibrium Thermodynamics, Vol 32, 1 - 27, 2007] in which they demonstrate that using different metrics leads to different conclusions about whether the earth is really warming. Here is the abstract:

Physical, mathematical, and observational grounds are employed to show that there is no physically meaningful global temperature for the Earth in the context of the issue of global warming. While it is always possible to construct statistics for any given set of local temperature data, an infinite range of such statistics is mathematically permissible if physical principles provide no explicit basis for choosing among them. Distinct and equally valid statistical rules can and do show opposite trends when applied to the results of computations from physical models and real data in the atmosphere. A given temperature field can be interpreted as both ‘‘warming’’ and ‘‘cooling’’ simultaneously, making the concept of warming in the context of the issue of global warming physically ill-posed.

Their conclusion is strong [emphasis added]:

There is no global temperature. The reasons lie in the properties of the equation of state governing local thermodynamic equilibrium, and the implications cannot be avoided by substituting statistics for physics.

... Since temperature is an intensive variable, the total temperature is meaningless in terms of the system being measured, and hence any one simple average has no necessary meaning. Neither does temperature have a constant proportional relationship with energy or other extensive thermodynamic properties.

Averages of the Earth’s temperature field are thus devoid of a physical context that would indicate how they are to be interpreted, or what meaning can be attached to changes in their levels, up or down. Statistics cannot stand in as a replacement for the missing physics because data alone are context-free.

Assuming a context only leads to paradoxes such as simultaneous warming
and cooling in the same system based on arbitrary choice in some free parameter. Considering even a restrictive class of admissible coordinate transformations yields families of averaging rules that likewise generate opposite trends in the same data, and by implication indicating contradictory rankings of years in terms of warmth.

The physics provides no guidance as to which interpretation of the data is
warranted. Since arbitrary indexes are being used to measure a physically
non-existent quantity, it is not surprising that different formulae yield different results with no apparent way to select among them. The purpose of this paper was to explain the fundamental meaninglessness of so-called global temperature data. The problem can be (and has been) happily ignored in the name of the empirical study of climate. But nature is not obliged to respect our statistical conventions and conceptual shortcuts. Debates over the levels and trends in so-called global temperatures will continue interminably, as will disputes over the significance of these things for the human experience of climate, until some physical basis is established for the meaningful measurement of climate variables, if indeed that is even possible.

It may happen that one particular average will one day prove to stand out
with some special physical significance. However, that is not so today. The
burden rests with those who calculate these statistics to prove their logic and value in terms of the governing dynamical equations, let alone the wider, less technical, contexts in which they are commonly encountered.

Addendum: Chris Essex tells me that Drudge cited this paper as well.

Rory Leishman has terrific column about the attempt by Canada's opposition parties to embarrass or force the gubmnt into formulating a plan for Canada to honour the commitments made by the Liberal party under the Kyoto accords.

Under terms of the Kyoto Protocol, Canada is supposed to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions to six per cent below the levels set in 1990 by 2012. The previous Liberal government signed this Kyoto Protocol on behalf of Canada, but failed to devise a plan for fulfilling the commitment.

... Having failed for two years to devise a plan for complying with Kyoto, how can Dion expect the Harper government to pull off this feat within 60 days? Dion knows full well that this deadline is preposterous. In a candid moment during last year’s election campaign, he admitted that he did not think that a Liberal government led by him would be able to slash Canada’s greenhouse gas emissions as required by the Kyoto Protocol within the next five years.

Dion had good reason for scepticism. It’s practically impossible for any government to have Canada comply with the Liberals’ rash Kyoto commitment According to the latest data from Environment Canada, Canada contributed about 758 megatonnes of green house gases to the atmosphere in 2004. That was 195 megatonnes above the Kyoto target.

... On the Kyoto issue, it’s evident that the Liberals are hypocritical. And the same goes for leaders of the New Democratic Party, Green Party and the Bloc Quebecois. They all must know that Canada cannot possibly comply with the reckless Kyoto commitment made by the Liberals without plunging the entire country into a dire economic crisis.

He also has a number of interesting comments about the economics of the Alberta oil sands and Canadian federalism.

Scoop, an anonymous politico, sent me the following suggestion:

...you can bring back the ban the penny campaign and kick it into high gear...all you need to do is remind people that the mining and smelting of copper, nickel, and zinc creates green house gases. Ban the penny to save the world!

For some background on getting rid of the penny (and nickel) see this, this, and this or just follow this blog's category, "Pennies".

I have been trying to remain detached and objective about questions concerning global warming. Doing so is very difficult. I'm labeled a pinko airhead by those who question what appears to be the mainline view [global warming exists and is caused by humans]; and I'm labeled a right-wing pawn of the oil industry by those who accept the mainline. Most of my postings on global warming have been skeptical of the mainline view simply because I do not see, hear, or read the questions that ought to be asked.

Here, from Sciencebits, is a piece suggesting roughly 2/3 of global warming has been due to solar activity.

there is no real direct evidence which can be used to incriminate anthropogenic greenhouse gases as the being the main factor responsible for the observed global warming. The reason these gases were blamed are primarily because (1) we expect them to warm and indeed the global temperature increased, and (2) there is no other mechanism which can explain the warming.

Although this reasoning seems logical, it turns out that (1) We don't even know the sign of the anthropogenic climate driving (because of the unknown indirect aerosol effects), and (2) There is an alternative mechanism which can explain a large part of the warming.

Solar activity can explain a large part of the 20th century global warming, on condition that there is a strong solar/climate link through modulation of the cosmic ray flux and the atmospheric ionization. Evidence for such a link has been accumulating over the past decade, and by now, it is unlikely that it does not exist.

This link also implies that Earth's global temperature sensitivity is also relatively on the low side. Thus, if we double the amount of CO2 by 2100, we will only increase the temperature by about 1°C or so. This is still more than the change over the past century. This is good news, because it implies that future increases in the amount of atmospheric greenhouse gases will not dramatically increase the global temperature, though GHGs will probably be the dominate climate driver.

A clarifying note
So, as you may understand, I am quite sure Kyoto is not the right way to go. I should however stress that there are a dozen good reasons why we should strive to burn less fossil fuels.

The two primary reasons why fossil fuels are bad are of course pollution and depletion, while minor reasons include for example the fact that many fossil fuel reserves are controlled by unpleasant governments.

[h/t to Urban Economics and More; however, see the criticism of this work in the comments there.]

For a very clear statement about economics and global warming, please see this piece by Janet at SCSU Scholars:

1 - The U.N. CLimate Panel suggests that if we follow Al Gore's path, the average person will be left 30% poorer. (Note, this is a UN study - that organization the left loves to quote - except when it doesn't agree with them.)
2 - Mr. Gore's movie sites a 20' rise in sea level, the same U.N. panel expects only a 1' rise by 2100, the same as the last 150 years. Why exaggerate by a factor of 20? (Might there be an agenda?)
3 - He cites Nairobi as experiencing an increase in malaria - problem with this is that WHO (World Health Organization) has stated that Nairobi is free of malaria.
4 - He tells us that Antarctica is warming - well, 2% of Antarctica is warming but 98% is cooling and getting thicker. Guess he didn't want to take his cameras to the other side of the continent.
5 - Sea ice is decreasing in the Northern Hemisphere but increasing in the Southern Hemisphere.

There are numerous other problems with the global warming fear proponents. But there are also related economic and education problems.

Be sure to read the whole thing. As I said, it is very solid.

From the journal, CO2 Science (which clearly has an axe to grind, so do not accept this information as definitive; but do not ignore it either! [via Melanie Phillips]:

Reference: Wingham, D.J., Shepherd, A., Muir, A. and Marshall, G.J. 2006. Mass balance of the Antarctic ice sheet. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society A 364: 1627-1635.

What was done: The authors "analyzed 1.2 x 108 European remote sensing satellite altimeter echoes to determine the changes in volume of the Antarctic ice sheet from 1992 to 2003." This survey, in their words, "covers 85% of the East Antarctic ice sheet and 51% of the West Antarctic ice sheet," which together comprise "72% of the grounded ice sheet.""

What was learned: Wingham et al. report that "overall, the data, corrected for isostatic rebound, show the ice sheet growing at 5 ± 1 mm year-1." To calculate the ice sheet's change in mass, however, "requires knowledge of the density at which the volume changes have occurred," and when the researchers' best estimates of regional differences in this parameter are used, they find that "72% of the Antarctic ice sheet is gaining 27 ± 29 Gt year-1, a sink of ocean mass sufficient to lower [authors' italics] global sea levels by 0.08 mm year-1." This net extraction of water from the global ocean, according to Wingham et al., occurs because "mass gains from accumulating snow, particularly on the Antarctic Peninsula and within East Antarctica, exceed the ice dynamic mass loss from West Antarctica."

What it means: Contrary to all the horror stories one hears about global warming-induced mass wastage of the Antarctic ice sheet leading to rising sea levels that gobble up coastal lowlands worldwide, the most recent decade of pertinent real-world data suggest that forces leading to just the opposite effect are apparently prevailing, even in the face of what climate alarmists typically describe as the greatest warming of the world in the past two millennia or more. [emphasis added]
Reviewed 8 November 2006

Melanie Phillips goes on to say,

The mismatch between what the science actually tells us and what campaigners tell us the science tells us has become so extreme that the climate change lobby itself is starting to crack apart. One of its gurus, Mike Hulme, Director of the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research, has turned on his own side and denounced the current hysteria over global warming (singling out the Independent newspaper by name) as manipulation and group-think... [click here for her quotations from this source; this portion is near the end of her posting.]

Addendum 1: I am not fully persuaded by the arguments either way. My inclination is that the challengers are on fairly solid ground, but I'm not sure. For more on how nasty the debates can get, see this, to which Craig Newmark linked today.

Addendum 2: As Chris Essex wrote to me this morning, "The number 27 ± 29 Gt year-1 says a lot about what we really know or don't know." 8-)

One of the big complaints my colleagues and I have often had about the media is that they search out crackpots to provide "balanced" opposition to mainstream economics analysis. Media editors have defended this practice saying that they must remain unbiased, and they try to present all sides of a story.

Why don't they do this when they cover global warming issues?

Here is just one example of the recent coverage of the Stern Review from the United Kingdom. The Stern Review, itself, provides no hint that there are people who question whether global warming is happening. It also provides no idea that there are people who question whether, if it is happening, it is due to the burning of carbon-based fuels. And yet there is considerable and mounting evidence that questions these "facts" as presented by both the Stern Review and GlobalTV News are under substantial attack by reasonable scholars.

Where are the interviews with, say, Chris Essex or Ross McKittrick? What about the sources listed in State of Fear? How has global warming become such an accepted fact when maybe it isn't?

So much for balanced and unbiased reporting.

Stephen Pollard is also skeptical. And I guess this should not surprise us at all.

.

Let me reiterate: I don't know that global warming is not happening or is not caused by carbon-based fuels. My major concern is that there are clearly some criticisms of the received doctrine, and these criticisms should receive more coverage by a balanced media.

Update: Typos, etc., corrected. They were my version of spluttering.

There is a minor squabble in the economics blogosphere between those who favour raising taxes on gasoline and those who .... criticize them. Greg Mankiw has even begun a club called, "the Pigou Club" made up of those who favour imposing taxes on those activities which generate a negative externality.

The idea behind Pigouvian taxes is simple and straight-forward .... on the chalkboard: when marginal social costs exceed marginal private costs of an activity, (and ignore general equilibrium and second-best considerations) then it is efficient to impose a marginal tax on that activity equal to the divergence between the marginal private and marginal social costs [and a subsidy if the externality is positive].

I happily teach this stuff all the time, so I guess that makes me a member of Professor Mankiw's club. I even posted some things here in the past in which I said that if people are so worried about the greenhouse gas effect and if they believe it comes from burning carbon-based fuels, then they should favour increasing taxes on the use of all carbon-based fuels. That is straight-forward Pigouvianism at its very basic level.

That is easy to say. Now to operationalize it. How much should the tax be to promote efficiency? How big is the gap between marginal social and marginal private costs, and how do we know the level of taxation currently in place is not sufficient to promote efficiency?

Greg Mankiw guesses that a proper Pigouvian tax on gasoline would be $1 U.S. per gallon:

With the midterm election around the corner, here’s a wacky idea you won’t often hear from our elected leaders: We should raise the tax on gasoline. Not quickly, but substantially. I would like to see Congress increase the gas tax by $1 per gallon, phased in gradually by 10 cents per year over the next decade.

But how does he arrive at this precise amount for the tax? The simple answer is we don't know for sure. We have to guess. One would hope the guess is well-informed and documented by people who know what they are doing. And this is the heart of the criticism of Mankiw's Pigou club: it is easy to draw these things on the chalkboard, but measuring and identifying the externalities (not to mention the general equilibrium effects) precisely is probably not possible with today's knowledge and technology.

So where does that leave me? My best guess is that my children and grandchildren will be better off if we implement a higher Pigouvian tax on gasoline. I once wrote, "We should tax the snot out of gasoline." I suppose that puts me in the Pigou Club. But I do not hold these views very strongly, and I fully agree with the concerns of those who question whether such a tax could ever be revenue neutral or who question how much the tax should be. I am open to new information and arguments.

But let me emphasize that just because we don't know what the exact size of the optimal Pigouvian tax should be, that doesn't mean it is zero. We must choose some number, positive or negative, and my current best guess is that Professor Mankiw is probably not far off the mark.

For more, see the articles by Brian Ferguson at Canadian Econoview, by Gabriel Mihalache at Economic Investigations, and by Stephen Gordon at Worthwhile Canadian Initiative.

I am unable to find the link now, but when I suggested raising the tax on gasoline in a piece on The Western Standard's blog, many commmenters objected. Some were opposed to giving the gubmnt more money even though I had intended the tax to be revenue-neutral; others, from Alberta, just saw the proposal as another Easterner trying to grab their oil wealth. Pigouvian taxes are not as easy in the real world as they are on the chalkboard.

I confess to being surprised that the spin doctors with the NYTimes and the Guardian have not yet run the above headline with this photo:



The photo is very striking and is generally used to point out the differences in degree of economic development between South Korea and North Korea, as for example in this item from the Daily Mail. [h/t to Scoop]

[h/t to Melanie Phillips for the link to this material (quoted below)]

Do I detect the first tiny rumblings of a paradigm shift in climate-change science?

"The greenhouse effect must play some role. But those who are absolutely certain that the rise in temperatures is due solely to carbon dioxide have no scientific justification. It's pure guesswork." [Henrik Svensmark, Director of the Centre for Sun-Climate Research, Danish National Space Center, joint author of the new research, as quoted in The Copenhagen Post (October 4)] ...

One especially eminent science writer has already declared: "The implications for climate physics, solar-terrestrial physics and terrestrial-galactic physics are pretty gob-smacking....." ...

The reason is simple. The experiment ties in beautifully with the brilliant work of geochemist, Professor Ján Veizer of the Ruhr University at Bochum, Germany, and the University of Ottawa in Canada, and Dr. Nir Shaviv, an astrophysicist at the Racah Institute of Physics in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, who for some time have been implicating cosmic rays and water vapour, rather than carbon dioxide, as the main drivers of climate change. Indeed, they have put down 75% of climate change to these drivers. [emphasis added]

Cosmic rays are known to boost cloud formation - and, in turn, reduce temperatures on Earth - by creating ions that cause water droplets to condense. Ján Veizer and Nir Shaviv calculated temperature changes at the Earth's surface by studying oxygen isotopes trapped in rocks formed by ancient marine fossils. They then compared these with variations in cosmic-ray activity, determined by looking at how cosmic rays have affected iron isotopes in meteorites.

Their results suggest that temperature fluctuations over the past 550 million years are more likely to relate to cosmic-ray activity than to CO2. By contrast, they found no correlation between temperature variation and the changing patterns of CO2 in the atmosphere. [emphasis added]

But the mechanism remained far from understood.....until now. For it seems that the Danish team may well have discovered that mechanism.

Do I detect the first deep and quiet rumblings of a long-term paradigm-shifting piece of work?

Indeed, I sense the first minute bounce in a new Kuhnian curve. Of course, for the moment, the work will be drowned out by the clamour of the Great Grand Global Warming Narrative. After all, it is the last thing the committed - and politicians like Cameron, Campbell, and Gore - want to hear. ...

[*Here are the complete details of the new research paper: Proceedings of the Royal Society A, October 3rd, 2006. Full title: ‘Experimental evidence for the role of ions in particle nucleation under atmospheric conditions’. Authors: Henrik Svensmark, Jens Olaf Pepke Pedersen, Nigel Marsh, Martin Enghoff & Ulrik Uggerhøj]

Chris Essex tells me similar arguments can be found in his book with Ross McKittrick, Taken By Storm.

.

Good grief! Look at the difference in prices!

Dear Mr. RFK, Jr:

Now that the 2006 hurricane season is nearly over and there have been very few hurricanes and very few tropical storms, does that mean we are now experiencing global cooling and have nothing to worry about regarding global warming?

If you think that is a silly question, why did you blame global warming for hurricane Katrina?

The science of climate change suggests we just don't know what is happening:

Humans are significantly altering the global climate, but in a variety of diverse ways beyond the radiative effect of carbon dioxide. The IPCC assessments have been too conservative in recognizing the importance of these human climate forcings as they alter regional and global climate. These assessments have also not communicated the inability of the models to accurately forecast the spread of possibilities of future climate. The forecasts, therefore, do not provide any skill in quantifying the impact of different mitigation strategies on the actual climate response that would occur....

[T]he reported over 20% loss of upper ocean heat content between 2003 and 2005, which had accumulated between 1955 and 2003, is a very important observational finding [emphasis added]. According to the paper, this cooling corresponds to -1.0 (+/- 0.3) W/meter squared global radiative imbalance over this time period.

As Katy Delay, at Sybil's Star, says,

Maybe that's why we haven't had the spike in hurricanes that weather "experts" were predicting.

While I have been teaching in England this summer, I have made a point of trying to visit a few historic sites and learn a bit more about British history. Here are some interesting points:

1. When Pevensey Castle was built by the Romans and then rebuilt by William the Conqueror, the sea was right up to the walls of the castle. The sea is now a few kilometers away from the castle.

2. When Herstmonceux Castle (where I am teaching this summer) was built in 1441, the sea came up quite close to its entrance. The sea is now about six miles away.

3. In very old London, the sea essentially came to the town's walls. The Thames River was more of an estuary then and less a river. The water level was much lower two centuries ago (depending on the tides) than it was a millenium ago. And most of the flooding problems began before people became concerned about global warming (see Thames barrier).

4. Spynie Palace in Scotland (east of Inverness and just north of Elgin) used to have a dock and landing site. The sea has receded so much that there is a loch near there, where the sea used to come up to the castle, but the sea is now 6 miles to the north.

5. Duffus Castle (pronouned DUH-fuss, not DOO-fuss) in Scotland used to be on an island. The ordnance survey maps indicate that the land surrounding the castle is now 5 - 10 feet above sea level.

6. A classics professor here has told me that 1500 years ago, the sea used to be either nine feet or nine meters (big difference and I can't remember her units) higher than it is now.

What the heck happened?

Some people have suggested that all the land has been filled in by silting and erosion along cliffs elsewhere. I don't believe it. There's just too much land that has been filled in all around the UK for it all to have been caused by erosion of one form or another.

A better explanation is that the earth cooled dramatically, perhaps beginning a millenium ago [+/- 500 years?]. But that begs the question of what happened. Why did the earth cool so much? What caused the global cooling to occur when it did?

Some people suggest it was part of a cycle, generated from within the earth's core. If so, then the current global warming (if it exists [despite what Al Gore and many scientists might say]) may be the result of this same cycle and not be related to human action at all.

Others suggest that volcanic activity and increased burning of dirty fuels caused the air to contain much more particulate matter. But I don't buy the volcanic explanation because if it were correct, the earth should have warmed considerably after the volcanic activity subsided.

I realize these are just fuzzy anecdotes, but after all, "the plural of anecdote is 'data'." [Please check this site before you correct my quotation.] 8-)

The point is, we don't know. And that should cause some concern in the railing about global warming.

Despite the hype in the media and their apparently one-sided reporting of events, there is a large group of scientests who are urging caution, questioning the very basis for all the media hype about global warming. The group has written an open letter, the contents of which are indicated by this paragraph:

Observational evidence does not support today's computer climate models, so there is little reason to trust model predictions of the future. Yet this is precisely what the United Nations did in creating and promoting Kyoto and still does in the alarmist forecasts on which Canada's climate policies are based. While the confident pronouncements of scientifically unqualified environmental groups may provide for sensational headlines, they are no basis for mature policy formulation.

It is difficult to know what to make of this statement, especially in light of this recent report. Indeed, it is often difficult to know what to make of any open letter signed by many so-called scientists. For example, I expect I could get at least 50 credentialized people on the fringes of economics who would oppose free trade, but they would mostly be fringe hacks who don't understand the basics of comparative advantage.

Such does not appear to be the case with the people from around the world who have signed the above-referenced letter to political leaders denouncing the media and UN hype about global warming. I happen to know two of the signers and they are anything but fringe or obscurely credentialized. They are leaders in their fields. One of them, Chris Essex, has been inundated during the past two days with e-mails asking about the latest developments. Here are links to their book on the topic:



For the open letter and a list of the signers, see this by Melanie Phillips.

From the NYTimes teaser for John Tierney's column (I don't subscribe to the pay portion):

A gas tax is a far better way to encourage conservation and combat global warming than more fuel-efficient cars.

Let me add that a higher gas tax would, in fact, induce more people to switch to more fuel-efficient autos. In the UK, where gasoline prices are roughly double those in North America, people tend to drive much smaller, more fuel-efficient cars; there are few big pickups and SUVs on the roads here.

Update: I meant to include a link to this piece by Don Boudreaux at Cafe Hayek:

...just a few years ago there were only three venture-capital firms focused on energy companies; today there are 76 such VC firms. So much money seeking ways to find new sources of energy!

Those entrepreneurs and investors who succeed will become fabulously rich; those who fail will be poorer than they would have been had they not entered the quest.

And those of us who do nothing but freely choose which fuels to purchase will benefit enormously.

I love this market process.

Me, too.

This past weekend, I finally got around to reading State of Fear by Michael Crichton.

I guess it's okay. But I wasn't enthusiastic about it.

1. It certainly is gripping, as are all well-written novels about how the world will soon be destroyed if the hero doesn't, McGyver-like, escape many sure-death situations and, severely wounded and out-numbered, destroy the evil plot. I have read enough of these adventure-type, help-save-the-world-type of airport novels that I am actually put off by this form of the genre.
   
   Oh? What's this? Is the hero/ine trapped again in a sure-death scenario? Not again.... How will s/he escape from this one? Oh my, what a quick thinker, what a knowledgeable person!
   
   I am tempted to write "yawn", but that would be unfair because despite my finding this form of the genre boring, I was, indeed, captivated by this rendition of it.
   
   
2. Let's face it: the novel was a thinly veiled series of speeches about global warming by Crichton. Different lawyers, scientists, etc. may be delivering the speeches, but splice 'em together and you have a unified monologue. The device of using different characters to deliver the speeches is certainly preferable to the economics novels in which the hero does all the lecturing and quickly becomes boring to the point that you wonder why he has any friends [see Murder at the Margin, or The Invisible Heart].
   
   
3. The apparent theme of the novel is that all the global warming science suggests that there is little or no reason to think that (a) global warming is serious or (b) whatever global warming is taking place is human-induced. The novel may be a good way to sneak these ideas into the consciousness of people who might otherwise not read them, and the graphs and references are commendable. Let me also recommend Taken by Storm by colleague Chris Essex and Ross McKitrick.
   
   
4. The title, State of Fear, captures the essence of a series of speeches (again, thinly disguised as dialogue) by [gulp!] an emeritus sociology professor, Norman Hoffman, near the end of the book [pp500ff of the paperback]:
   

   Has it ever occurred to you how astonishing the culture of Western society really is? Industrialized nations provide their citizens with unprecedented safety, health, and comfort. Average life spans increased fifty percent in the last centure. Yet modern people live in abject fear. They are afraid of strangers, of disease, of crime, of the environment. they are afraid of the homes they live in, the food they eat, the technology that surrounds them. They are in a particular panic over things they can't even see — germs, chemicals additives, pollutants. They are timid, nervous, fretful, and depressed. And even more amazingly, they are convinced that the environment of the entire planet is being destroyed around them. Remarkable!
   
   ...[T]he military-industrial complex is no longer the primary driver of society. In reality, for the last fifteen years we have been under the control of an entirely new complex, far more powerful and far more pervasive. I call it the politico-legal-media complex. The PLM. And it is dedicated to promoting fear in the population — under the guise of promoting safety.
   
   ... Politicians need fears to control the population. Lawyers need dangers to litigate, and make money. The media need scare stories to capture an audience. Together, these three estates are so compelling that they can go about their business even if the scare is totally groundless.

   
   Coincidentally, this book was most recently recommended to me by Jack, a former sociologist; another contributor to this blog, BenS, happens to be an emeritus sociology professor who has published widely on the media.
   
   If you are willing to entertain some doubts about the global warming hoopla, and if you like adventure novels, State of Fear is worth the effort. Me? I think maybe I'd rather watch curling.
   
   
   
   

Coyote Blog provides of the best summaries I have read recently, criticizing the positions of those worried about global warming. It is lengthy and detailed, but well worth reading. Here is an excerpt from the conclusion:

Many scientists are technocratic fascists at heart, and are convinced that if only they could run the economy or some part of it, instead of relying on this messy bottom-up spontaneous order we call the marketplace, things, well, would be better. The problem is that scientists, no matter how smart they are, miss with their bets because the economy, and thus the lowest cost approach to less CO2 production, is too complicated for anyone to understand or manage. And even if the scientists stumbled on the right approaches, the political process would just screw the solution up. Probably the number one alternative energy program in the US is ethanol subsidies, which are scientifically insane since ethanol actually increases rather than reduces fossil fuel consumption. Political subsidies almost always lead to investments tailored just to capture the subsidy, that do little to solve the underlying problem. In Arizona, we have thousands of cars with subsidized conversions to engines that burn multiple fuels but never burn anything but gasoline. In California, there are hundreds of massive windmills that never turn, having already served their purpose to capture a subsidy. In California, the state bent over backwards to encourage electric cars, but in fact a different technology, the hybrid, has taken off.

... If we must intervene to limit CO2, we should jack up the price of fossil fuels with taxes, or institute a cap and trade scheme which will result in about the same price increase, and the market through millions of individual efforts will find the lowest cost net way to reach whatever energy consumption level you want with the least possible cost. (The only real current alternative that is rapidly deploy-able to reduce CO2 emissions anyway is nuclear power, which could be a solution but was killed by...the very people now wailing about global warming.)

Conclusion

I would like to see some real quality discussion as to the relative merits of the path the world is on today vs. an interventionist world that is cooler but poorer, more populous, hungrier, and less politically stable. [links stripped by PowerBlogs]

Be sure to check out the disclaimer at the end of the piece.

For more on global warming see my earlier piece, "How Much of a Worry is Global Warming" and the references cited there.

Recall that Posner's view (here and here) is different.

Not much, if you accept the research reported by Joseph Bast in a report put out by The Heartland Institute. (also see Taken by Storm).

Here is a summary of just a few of the points made by Bast in his commentary on Michael Crichton's State of Fear:

... [T]he message of State of Fear has serious public policy consequences:

Most of the environment and health protection regulations in the U.S. ought to be reformed so they address real rather than imaginary risks, and concentrate on what works instead of the liberal orthodoxy of big government solutions to every problem.

The U.S. is quite right to stay out of the Kyoto Protocol--the global warming treaty--and ought to be doing more to persuade other countries of the world that the protocol is unnecessary, premature, and unworkable.

For more on global warming, in addition to the books shown below, I recommend this recent post at Cafe Hayek and this one by the ever-vigilant group at London Fog.



Also catch Bill Sjostrom's comments about Bill Clinton' praise of Kyoto:

"In a scathing attack on the Bush administration's negative stance on global warming, the former president said one of the big obstacles to making progress was the "old energy economy which is well-organised, well-financed and well-connected politically".

This from a president who signed Kyoto, but three and a half years later still had not bothered submitting it to the Senate.

Recall, too, the positions of Becker and Posner, noted here; also see these comments posted earlier from a research colleague.