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Towards a productive libertarian approach on climate, energy and environmental issues

February 10th, 2010 No comments

[This is a work in progress and largely taken from previous posts, but readers might find some value in it in the meanwhile.]

1. Heated but vacuous climate wars

On environmental issues in general and climate in particular, find me someone (like George Will) ranting about “Malthusians” or “environazis” or somesuch, and I’ll show you someone who doesn’t understand – or refuses to acknowledge – the difference between:

(1) wealth-creating markets based on private property and/or voluntary interactions/contracts protected by law, and

(2) the tragedy of the commons situations that result when there are NO property rights (atmosphere, oceans), when the pressures of developed markets swamp indigenous hunter-gather community rules, in many cases where governments formally own and purport to manage “public” resources, and when governments absolve purportedly “private” actors from liability for harms to others (such as via grants of “limited liability“).

So what’s the deal? Here’s a perfect opportunity for skeptics to educate the supposedly market ignorant, but they refuse, preferring to focus instead on why concerned scientists must be wrong, how concerns by a broad swath of society about climate have become a matter of an irrational, deluded “religious” faith, or that those raising their concerns are “misanthropes” or worse.

Such pigheadedness is met by those on the left likewise see libertarians and small-government conservatives as deluded and/or deliberate pawns of evil Earth-destroying corporations.

Both sides, it seems, prefer to fight – and to see themselves as right and the “others” as evil – rather than to reason.

While we should not regret that we cannot really constrain human nature very well, at least libertarian and others who profess to love markets ought to be paying attention to the inadequate institutional framework that is not only poisoning the political atmosphere, but posing risks to important globally and regionally shared open-access commons like the atmosphere and oceans (which are probably are in much more immediate and grave threat than the climate). And they also ought to recognize that there are important economic interests that profit from the current flawed institutional framework and have quite deliberately encouraged the current culture war.

2. Why the reflexive libertarian disengagement?

I have on numerous occasions tried to point out, to posters on the Mises Blog who have addressed climate issues, the stunning unproductivity of the approach that they have taken — that of focussing on science and dismissing motivations and preferences, rather than exploring root causes and middle ground, and have continued to scratch my head at the obstinacy and apparent lack of vision.

The following seem to be the chief factors at work in the general libertarian resistance to any government action on climate change:

– Many libertarians, as CEI’s Chris Horner has stated,  see “global warming [as] the bottomless well of excuses for the relentless growth of Big Government.”  Even libertarians who agree that is AGW is a serious problem are worried, for good reason, that government approaches to climate change will be a train wreck – in other words, that the government “cure” will be worse than the problem.

– Libertarians have in general drifted quite far from environmentalists (though there remain many productive free-market environmentalists/conservationists). Even though libertarians and environmentalists still share a mistrust of big government, environmentalists, on the one hand, generally have come to believe that MORE government is the answer, despite all of the problems associated with the socialized ownership of resources and/or inefficient bureaucratic management (witness the crashing of many managed fisheries in the US), the manipulation of such management to benefit bureaucratic interests, special interests and insiders (wildfire fighting budgets, fossil fuel and hard rock mining, etc.) and the resultant and inescapable politicization of all disputes due to the absence of private markets. On the other hand, many libertarians  reflexively favor business over “concerned citizens”, while other libertarians see that government “solutions” themselves tend to snowball into costly problems that work in favor of big business and create pressures for more government intervention. Thus, libertarians often see environmentalists as simply another group fighting to expand government, and are hostile as a result.

– Libertarians are as subject to reflexive, partisan position-taking as any one else. Because they are reflexively opposed to government action, they find it easier to operate from a position of skepticism in trying to bat down AGW scientific and economic arguments (and to slam the motives of those arguing that AGW must be addressed by government) than to open-mindedly review the evidence or consider ways that libertarian aims can be advanced by using the pressure from “enviro” goals.

This reflexive hostility – at times quite startingly vehement – is a shame (but human), because it blunts the libertarian message in explaining what libertarians understand very well – that environmental problems arise when property rights over resources are not clearly defined or enforceable, and when governments (mis)manage resources, and that there are various private steps and changes in government policy that would undo the previous government actions that are at the root of environmentalists’ frustrations.The reflexive hostility is also a shame because it has the effect, in my mind rather clearly, of rendering libertarians largely blind to the ways that large energy, power and certain manufacturing corporations continue to benefit from (and invest heavily in maintaining) the existing regulatory structure, in ways that shift large costs and risks to unconsenting third parties.

– There are some libertarians and others who profess to love free markets at AEI, CEI, Cato, IER, Master Resource and similar institutions that are partly in pay of fossil fuel interests, and so find it in their personal interests to challenge both climate science and policy proposals that would impose costs on their funders.

I felt particularly struck by the commonness of a refrain we are hearing from various pundits who prefer to question the good will or sanity of environmentalists over the harder work of engaging in a good faith examination and discussion of the underlying institutional problem of ALL “environmental” disputes:  namely, a lack of property rights and/or a means to enforce them. 

3. The whys of climate concerns and calls for “clean” energy

I want to get started with a list of policy changes that I think libertarians can and should be championing in response to the climate policy proposals of others.

The incessant calls for – and criticism of – government climate change policies and government subsidies and mandates for “green/clean power” both ignore root causes and potential common ground.  As a result, both sides of the debate are largely talking past each other, one talking about why there is a pressing need for government policy to address climate change concerns, while the other is concerned chiefly about the likelihood of heavy-handed mis-regulation and wasted resources. This leaves the middle ground unexplored.

There are plenty of root causes for the calls for legislative and regulatory mandates in favor of climate policies and clean / green / renewable power, such as:

  • concerns about apparent ongoing climate change, warnings by scientific bodies and apprehensions of increasing risk as China, India and other developing economies rapidly scale up their CO2, methane and other emissions,
  • the political deals in favor of environmentally dirty coal and older power plants under the Clean Air Act,
  • the enduring role of the federal and state governments in owning vast coal and oil & gas fields and relying on the royalties (which it does not share with citizens, but go into the General Pork Pool, with a relatively meager cut to states),
  • the unwillingness of state courts, in the face of the political power of the energy and power industries, to protect persons and private property from pollution and environmental disruption created by federally-licensed energy development and power projects,
  • the deep involvement of the government in developing, encouraging and regulating nuclear power, and
  • the frustration of consumer demand for green energy, and the inefficient and inaccurate pricing and supply of electricity, resulting from the grant by states of public utility monopolies and the regulation of the pricing and investments by utilities, which greatly restricts the freedom of power markets, from the ability of consumers to choose their provider, to the freedom of utilities to determine what infrastructure to invest in, to even simple information as to the cost of power as it varies by time of day and season, and the amount of electricity that consumers use by time of day or appliance.

4. Is a small-government, libertarian climate/green agenda possible and desirable?

So what is a good libertarian to suggest? This seems rather straight-forward, once one doffs his partisan, do-battle-with-evil-green-fascist-commies armor and puts on his thinking cap.

From my earlier comment to Stephan Kinsella:

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 [my persistence in pointing this out it, and in questioning whether his blog was a front for fossil fuel interests, apparently earned me the boot].

As I have noted in a litany of posts at my blog, pro-freedom regulatory changes might include:

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 from mineral and fossil fuel development be rebated to citizens (with a slice to the administering agency), and
  • reducing understandable NIMBY problems by (i) encouraging project planners to proactively compensate persons in affected areas and (ii) reducing fears of corporate abuses, by providing that corporate executives have personal liability for environmental torts (in recognition of the fact that the profound risk-shifting that limited liability corporations are capable of that often elicits strong public opposition and fuels regulatory pressure).

5. Other libertarian discussants

A fair number of libertarian commenters on climate appear to accept mainstream sciences, though there remain natural policy disagreements. Ron Bailey, science correspondence at Reason and Jonathan Adler, a resources law prof at Case Western, Lynne Kiesling at Knowledge Problem blog, and David Zetland, who blogs on water issues, come to mind.

I`m not the only one – other libertarian climate proposals are here:

  • Jonathan Adler at Case Western (2000); he has other useful commentary here, here,
  • Bruce Yandle, Professor Emeritus at Clemson University, Senior Fellow at PERC (the “free market” environmentalism think tank) and a respected thinker on common-law and free-market approaches to environmental problems, has in PERC’s Spring 2008 report specifically proposed a A No-Regrets Carbon Reduction Policy;
  • Iain Murray of CEI; and
  • Cato’s Jerry Taylor is a frequent commentator and Indur Goklany has advanced a specific climate change-targeted proposal.
  •  AEI’s Steven Hayward and Ken Green together have provided a number of detailed analyses (though with a distinct tendency to go lightly on fossil fuels).

Several libertarians recently urged constructive libertarian approaches to climate change:

There have been several open disputes, which indicate a shift from dismissal of science to a discussion of policy; the below exchanges of view are worthy of note:

  • The Cato Institute dedicated its entire August 2008 monthly issue of Cato Unbound, its online forum, to discussing policy responses to ongoing climate change.  The issue, entitled “Keeping Our Cool: What to Do about Global Warming“, contains essays from and several rounds of discussion between Jim Manzi, statistician and CEO of Applied Predictive Technologies, Cato Institute author Indur Goklany; climate scientist Joseph J. Romm, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress; and Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, the co-founders of The Breakthrough Institute.  My extended comments are here.
  • Reason Foundation, posted an exchange on Climate Change and Property Rights June 12th, 2008 (involving Reason’s Shikha Dalmia, Case Western Reserve University law professor Jonathan H. Adler, and author Indur Goklany); discussed by Ron Bailey of ReasonOnline here; here`s my take.
  • Debate at Reason, October 2007, Ron Bailey, Science Correspondent at Reason, Fred L. Smith, Jr., President and Founder of CEI, and Lynne Kiesling, Senior Lecturer in Economics at Northwestern University, and former director of economic policy at the Reason Foundation.
  • Reason Foundation, Global Warming and Potential Policy Solutions September 7th, 2006 (Reason’s Shikha Dalmia, George Mason University Department of Economics Chair Don Boudreaux, and the International Policy Network’s Julian Morris).

 

Finally, I have collected here some Austrian-based papers on environmental issues that are worthy of note:

Environmental Markets?  Links to Austrians

Ones such paper is the following: Terry L. Anderson and J. Bishop Grewell, Property Rights Solutions for the Global Commons: Bottom-Up or Top-Down?

Elinor Ostrom: Another Nobel Laureate jumps the climate shark (Proceed at Own Risk)

December 18th, 2009 No comments

On December 16, Spiegel Online ran the following interview with Elinor Ostrom, whose 2009 Nobel prize in economics (shared with Oliver Williamson), was widely applauded by Austrian economists (and whose work I have referred to any number of time previously).

Der Spiegel asked some good questions, and Ostrom provided interesting responses, though thoughtful readers of course are left asking for more.

I`ve tweaked the formatting, added my own emphasis, and interspersed a few bracketed comments of my own:

 

Nobel Laureate Elinor Ostrom

‘Climate Rules Set from the Top Are Not Enough`

The world is gathered in Copenhagen in an
effort to reach an agreement to slow global warming. Elinor Ostrom,
winner of this year’s Nobel prize for economics, spoke with SPIEGEL
ONLINE about shared ownership, local action and why we can’t sit around
waiting for politicians to act.

 

SPIEGEL ONLINE: The Copenhagen summit is about setting new
global rules for how we treat the Earth. But are people willing to
change their personal lives
accordingly?

Elinor Ostrom: Under the right circumstances, people are willing
to accept additional efforts and costs. It all depends on trust in the
fact that others will also act.
Humans have the capacity to engage and
see that their own long-term future is harmed if they don’t change
their lifestyles. Under the right circumstances they understand: It’s
not me against you. It’s all of us against ourselves, if we don’t act.
So trust really is the most important resource.

[The multi-decade, global trust-building exercise has made a great deal of progress, despite being hampered by gamesmanship, domestic rent-seeking, partisan mistrust, legitimate worries about abuse of government, and the difficulty we all face in actually agreeing there might be a problem (as opposed to a big scam/mass delusion).]

SPIEGEL ONLINE: How can we generate enough trust so that we all act in concert?

Ostrom: Rules set from the top are not enough. Successful
communities often have a few common design principles —
monitoring and
sanctioning of the participants, for example. They also have conflict
resolution mechanisms
in place and the people have some authority to
make their own rules
. Under those circumstances humans can develop some
trust in each other — faith that if they take a costly action that
benefits everybody in the long run, others will also invest.

[Yes, but does “community”-level action scale? How do we make a “community” with billions of people we have little interaction with? Is Ostrom suggesting we need more global-level “grassroots” community-building, in addition to leader-level trust-building?]

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is it less effective if governments establish strict rules from the top down?

Ostrom: Because people will not identify with it. My research
has shown that forests managed by local communities are in a far better
state than state-run parks, where locals feel left out and officials
can be bribed.
Let us imagine, we live in a village and have all agreed
that none of us is going to be in the forest on Saturday or Sunday, so
that we can give the forest time to recreate. If I then see you in the
forest when you’re not supposed to be, I will probably yell at you. If
only the state is in charge, I will just walk on past.

[Now she`s talking; libertarians and a host of others almost completely reject even climate “science” out of a reflexive but understandable concern that climate “policy” is or will be sufficiently corrupt as to vitiate any intended/purported gains. The same is true with many on environmentalists and others on the left, who feel that powerful corporate insiders will make climate policy ineffective.]

SPIEGEL ONLINE: In your research, you focused on local and
regional levels. What makes you think that your solutions would work
for the entire planet as well?

Ostrom: Indeed, the global scale is a challenge. Building that
kind of knowledge between the different parties is tricky. We need our
global leaders to take some of the decisions on a very big level.
Here
at the summit, those guys are talking to each other and gaining some
trust because they meet face to face. But then they go home — and
that’s when the real action starts.

[It`s tricky, but much progress has been made; even Sen. Robert “Coal” Byrd is signalling that coal states need to change, and China abd India both concede change is needed – though naturally they make an equity argument that they have a right to catch up with out per capita CO2 emissons (which are four times theirs).]

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Can money help to build trust between developing nations and industrialized nations?

Ostrom: Maybe, and it is hard to see a climate deal without
serious financial commitments.
But at the same time, I am very worried
and nervous about corruption. If we pour money into a country in which
the corruption level is very high, we would be kidding ourselves not to
think that some of it will end up in the wrong pockets.
At first, a lot
of the proposals on the table sound great. But four to six years later,
you have a lot of politicians who have money in Swiss bank accounts.
What we need are tight rules and controls to ensure that the billions
that might be put on the table here are used correctly.

[Ostrom is absolutely right, if understated – perhaps most “development” aid has been disastrous. Still, it might make sense for some aid money to go to climate adaptation projects, and to allow offsets for preserving tropical forests – if the money goes to indigenous peoples, and not corrupt governments.]

SPIEGEL ONLINE: In other words, an anti-corruption task force
like the one that exists in Indonesia — might be the best
environmental protection agency?

Ostrom: Absolutely! If you look at the role corruption plays in
giving away forests to big corporations and in looking away if forest
protection rules are broken, you will see that bribery is one of the
main contributors to environmental destruction.

[A fruitful focus by libertarians and conservatives might be on simply helping to bolster law and order – including the property rights of locals – in developing nations.]

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Is it possible to save the climate with a single treaty?

Ostrom: One treaty will not solve the problem entirely. This is
why I propose a so-called polycentric approach to tackling climate
change. We need all levels of human society to work on this to be
effective in the long run. Cities, villages, communities and networks
of people have been neglected as players.

[I`m not sure I agree with Otrom here; there has been plenty of action on climate on individual, local, corporate and state levels, thanks in no small part to the stifling of climate policy at federal levels under the GWB/Cheney administrations. While such “thousand points of light” efforts may be bolstering mutual trust at various levels around the world, federal and international policy coordination is still needed, fraught with rent-seeking problems though it may be, ]

SPIEGEL ONLINE: What happens if there is no agreement?

Ostrom: We need to get away from the idea that there is only one
solution on the global scale. There are many, many levels in between.
So we need to take action on smaller levels. If the politicians do not
agree in Copenhagen, I would like to embarrass the hell out of them
by
getting some agreements going where people are doing something —
essentially saying: “We are tired of waiting for you.” The city of
Freiburg is a very good place to see what that actually means.

[Politicians don`t embarrasss so easily; rather they see opportunities to jump on and use band wagons to bolster their own careers and to steer favors to rent-seekers.]

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why Freiburg of all places?

Ostrom: I spend quite a bit of time in Germany and I’m very
impressed by some of the local action I see. Local action cannot do it
fully, but just think about all the bicycle-paths that they have built
there. That is a case where the action of individuals is reducing
emissions. At the same time it is a very healthy thing. On Sundays
everybody is going to the woods and has a good time on their bikes —
and not in their cars. It’s good for your health and for the
environment. So everyone should ask himself: Why don’t I bike to work
and leave the damn car at home or get rid of it entirely?

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Still, such a decentralized approach sounds
painfully slow. We need rapid action if we wish to limit global warming
to 2 degrees Celsius.

Ostrom: If we sit here and twiddle our thumbs and wait for these
guys up there to make a decision — that is what I would call painfully
slow. Should we just blame the politicians? I am not saying that we can
solve it entirely, but we can make significant steps. To some extent we
can challenge them. Everyone can contact foolish politicians like some
US Congressmen who oppose climate change action by e-mail or phone and
let them know that they are acting irresponsibly.

[Unfortunately, Ostrom doesn`t address how we figure out how to trust our own government, and how to mitigate/manage the problem of rent-seeking. But I`ve tried to note the types of policies that libertarians cand – and should – support here. Some Austrians might even want to consider the root cause of rampant renk-seeking and fights over the wheel – the corporate risk-shifting juggernaut that has its genesis in the grant of limited liability]

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Why is the US so reluctant to fight climate change?

Ostrom: In the economic emergency we are experiencing, some
people think that we cannot afford it. I think it is the other way
around, if we don’t act now we will run into even greater economic
problems in the future. And of course we still have the bad legacy of
our previous president, George W. Bush.
For eight years, the White
House didn’t consider the issue to be important. We did not have
American leaders who understood that there is a scientific foundation.
Obama has a much higher chance of understanding the science. But even
for him it is just damn tough.

[It`s  even more complicated, obviously. The Bush administrtion actually DID work on building trust with China and India, supported the IPCC science process, etc. But they were also rather naked catering to coal and other fossil feul interests, while making political hay by labelling all concerned scare-mongering socialists. Not only is it extremely difficult to coordinate this issue globally, it`s also difficult politicaly to tell Americans that fossil-fuel-based energy is underpriced, to seek to undo public utility monopolies, or to address the favors to dirty coal in the Clean Air Act, or to streamline nuclear power licensing.]

SPIEGEL ONLINE: Worries about climate change have slowly
resulted in people seeing the Earth’s atmosphere as a common good that
we all must protect. Where is the next challenge?

Ostrom: The oceans! They are being threatened to an ever greater
degree. It is a disaster, a very difficult situation. The fish
resources are overexploited and waste, including CO2, is dumped in huge
quantities into the ocean. The law of the sea has not been effective at
all. A lot of fishing ships act like roving bandits. That’s why better
ocean governance is one of the top priorities for safeguarding the
future.

Interview conducted by Christoph Seidler and Christian Schwägerl

I would be remiss if I did not point out that Ostrom recently elucidated her views on climate policy in much greater length in a paper that she prepared at the behest of the World Bank. Yes, Ostrom`s trying to give the Beast indigestion – from the Inside. 

Here`s the extract of her paper,  “A Polycentric Approach for Coping with Climate Change”:

Abstract: This paper
proposes an alternative approach to addressing the complex problems of
climate change caused by greenhouse gas emissions. The author, who won
the 2009 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences, argues that single policies
adopted only at a global scale are unlikely to generate sufficient
trust among citizens and firms so that collective action can take place
in a comprehensive and transparent manner that will effectively reduce
global warming. Furthermore, simply recommending a single governmental
unit to solve global collective action problems is inherently weak
because of free-rider problems. For example, the Carbon Development
Mechanism (CDM) can be ‘gamed’ in ways that hike up prices of natural
resources and in some cases can lead to further natural resource
exploitation. Some flaws are also noticeable in the Reducing Emissions
from Deforestation and Forest Degradation in Developing Countries
(REDD) program. Both the CDM and REDD are vulnerable to the free-rider
problem. As an alternative, the paper proposes a polycentric approach
at various levels with active oversight of local, regional, and
national stakeholders. Efforts to reduce global greenhouse gas
emissions are a classic collective action problem that is best
addressed at multiple scales and levels.
Given the slowness and
conflict involved in achieving a global solution to climate change,
recognizing the potential for building a more effective way of reducing
green house gas emissions at multiple levels is an important step
forward. A polycentric approach has the main advantage of encouraging
experimental efforts at multiple levels, leading to the development of
methods for assessing the benefits and costs of particular strategies
adopted in one type of ecosystem and compared to results obtained in
other ecosystems. Building a strong commitment to find ways of reducing
individual emissions is an important element for coping with this
problem, and having others also take responsibility can be more
effectively undertaken in small- to medium-scale governance units that
are linked together through information networks and monitoring at all
levels. This paper was prepared as a background paper for the 2010
World Development Report on Climate Change
.

I left this earlier comment on the paper at the blog of libertarian-leaning water economist David Zetland:

TokyoTom
said…

David, I saw this elsewhere and read through this,but count me
unimpressed. It`s basically a recounting of what we already know – that
there are formidable barriers to reaching coordinated global decisions
on climate policies, that local, regional and efforts are proceeding
and will be needed in any event, both in mitigation and adaptation.

Nothing about whether local, regional and national efforts scale to the size of the problem.

Bob Murphy, Implicit Apologist for Coal, Misconstrues the Real Debate & Lessons from "Climategate"

December 7th, 2009 3 comments

Bob Murphy recently offered LvMI readers a post; “Apologist Responses to Climategate Misconstrue the Real Debate”; I left a few comments in response (minor edits).

(My apologies to Bob for  borrowing and tweaking his title.)

Bob, interesting title –

“Apologist Responses to Climategate Misconstrue the Real Debate (Quantitative, not Qualitative)”

Have you failed to notice that practically every commenter on threads here, as well as at “MasterResource” misunderstands and misconstrues precisely what you have spelled out?

Interesting place to post it, as well.  MasterResource? Isn`t that Rob Bradley`s so-called “free market” energy blog that bans libertarian commenters who dare to note:

– the blog`s failure to ever actually argue for freer energy markets or to criticize the dirty favors given under the status quo to coal, or

– the blog`s close affiliations with naked rent-seeking groups like IER (which Exxon expressly de-funded due to its no-longer “productive” stance on climate change)(and which pays you for your climate work) and American Energy Alliance?

See: http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/search.aspx?q=bradley

It`s curious that you focus on climate “apologists”, while ignoring how you yourself so adroitly act as one for the reflexive “skeptics”:

– “It’s true, an email from Phil Jones by itself doesn’t make Richard Lindzen right or wrong, but when policymakers need to decide which scientific experts they can trust, then the CRU emails are very relevant.”

Um, wouldn`t a “real” skeptic say you are both appealing to authority, and by referring to trust, dismissing some on an “ad hom” basis, without addressing their arguments?

– You slip by the obvious nonsense deliberately spouted by Limbaugh, Fox and others, by pretending they`re actually being reasonable:

“Of course, what Limbaugh and the Fox interviewer meant was, “The theory that says governments around the world need to heavily intervene in their energy sectors right away, or else our grandchildren will face climate catastrophes, cannot be justified by careful scientific research.”

Respectfully, hogwash. Why the effort to put lipstick on pigs?

While I find a fair bit of your post to be useful, other parts are misleading:

– “the issue isn’t, “Is ‘climate’ a useful theory to explain thermometer readings?” No, the real debate concerns very specific and quantitative disagreements.”

This really misses the gist: the real scientific dispute about ONE aspect of climate science is about climate “sensitivity” – the long-term, multi-decadal average temperature response of the Earth`s surface temperature to a doubling of CO2 – and is a specific disagreement over quantities that can only be GUESSED at in advance and are very difficult to estimate even in retrospect.

You – like “skeptics” like Lindzen – totally ignore ocean acidification.

– “The reason QED (quantum electrodynamics) is powerful is that it allowed physicists to make very precise predictions that were experimentally verified.”

It`s funny that you mention this, as if it implies we should ignore/discount climate science – until it can be “experimentally verified.”  Well, we`re running the experiment right now, except we have no “control”, no re-runs, and little or no control over the very experiment itself. Excuse me for not finding cnfort in this, or in your lack of willingness to address it.

– “If the climate scientists cannot tell if a particular remedy is working, it means that they aren’t exactly sure how the climate would have evolved in the absence of such a remedy. In other words, Trenberth at least is admitting that he is not at all confident in the precise, quantitative predictions that the alarmists are citing as proof of the need for immediate government intervention.”

Bob, scientists all recognize that there is a great deal of unpredictibility/”noise” in the climate system; there simply are are NO “precise, quantitative predictions” that any scientist is making. I`m surprised you find anything surprising here.

– “`All the rest is economics.`   Since that is Schmidt’s view, it’s not surprising that he thinks Climategate is much ado about nothing.”

I read this differently; Schmidt indicates, that from a scientists`s view,  we ought to immediately stop forcing the climate, but acknowledges that the decision is not his to make, and involves cost-benefit money/political decisions that belong to others.

– “Those of us who are not experts on climate models now have proof that the official line that “the science is settled” was a bluff.”

It`s not clear what you actually mean here, Bob, but in any case you have absolutely no such thing.  The “official line” has always been a political argument about that society should respond to growing scientific knowledge; these emails do NOT alter the underlying knowledge.

– “but the confidence we should right now place in their modeling is much lower than what their biggest enthusiasts have been assuring us for years.”

On what basis do you offer this opinion, and the implicit comfort that coal producers/utilities/their investors want to give us that burning all the rest of the world`s fossil fuels will leave the climate/oceans hunky-dory (ignoring all the dangerous gunk included it)?

Tom

Let me close with a note that, despite my criticisms, I commend Bob`s effort; I encourage him to continue to check that he`s not falling prey to sophisticated forms of self-delusion:

 

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

A few more “delusional” thoughts to John Quiggin on partisan perceptions & libertarian opposition to collective action

Categories: Bob Murphy, climate change, Rob Bradley Tags:

A libertarian immodestly summarizes a few modest climate policy proposals

November 3rd, 2009 No comments

[Folks, I hope you do a better job than I do at saving draft posts before they`re finalized; I just lost alot of work. This will necessarily be shorter.]

I have on numerous occasions tried to point out, to posters on the Mises
Blog who have addressed climate issues, the stunning unproductive approach. Rather than simply reiterating my criticisms, let me get started with a
list of policy changes that I think libertarians can and should be
championing in response to the climate policy proposals of others.

The incessant calls for – and criticism of –
government climate change policies and government subsidies and mandates for “green/clean power” both ignore root
causes and potential common ground.  As a result, both sides of the
debate are largely talking past each other, one talking about why there
is a pressing need for government policy to address climate change
concerns,
while the other is concerned chiefly about the likelihood of
heavy-handed mis-regulation and wasted resources. This leaves the
middle ground unexplored.

There are plenty of root causes for the calls for legislative
and regulatory mandates in favor of climate policies and clean / green / renewable power,
such as:

  • concerns about climate change,
  • the political deal in favor of dirty coal and older power plants under the Clean Air Act, 
  • the enduring role of the federal and state governments in owning
    vast coal and oil & gas fields and relying on the royalties, which it do not go to
    citizens but into the General Pork Pool, with an unhealthy cut to states), 
  • the unwillingness of state courts, in the face of the political
    power of the energy and power industries, to protect persons and private property from
    pollution and environmental disruption created by federally-licensed energy and power projects,
  • the deep involvement of the government in developing, encouraging and regulating nuclear power, and
  • the
    frustration of consumer demand for green energy, and the inefficient
    and inaccurate pricing and supply of electricity
    , resulting from the
    grant by states of public utility monopolies and the regulation of the pricing
    and investments by utilities, which greatly restricts the freedom of power
    markets, from the ability of consumers to choose their provider, to the
    freedom of utilities to determine what infrastructure to invest in, to
    even simple information as to the cost of power as it varies by time of day and season, and the amount of electricity that consumers use by time of day or appliance.

So what is a good libertarian to suggest? This seems rather straight-forward, once one doffs his partisan, do-battle-with-evil-green-fascist-commies armor and puts on his thinking cap.

From my earlier comment to Stephan Kinsella:

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 [my persistence in
pointing this out it, and in questioning whether his blog was a front for
fossil fuel interests, apparently earned me the boot
].

As I have noted in a litany of posts at my blog, pro-freedom regulatory changes might include:

  • accelerating cleaner power investments by eliminating corporate
    income taxes or allowing immediate depreciation of capital investment
    (which would make new investments more attractive),
  • eliminating antitrust immunity for public utility monopolies (to
    increase competition, 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).

I`m not the only one – other libertarian climate proposals are here:

Several libertarians have recently been urging constructive libertarian approaches to climate change:

These discussions and exchanges of view are also worthy of note:

  • The Cato Institute has dedicated its entire August 2008 monthly issue of Cato Unbound, its online forum, to discussing policy responses to ongoing climate change.  The issue, entitled “Keeping Our Cool: What to Do about Global Warming“, contains essays from and several rounds of discussion between Cato Institute author Indur Goklany; climate scientist Joseph J. Romm, a Senior Fellow at the Center for American Progress; and Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus, the co-founders of The Breakthrough Institute.  My extended comments are here.

  • Debate at Reason, October 2007, Ron Bailey, Science Correspondent at Reason, Fred L. Smith, Jr., President and Founder of
    CEI, and Lynne Kiesling, Senior Lecturer in Economics at
    Northwestern University, and former director of economic policy at the
    Reason Foundation.
  • Reason Foundation, Global Warming and Potential Policy Solutions September 7th, 2006 (Reason’s Shikha Dalmia, George Mason University Department of Economics
    Chair Don Boudreaux, and the International Policy Network’s
    Julian Morris)

Finally, I have collected here some Austrian-based papers on environmental issues that are worthy of note:

Environmental Markets?  Links to Austrians

One such paper is the following: Terry L. Anderson and J. Bishop Grewell, Property Rights Solutions for the Global Commons: Bottom-Up or Top-Down?

The Road Not Taken IV: My other hysterical comments on climate science & how Austrians hamstring themselves

November 2nd, 2009 2 comments

In my initial post, on how Austrians strive for a self-comforting irrelevancy on climate change, I copied my chief comment to Stephan Kinsella.

I copy below my other posts and some of the remarks I was responding to on Stephan`s thread, including the one that I was unable to post – for some reason I am trying to figure out (but that Stephan tells me was not a result of moderation by him; I note my full apology, as stated in my update to my preceding post):

  • 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

  • Stephan Kinsella
    [Note: this is the comment to which I responded with the remarks copied on my preceding post]

    “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

  • 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. [To clarify, I didn`t mean that I want to advance “the green agenda”, but that the pro-freedom policy suggestions I have raised should be attainable because greens and others might see that they also serve THEIR agendas.]

    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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • 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

  • TokyoTom [Note: my original post contained some bolding that went haywire and bolded most of the post; I`ve fixed that.]

    Okay, here`s a few more unconsidered thoughts to show how hysterical
    I am, am hooked on religion, hate mankind, [want to] 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

  • 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

 

This is last version of the comment that I tried to post several times:

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.

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.

Here`s hoping for more sincere discourse.

TT

[Update- apology] The Road Not Taken III: Stephan Kinsella plugs his ears on the Austrians` obstinate, willful irrelevancy in the climate debate?

November 2nd, 2009 5 comments

[Note: Stephan Kinsella tells me he has NOT put my posts on his thread on moderation.  I believe him, and so (even as I fail to understand why I was unable to post a particular comment after a number of attempts), as noted I would in my original post, I withdraw my charge that he put my comments on moderation, and offer my sincere apology to Stephan (and to LvMI readers) for my mistake and for the offense that I imagine I may have caused to his sense of fair play. I am happy to do this, though of course I deeply regret my mistake.

Stephan, I`m sorry. I take your word that the conclusion I jumped to was wrong.

I am still trying to puzzle through what happened; below I have restored an edited version of my prior post, with the unjustifed portions deleted.

Meanwhile, the discussion continues at the Mises Blog, at the above thread.]

 

In my preceding post I commented on Austrian (dis)engagement on climate issues, as exemplified by Stephan Kinsella`s Mises Blog post, “Physicist Howard Hayden’s one-letter disproof of global warming claims”.

[clip]

Instead of the usual cheerful message LvMI provides when comments
are accepted (“Confirmation…  Your comment has been submitted!)”, my
attempts  to comment are now met with the message, “Thank you for commenting.  Your comment has been received and held for approval by the blog owner.”

While there are times that this message is automatically served up
for technical reasons, such as not providing proper email address
(i.e., by accidently typing in “.comh” instead of “.com”) or providing
too many links (which may trigger a spamblocking feature), this [seemed to me] to be fairly clearly NOT one of those occasions – I had just successfully
posted a couple of comments that included links, and my “failed” post
included my usual email address (properly formatted, as I can confirm
simply by backing up) and no links.

[clip]

I copy below the comment that I
[had supposed] turned his playful non-responsiveness (see his comment to my prior post) into stony silence/silencing:

  • Published: October 31, 2009 1:00 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, (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

  • [Note: I had intended to excise the following from my comment,
    but it`s just as well that it slipped in, as it serves to illustrate
    what productive Austrian approaches to climate issues might look like.
    I`ve added a link to Roy Cordato.]

    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.”

    The Road Not Taken III: Stephan Kinsella plugs his ears on the Austrians` obstinate, willful irrelevancy in the climate debate

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

October 30th, 2009 3 comments

[Update: Readers may wish to note the latest developments, as I note in these follow-up posts.]

Stephan Kinsella – whom I have engaged before on the ramifications of the decidedly non-libertarian state grant of limited liabiility to corporations – has a new post up on the Mises Blog on global warming;  his first on this subject, as far as I know.

The post is surprisingly short, and consists of a simple introduction by Stephan a copy of letter to the EPA (which he has appended) that one Howard Hayden, a retired physicist, one whom Stephan assures us is “a staunch advocate of sound energy policy” – whatever that means (hey, me too!) – submitted in connection with the EPA`s Supreme Court-mandated consideration of whether to regulate CO2 and other greenhouse gases. Stephan also refers to Dr. Hayden`s letter as a “one-letter disproof of global warming claims.”

I welcome Stephan to this discussion, which has taken place at the Mises Blog in fits and starts over the past few years. However, the absence of any commentary by Stephan leaves me scratching my head. Where`s the beef? Are this person`s scientific views on climate so convincing or obviously correct, and are the policy implication so straightforward, and correct, that we should all “get it” and agree, without any commentary by Stephan? Or Is Stephan simply playing with our credulity, and his own?

In any case, given both (1) the focus of Austrian economics on productively addressing conflicts between people with conflicting preferences (and the frequently negative role that governments play in resource tussles, generally to the benefit of entrenched insiders and to government itself) and (2) the recent Nobel prize award to Elinor Ostrom regarding the ways that humans work together successfully or not) to address common resources, I am simply disappointed. Is this all that Stephan has to offer?

Observing that Stephan fits within a grand tradition at Mises of shallow thought on climate and other “environmental” issues, I felt compelled to post a few thoughts at Stephan`s post, which I copy below:

 

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 are 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 [persistently pointing this out it, and questioning whether his blog was a front for fossil fuel interests, appears to be what earned me the boot].

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 of it in favor of the comforting distraction of 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 [oops, I meant pH is “falling”, as I`ve noted in a previous comment about rapidly changing ocean pH]  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

I note that Stephan closes his introduction to Dr. Hayden`s letter with the following:

“I love Hayden’s email sign-off, “People will do anything to save the world … except take a course in science.””

Would that problems of governance of shared resources were so easy as taking a science course! Then ALL of us Austrians, and not merely our leading lights at the Mises Blog, could simply pack up and go home, and leave everything to a few philosopher-king scientists!

[update] Bob Murphy, Rob Bradley and the Austrian Road Not Taken on Climate by two fossil-fuels gunslingers

October 28th, 2009 No comments

[Update: I copy at bottom a follow-up exchange I had on Bob`s thread with another reader – radio silence from Bob.]

Bob Murphy has a new post up at his blog, “CBO Testimony Misleads on Cost of Cap-and-Trade“, that draws attention to a new blog post at the Institute of Energy Research that Bob says he “had a lot to do with”.

The IER post rightly criticizes some of the numbers that the Congressional Budget Office has released, but the IER is playing games itself.

I left the following note at Bob`s (now substantially goosed up for the benefit of readers):

TokyoTom said…

IER? Isn`t that the “free-market” blog that bans libertarians who are not on their pro-coal, pro-pollution wagon? [Oops, I confused this with Rob Bradley`s MasterResource blog; IER is different, in that IER is – much more clearly than MR – an active rent-seeking front for fossil fuel interests, which Exxon made clear last year when it publicly announced that it would no longer fund IER`s “unproductive”, climate-skeptic position.]

But while we`re on the subject, let`s not forget:

– Austrians` fundamental objections to cost-benefit analysis;


that the mining, transport and combustion of coal, in addition to whatever climate “cost” it
might have to various people whose preferences can`t be measured, have
very real and significant costs in terms of damage to persons and property;


that federal law authorizes this (via the “Clean Air Act”, surface mining laws and ownership of the TVA), and grandfathers the very worst
midwestern utilities, the oldest 10% of which (41 or so) are  estimated to be responsible for 43% of the
$62 billion in annual  damages (not including damages from harm to ecosystems, effects of some air pollutants such as mercury, or climate change)(according
to the latest NAS report on the indirect costs of fossil fuels);

– that our federal government and states own most of the coal deposits and are otherwise addicted to the royalty revenues and complicit in turning a blind eye to damages;

– the future “costs” that the IER analysis refers to (in 2050) are not discounted to present value;


that alternative policies – such as

are never advanced, much less their costs weighed [that is, no attempt is ever made to engage opponents in good faith or to seek mutual gains by working to resolve underlying problems];

– the costs/consequences/risks and equities of “do-nothing” policies are hardly considered, and when so are heavily discounted;

– that deliberate “geo-engineering” holds no promise as a panacea, and itself is fraught with issues about statism, preferences, risks and liaibility;


the need for investment in infrastructure and change in laws to adapt
(and foster adaptation) to very real ongoing climate changes are never
discussed; and

– no one at IER ever seems to question the
unstated presumption that utilities and our transportation industries
have somehow homesteaded an ownership right over the global atmosphere – or the massive role that our federal government and states play as coal and other energy resource owners),
so that it`s perfectly okay to dismiss the preferences of those who
have concerns at home [those “religious” nuts like Exxon, and our Academies of Science] and those abroad in the least developed countries
that are most vulnerable to damages (much less to suggest how those
injured should be aided).

In other words, those defending the
status quo seem to have abandoned any Austrian training (or to have no
familiarity with its concern for problem-solving and awareness that
[as Block points out] common law protection of private property rights was hijacked a century
ago, with massive pollution and rent-seeking problems being the result
).

Someone
ought to post a few of these thoughts over at IER; Rob Bradley somehow
finds comments of this type over fundamental principles to be “ad hominem” arguments [of the kind that very quickly tested his patience and got me banned, without any word to his co-bloggers, who found my comments worthy of considered response].

Sure, we should fight over policy, but let`s not ignore principles or put our heads in the sand.

October 28, 2009 10:10 AM

*  From the NAS report:

Coal accounts for about half the electricity produced in the U.S.  In
2005 the total annual external damages from sulfur dioxide, nitrogen
oxides, and particulate matter created by burning coal at 406
coal-fired power plants, which produce 95 percent of the nation’s
coal-generated electricity, were about $62 billion; these nonclimate
damages average about 3.2 cents for every kilowatt-hour (kwh)
of energy
produced.  A relatively small number of plants — 10 percent of the total number — accounted for 43 percent of the damages.  By 2030, nonclimate damages are estimated to fall to 1.7 cents per kwh.

[update:

Supporters of cap and trade always turn to the
argument that opponents are burying their heads in the sand. It’s not
true. This legislation won’t do anything to help the environment. It is
merely a front so that the administration and the Democrats can say
they did “something.” We don’t need legislation that is going to cost
every single American household and won’t even be able to achieve its
stated goals. Write your Congressmen at
http://dontcapandtradeourjobs.net/?tr15.

[A], you`re missing my higher -level poinht, which is that IER is
rather apparently UNINTERESTED in engaging productively or on a
principled basis on this issue; rather, they are simply sniping (though
they make excellent points) at the cap-and-traders).

Though,
of course, from the view of those financing them, this form of
engagement may very well be “productive”, if it delays any action that
will lower returns to coal, rail or utility investors.

What`s
regrettable is that this obfuscation, which has been going on for
decades, is what is likely to saddle us with extremely costly, porky
and ineffective “climate change” policies.

Republicans (Sen. Lindsey Graham & others) give Dems a climate deal? In exchange for streamlining for nukes, "clean coal" subsidies, offshore drilling, carbon price ceiling & import taxes

October 12th, 2009 No comments

Senate Dems, who lack sufficient votes on their own to approve a cap-and-trade bill over a possible Republican fillibuster, have sought help from sympathetic Republicans, who have apparently used this leverage to broaden the bill and to extract key concessions on various issues; such  concessions are sure to please a wide range of lobbying groups, and it looks like there may be a good chance that they will be sufficient to slip a cap-and-trade bill past opposition from coal-producing and -burning states.

The framework of the bi-partisan package was spelled out on Sunday, October11, in a joint NYT op-ed, “Yes We Can (Pass Climate Change Legislation)”,  by liberal Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) and conservative Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC).

While details are sketchy (and details sure to still be fought over), it looks like Pres. Obama will have, if not final legislation, then at least high prospects for a cap-and-trade bill that he can use for the negotiations that will start in a few weeks in Copenhagen (over the shape of a global climate treaty to replace the expiring Kyoto Protocol).

Excerpts from the Kerry-Graham op-ed are here (emphasis added; with a few comments in brackets):

Many Democrats insist on tough new standards for curtailing the
carbon emissions
that cause global warming. Many Republicans remain
concerned about the cost to Americans relative to the environmental
benefit and are adamant about breaking our addiction to foreign sources
of oil
[Republicans are so easily jerked around over “energy security”].

However, we refuse to accept the argument that the
United States cannot lead the world in addressing global climate
change. [but do China, India and others want to follow?] We are also convinced that we have found both a framework for
climate legislation to pass Congress and the blueprint for a
clean-energy future that will revitalize our economy, protect current
jobs and create new ones, safeguard our national security and reduce
pollution. …

First, we agree that climate change is real and threatens our
economy and national security. That is why we are advocating aggressive
reductions in our emissions of the carbon gases
that cause climate
change. We will minimize the impact on major emitters through a
market-based system that will provide both flexibility and time for big
polluters to come into compliance without hindering global
competitiveness or driving more jobs overseas. [cap-and-trade]

Second, while we
invest in renewable energy sources like wind and solar, we must also
take advantage of nuclear power, our single largest contributor of
emissions-free power. Nuclear power needs to be a core component of
electricity generation if we are to meet our emission reduction
targets. We need to jettison cumbersome regulations that have stalled
the construction of nuclear plants in favor of a streamlined permit
system
that maintains vigorous safeguards while allowing utilities to
secure financing for more plants. We must also do more to encourage
serious investment in research and development to find solutions to our
nuclear waste problem
.

Third, climate change legislation is an
opportunity to get serious about breaking our dependence on foreign
oil
. For too long, we have ignored potential energy sources off our
coasts and underground. Even as we increase renewable electricity
generation, we must recognize that for the foreseeable future we will
continue to burn fossil fuels. To meet our environmental goals, we must
do this as cleanly as possible. The United States should aim to become
the Saudi Arabia of clean coal.
For this reason, we need to provide new
financial incentives for companies that develop carbon capture and
sequestration
technology.

In addition, we are committed to
seeking compromise on additional onshore and offshore oil and gas
exploration
— work that was started by a bipartisan group in the Senate
last Congress. Any exploration must be conducted in an environmentally
sensitive manner and protect the rights and interests of our coastal
states.

Fourth, we cannot sacrifice another job to competitors
overseas. China and India are among the many countries investing
heavily in clean-energy technologies that will produce millions of
jobs. There is no reason we should surrender our marketplace to
countries that do not accept environmental standards. For this reason,
we should consider a border tax on items produced in countries that
avoid these standards
. This is consistent with our obligations under
the World Trade Organization and creates strong incentives for other
countries to adopt tough environmental protections
.[probably just a signal to China & India; any bill would have to leave flexibility to the Administration.]

Finally, we
will develop a mechanism to protect businesses — and ultimately
consumers — from increases in energy prices. The central element is the
establishment of a floor and a ceiling for the cost of emission
allowances.
This will also safeguard important industries while they
make the investments necessary to join the clean-energy era. We
recognize there will be short-term transition costs associated with any
climate change legislation, costs that can be eased. But we also
believe strongly that the long-term gain will be enormous. …

If Congress does not pass legislation
dealing with climate change, the administration will use the
Environmental Protection Agency to impose new regulations. Imposed
regulations are likely to be tougher and they certainly will not
include the job protections and investment incentives we are proposing. 

The message to those who have stalled for years is clear:
killing a Senate bill is not success; indeed, given the threat of
agency regulation, those who have been content to make the legislative
process grind to a halt would later come running to Congress
in a panic
to secure the kinds of incentives and investments we can pass today.
Industry needs the certainty that comes with Congressional action.

Joe Romm on the left applauds the proposed deal (though there is sure to be disagreement about support for coal, nuclear power and offshore oil & gas exploration), and Bill Scher says “Sen. Lindsey Graham Crosses the Climate Rubicon” and thus “made a deal all but inevitable”.

On the right, Michelle Malkin reports that she was right to warn about Republican turn-coats, the National Review `s Gore-haters are dispirited, and MasterResource, the coal-funded “free market” energy blog by libertarian Rob Bradley, has nothing to say.

Political scientist Roger Pielke, Jr. notes the lack of precision and suggests that Republicans now have the upper hand in negotiating the bill.

More reaction and background that readers may find useful is here:

Let’s Try This Again: Are There GOP Senators Who Will Back The Climate Bill? (Bill Scher, Campaign for America`s Future, October 7, 2009)
Senators link drilling with cap-and-trade (Houston Chronicle, October 6, 2009)
Is Lieberman at it again? (Politico,

9/21/09)


On the Climate Bill Fence: How Sen. Graham Got There by Bill Chameides (Dean of Duke U`s school of the environment) | Aug 27, 2009

– More on other senators by Bill Chameides

From a libertarian perspective, I ask other libertarians and those on the right whether it is not too late to get a leaner climate/energy bill, that would:
  • instead of a cap-and-trade program (that hands out emissions permits free to existing fossil fuel users, with costs being borne regressively by energy users), use upstream carbon taxes, with the revenues rebated per capita to all Americans;
  • allow limited use of offsets in lieu of taxes (effectiveness of eligible offsets to be insured for a period of 50 years) by Lloyd`s of London);
  • eliminate subsidies for all energy technologies (including ethanol and biofuels)
  • provide that at least half of all revenues taken in by the federal
    government and state government for offshore oil & gas leases and for coal leases will be paid per capita to citizens (and state residents);
  • allow nuclear fuel reprocessing and breeder plants, while eliminating federal insurance for nuke plants;
  • eliminate the grandfathering of dirty coal-burning plants under the Clean Air Act;
  • allow immediate tax deduction of a ll capital expenditures (eliminating multi-year amortization limits);
  • eliminate mandates that public utilities increase use of green, renewable fuels, in favor of the removal of antitrust protection for the grant of local monopolies (and other measure that introduce real competition into the retail power sector), and application of Commerce Clause protection to those who want to sell power out-of-state;
  • establishes energy efficiency targets, as opposed to mandates, with awards to category winners, and publishes results;
  • privatize the TVA (by distributing shares per capita to all who are served by TVA);
  • publish information on the locations of coal fly-ash storage sites;
  • make it clear that federal and state licenses for energy facilities and mines are not licenses to pollute, do not extend any immunity for actual damages caused, and do not prevent injunctions for facilities identified as causing particular damage; and
  • to dampen NIMBYism, establish compensation schedules for federally-licensed facilities, and encourage states to do the same (based on distance and like wind and water flow).

Duelling climate policy parables: in the face of RealClimate`s "tragedy of the commons", MasterResource`s Emperor has no clothes

May 26th, 2009 No comments

I`ve done a bit of blogging over the past few weeks regarding the “The tragedy of climate commons” post by climate scientist Gavin Schmidt and ensuing discussion at the RealClimate website.  Schmidt wrote the post in response to the implied suggestion by Chip Knappenberger at the MasterResource blog that, since unilateral policy action by the US would by itself be unlikely to significantly affect future climate (given the the rapid growth in CO2 emissions by China, India etc.), the wisest course for the US would be to do nothing.  

Knappenberger has now responded to Schmidt, this time with a parable of his own.  Knappenberger has good points, but he and Schmidt are talking past each other.  Since Rob Bradley, CEO of the Institute for Energy Research (BTW, no longer funded by pro-carbon-tax Exxon, all of you Exxon-haters out there) and founder/manager of MasterResource, won`t let me post at his self-proclaimed “free-market energy blog”, I put up a few thoughts at RealClimate, which I copy below (one typo fixed and link added below):

 

Allow me to stir the pot a bit, as it doesn`t appear that anyone has noticed Chip Knappenberger`s response to Gavin, in tbe form of his own climate parable, using the “Emperor`s new clothes” theme.

http://masterresource.org/?p=2751

Waxman-Markey appears as the new clothes, with Chip apparently taking on the role of the bright and persistent voice of the insufficiently jaded little boy who can`t help but to see the truth, and bravely refuses to be cowed.

Some of the criticisms of W-M seem fair to me – after all, they manifest precisely the reasons that Jim Hansen has taken a strong stance in favor of more transparent and rebated carbon taxes over the pork and bureaucracy that comes with cap and trade.

1. But Chip is still failing to address the main premise of Gavin`s tragedy of the commons fisheries analogy: there is a commons problem that requires coordinated action (a multi-player, repeated Prisoner’s Dilemma), and the only way out requires initial measures at trust-building, with more effective measures to follow when the parties can agree on burden sharing and enforcement.

Thus Chip is simply perpetuating the problem that I have noted here:

“Unfortunately, what passes for discussion on climate change (and other environmental issues) is too often people talking past each other (frequently with all of the hallmarks of a tribal battle): some correctly see a looming commons problem that requires government regulation but ignore the risks of pork, partiality and wasted resources in the policies themselves, while others, not anxious for government to expand its regulatory purview, downplay or dismiss the resource problem and focus on the downsides of government action or the motives of those calling for government action (while ignoring those invested heavily in a status quo that is replete with moral hazard).

Capitalism, the destructive exploitation of the Amazon and the tragedy of the government-owned commons

2. Further, while Chip has good reason to criticize all of the pork that is loaded into the W-M hairshirt – there certain ARE plenty of corporate interests seeking to use climate policy to get sweet deals from government – it`s more than a bit coy of him to paint the critics of W-M as relative innocent truth-tellers, while somehow failing to note all of the sweet deals built into the status quo that fossil fuel firms, utilities, automakers and their investors have long enjoyed. (Not to mention that these interests have hardly been turned away from the W-M and other pork troughs.)

Chip`s convenient oversight might have something to do with the fact that the public advocacy firm he shares with Pat Michaels is funded by coal interests, as Marion Delgado points out in #677, and as I have previously discussed directly with Chip: Pat Michaels – scientist AND paid advocate. Correspondence with Chip Knappenberger.

It doesn`t end there, unfortunately, as Chip is posting on the “MasterResource” blog run by Rob Bradley, who is CEO of the coal-industry-funded Institute for Energy Research. For the sin of pointing out the political-favor-protection game that IER and MasterResource are engaged in, Rob Bradley has exercised his Constitutional right to ban me from the MasterResource blog (mid-conversation with, but without notice to, Chip, as it turns out).

So sure, let`s fight the pork as best we can, Chip, but let`s not ignore the fact since there are NO property rights in the atmosphere or climate, markets are not protecting it, but instead steadily producing an ever-growing tragedy of the commons. Care to acknowledge that, or to offer any suggestions?