TT's Lost in Tokyo — by TokyoTom

I noted in a previous post that Rob Bradley, CEO of the Institute for Energy Research and lead blogger at MasterResource, has cheered on big coal and bashed what he calls “Malthusian anti-energy crusaders”,  but ignoring while he does so the questions of (1) whether there are any legitimate disputes as to the environmental impacts of coal production and consumption and (2) the role of government in contributing to or perpetuating these disputes.

In response, Rob says that his bona fides are not to be questioned.  I quote below the relevant portions of the comment thread (emphasis added):

TokyoTom { 02.05.09 at 2:50 am }

Rob, are the John Badens, Terry Andersons, Bruce Yandles, Elinor Ostroms and others who want to find ways to manage our commons better – by improving ownership, incentives and pricing signals – also part of a “Malthusian crusade”?

I just wanna make sure I know who to hate.

As for that big fly ash breach/spill in Tennessee, I’m glad that you didn’t point out how this was a result of government ownership of TVA, with the added benefit that costs will be borne not only by direct and indirect victims, but by taxpayers as well. No sense in pointing out how government is so often in the way, particularly if it detracts from our “we hate enviros!” message. Last thing we ever want to do is to reach a shared understanding with enviros of the institutional underpinnings of problems, since that means our funders might lose some of their fairly purchased, government-given special privileges.

rbradley { 02.05.09 at 9:46 pm }

TT:

I have several thousand pages in the public domain on free market theory and history applied to energy, including criticisms of political capitalism.

The ball is in your court to buy and read any of my six energy books–and to visit my website http://www.politicalcapitalism.org. Particularly focus on Enron on this website.

Capitalism at Work (2009) is the latest book that I invite you to read and review.

TokyoTom { 02.05.09 at 10:21 pm }

Rob, does this mean that you are a “free-marketer” in principle, but can’t be bothered to show it in your public policy discussions?

rbradley { 02.06.09 at 9:28 am }

TT:

It means that you have to do your homework. I take on opposing views as a matter of course in my books and essays–I hope you understand that I do not have time to regurgitate my arguments in a personal debate with you.

But if you are really a “libertarian,” you need to get more critical toward climate alarmism and the history of Malthusianism–and more realistic towards government failure versus market failure.

I am signing off with you but look foward to your review of Capitalism at Work–a multi-disciplinary treatise on heroic capitalism that as a libertarian you should study.

TokyoTom { 02.07.09 at 4:44 am }

Rob, 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.”

Do you agree?

My focus in reviewing your comments and those of other posters is whether you are contributing in good faith to conflict RESOLUTION – conflict over readily understandable preferences – or to “winning” the struggle over government for the benefit of your clients.

I think that`s perfectly fair.

So far, I don`t see much of an effort at good faith engagement [with the enviros].

Here`s to hoping that you demonstrate here that you are a free-marketer, and not a rent-seeker.

Lubos Motl, a bright young Czech physicist with a winning way with those he considers idiots*, has decided to cogitate on fiat money and the US`s screwed up monetary system, and proposes to peg the dollar to the Dow:

You might think that I am going to defend the gold standard or something of this sort. Well, you are not infinitely far from the truth. But gold is obsolete, arbitrary, and dangerous. Someone can find a lot of gold in the future and we don’t want the world’s economy die at that moment. Gold doesn’t represent the overall economy – what people actually want to pay for – well. And if you think that all the commodities have fixed price ratios and only the “money” is fluctuating, note that the gold/silver price ratio has been oscillating frantically, by orders of magnitude in both directions. Pretty much everything can oscillate and does oscillate. 

The gold standard brings some advantages but now we have a more comprehensive framework to adjust the advantages: we want to suppress the most unstable and harmful degrees of freedom by redefining the money. There is one more general advantage of the gold: you know what you own. With money, you own pieces of paper whose value can be manipulated by arbitrary decisions of the government. And an uncertainty about the value of things – their ill-definedness – is creating havoc. The only reason why prices expressed in the fiat money don’t fluctuate wildly is that the other sellers don’t know any definition of the money, either. 😉 So we want to peg the money to something more well-defined: to redefine them. What is it? It’s the stocks.

I think Motl is hopelessly self-deceived on his proposal, but it`s one made in good faith and presents an opportunity to educate Motl and his audience on Austrian views of money, government and markets.  Any takers?

* Idiots of various stripes, but particularly envirofacist/commies, climate alarmists and yours truly; we have discussed Motl here in connection with Bret Stephens, my favorite befuddled neocon at the WSJ ).

Chris Horner of CEI has long been a near one-man band in attacking the excesses of the left with respect to concerns about climate change (while appearing to forget concerns by some on the right, corporate heads, scientists and defense/intelligence analysts as well).  I think Horner from time to time has some astute observations, but think that his passion comes at a cost of balance and self-awareness. 

His screed yesterday on NRO’s Planet Gore about climate “alarmists” on the left caught my eye because it precisely because it mirrored my own perception of what I saw in the neocon right with respect to the invasion of Iraq, the “War on Terror” and fear of Islamofacists:

“What does it tell you that some people rush to lash out with (typically personal) nastiness at the public expression of ideas of which they do not approve?

“After all, while we’re used to the Left’s mindset — that every one of their ideas needs to be a law and tolerance only extends so far as it suits their ideology or biases — as I have demonstrated, there is a remarkable Gang Green that seizes upon all heretical thought or speech and seeks to teach its purveyor a painful lesson.

“This is indeed a movement premised on fear — fear of debate, democracy, and science.”

I am not sure of Chris’s politics with regard to the War on Terror – he seems to have kept his lip securely buttoned on that issue even as words continued to fly on climate change – but I have twice blogged about one neocon – Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal, who is very good at spotting what he thinks is unjustified fear-mongering by others even while ignoring his own.  Just as Chris Horner is quick to point to the nastiness of his opponents on climate change issues, while either ignoring his own or considering it perfectly justified.

Of course Joe Romm and others on the Left who fall into ad homs and demonization strategies with Chris are just as guilty; such we know is the predilection of those engaged in politicized struggles over resources that are either unowned, imperfectly owned or are “publicly” owned.  Behind each adversary lies someone seeking to obtain or protect a rent from the public. 

Does Austrian economics teach us to ignore the preferences of one rent-seeker in favor of another, or to strive to enable greater catallaxy by clarifying property rights or improving common-property institutions?  Are there any adults in the room, or simply squabblers?

Kudos to Robert P. Murphy for a new opinion piece dated Novermber 15 in Forbes.com regarding  “The High Costs Of ‘Green Recovery'” . 

The biographical note appended to the piece describes Bob as “a senior economist with the Institute for Energy Research, a nonprofit foundation that applies free-market solutions to energy challenges” – but sadly, Bob’s piece fails (i) to suggest what “free-market solutions” are available for energy challenges, or (ii) to argue why such free-market solutions are actually the best approaches.  While I share Bob’s arguments that a federal “green” jobs program is likely to be counterproductive, I disagree with his generalizations on climate concerns. 

Bob noted the Forbes piece in his blog; I copy my below the comments I made to him there:

Congratulations, Bob, on getting into Forbes, but I must confess that it is a bit of a puzzle that even when you get the bully pulpit you decline to talk about what kinds of actions make sense as energy policy – such as how to improve the energy grid (a centralized push for local utility deregulation, so utilities might have some interest?), how to achieve political consensus on greater exploration (such as royalty checks to citizens), allowing faster depreciation, etc.

It also disappoints that you insist on engaging on climate change issues only from a heavy-handed government redistribution standpoint, while ignoring not only lack of property rights, many parties with differing views of equity, and tragedy of the commons aspects, but also ignoring the obvious superiority of carbon taxes (assuming legislators are going to choose between cap and trade and carbon taxes), which present few opportunities for rent-seeking and can be rebated to reduce the regressive effcts.

Update:  I note that Obama’s campaign energy policy (the “Obama-Biden comprehensive New Energy for America plan“) is here; his slimmed-down outline that describes a plan with the same name is here.

I just lost my prior attempt at this post so forgive the brevity and lack of analysis in this one.

Google is stepping up its activities and announcements (by CEO Eric Schmidt) in the climate change / clean energy / “smart grid” interface, including announcing collaboration with GE (by CEO Jeffrey Immelt) on public policy issues and on the introduction of new technologies and software.

More at the following links:

http://www.dailytech.com/Google+Wants+US+to+Use+100+Percent+Alternative+Energy+by+2030/article12900.htm (September 9)

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/09/partnering-with-ge-on-clean-energy.html (September 17)

http://earth2tech.com/2008/09/17/google-and-ge-join-up-to-tackle-energy-policy-tech/ (September 17)

http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/technology/7622347.stm (September 18)

http://blog.wired.com/business/2008/09/ge-and-google-a.html (September 18)

Google information:

http://64.233.179.110/blog_resources/google_org_ge_energyfactsheet.pdf (October 1)

http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2008/10/clean-energy-2030.html (October 1)

http://knol.google.com/k/-/-/15x31uzlqeo5n/1# (October 1)

http://www.brandweek.com/bw/content_display/news-and-features/digital/e3i590423ea01a9d368c45c20a42e7c90f5?imw=Y  (October 1)

http://www.goodcleantech.com/2008/10/googles_proposal_to_power_the.php (October 7)

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/technology/internet/28google.html (October 28)

http://greeninc.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/28/googles-energy-ideas-might-emerge-under-open-source-licenses-or-not/ (October 28)

BTW, I note that Lynne Kiesling’s “Knowledge Problem” blog is a good source of information and analysis on “smart” grid issues.

On Friday, November 21, the American Meteorological Society is putting on a seminar at the U.S. Senate entitled “Two Engineering Measures to Reduce Global Warming: Injecting Particles into the Atmosphere and “Clean” Coal”.   The presentations will address the following interesting questions:

• What is geoengineering?
• How might injecting sulfate aerosol particles into the stratosphere result in a temporary planetary cooling?
• Would this be analogous to creating the equivalent of a long-term volcanic eruption?
• Would this be a permanent solution to a global warming or an exercise in buying time to effectively address the root cause of the climate problem?
• What is the logic behind it and what are the mechanics of it?
• What sorts of policies would likely have to be in place in order to engage in such a venture?
• Who decides and who is liable if things go awry?
• Does science inform us of the potential risks and negative impacts of engaging in such a venture?
• Is clean coal and carbon capture and storage one and the same?
• What is meant by the term ‘clean’ in clean coal?
• Does the technology currently exist to produce clean coal on a massive scale and if so, at what cost relative to today’s energy costs. What are the risks of leakage of CO2 from underground storage reservoirs after the fact?
• Who is likely to be liable for leakage?
• How much of a difference would clean coal technology ideally make in mitigating our present climate trajectory?

The moderator will be D. Anthony Socci, AMS Senior Science Fellow,  and the speakers will be:

Alan Robock, Distinguished Professor of Atmospheric Science; Director of the Meteorology Undergraduate Program, and Associate Director, Center for Environmental Prediction, Department of Environmental Sciences, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ  (an IPCC participant)

Dale Simbeck, Vice President and Founding Partner of SFA Pacific, Inc., Technology and Energy Consultants, Mountain View, CA

The announcement of the seminar outlines some answers to the above questions.

It appears that the AMS management still that that climate change is an important concern, and one that is sufficiently pressing that “geoengineering” efforts (which acknowledge the continued rise in atmospheric GHG levels) merit analysis.  It is not clear what Senate committee is sponsoring this seminar.

In June, I made a number of comments to Bob Murphy in response to his blog post entitled, Cap and Trade Is Not a “Market Solution”; Bob declined to respond at that time.

One of my comments was that Bob

(1) … unfairly conclude[s] that, since it will be government that will be implicitly pricing carbon emissions, such pricing “won’t reflect genuine economic scarcity” at all, when Austrian approaches do not deny that lack of property rights will result in economic actors ignoring external costs, but simply indicate the government pricing of resources can only imperfectly reflect economic factors;

Bob Murphy, in comments on his blog, has acknowledged his overstatement:

However, in context, my statements could easily be construed as saying that even in principle, the idea of carbon emissions having anything to do with scarcity was crazy. And that is too strong, so my op ed was misleading on this point.

It’s a minor point, but I appreciate Bob’s acknowledgment.

More here.

The signatories agreed to the following 10 principles:

1. Canada needs to act on climate change now.
2. Any substantive action will involve economic costs.
3. These economic impacts cannot be an excuse for inaction.
4. Pricing carbon is the best approach from an economic perspective.
   1. Pricing allows each business and family to choose the response that is best and most efficient for them.
   2. Pricing induces innovation.
   3. Carbon is almost certainly under-priced right now.
5. Regulation is the most expensive way to meet a given climate change goal.
6. A carbon tax has the advantage of providing certainty in the price of carbon.
7. A cap and trade system provides certainty on the quantity of carbon
   emitted, but not on the price of carbon and can be a highly complex
   policy to implement.
8. Although carbon taxes have
   the most obvious effects on consumers, all carbon reduction policies
   increase the prices individuals face.
9. Price mechanisms can be regressive and our policy should address this.
10. A pricing mechanism can allow other taxes to be reduced and provide an opportunity to improve the tax system.

Too bad they didn’t take any initiative in discussing other helpful policy measures, such as eliminating corporate income taxes (or allowing immediate write-off of new investments), deregulating the power industry and eliminating subsidies for particular technologies.

h/t James Calder

Inspired by Bob Murphy’s Mises post on “Economic and Climate Models“, I decided to put together a few links to (i) further information on global climate models, (ii) criticism of them (and responses), and (iii) the state of the science on climate “sensitivity” (that is, the range of temperature increases that are expected to eventually result from a doubling of atmospheric levels of CO2).

1. General information on climate models

Spencer R. Weart, “Simple Question, Simple Answer … Not”, Forum on Physics & Society, October 2008, American Institute of Physics

Discovery of Global Warming site at the American Institute of Physics, created by Spencer Weart with support from the National Science Foundation and the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/simple.htm

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/GCM.htm

http://www.aip.org/history/sloan/gcm/

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/Radmath.htm 

Modelling the climate, by climateprediction.net

A model approach to climate change (Feb 1, 2007, physicsworld.com), by Adam Scaife and Chris Folland of the Hadley Centre for Climate Prediction and Research, Met Office, UK, and John Mitchell, chief scientist at the Met Office, UK.

The physics of climate modeling (Physics Today, Jan 2007), by Gavin Schmidt, research scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

The IPCC:

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter8.pdf

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar4/wg1/ar4-wg1-chapter11.pdf (regional models)

Wikipedia

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_model

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_climate_model

Principles of Planetary Climate, detailed online book on the physics and modelling of climate by Raymond T. Pierrehumbert (U. Chi.)

The Global Warming Debate, 8. Climate Models, 

2. Shortcomings of Models

http://www.eoearth.org/article/Climate_change_FAQs#What_are_the_shortcomings_of_climate_models.3F, Environmental Information Coalition (EIC), National Council for Science and the Environment.

“A climate of alarm”, Feb 1, 2007, http://physicsworld.com/cws/article/print/26945 (interview of Richard Lindzen)

http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/230_TakingGr.pdf (Lindzen PowerPoint)

http://www-eaps.mit.edu/faculty/lindzen/222_Exchange.pdf (Lindzen – Stephan Rahmstorf dialogue)

“The Sloppy Science of Global Warming”, Roy W. Spencer, Mar. 20, 2008, http://www.energytribune.com/articles.cfm?aid=828

Roy Spencer interview, http://ohjelmat.yle.fi/mot/viikon_ohjelma/lisatietoa/roy_spencerin_haastattelu_huntsville_kesakuu_2008

Lay criticism:

http://www.coyoteblog.com/Skeptics_Guide_to_Anthropogenic_Global_Warming_v1.0.pdf, Warren Meyer, who describes himself as “a small business owner and author of Coyote Blog” with “an engineering degree from Princeton and an MBA from the Harvard Business School.”

Responses to critics:

The following posts at Skeptical Science by John Cook, an ex-physicist (majored in solar physics at the University of Queensland):

http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-models.htm

http://www.skepticalscience.com/model-uncertainty-global-warming-projections.html

http://www.skepticalscience.com/Empirical-evidence-for-positive-feedback.html

http://www.skepticalscience.com/climate-sensitivity.htm

http://earthobservatory.nasa.gov/Study/Iris/iris2.html (review of Lindzen’s “iris” theory)

Brian J. Soden, Darren L. Jackson, V. Ramaswamy, M. D. Schwarzkopf, Xianglei Huang, The Radiative Signature of Upper Tropospheric Moistening

“Climate models predict that the concentration of water vapor in the upper troposphere could double by the end of the century as a result of increases in greenhouse gases. Such moistening plays a key role in amplifying the rate at which the climate warms in response to anthropogenic activities, but has been difficult to detect because of deficiencies in conventional observing systems. We use satellite measurements to highlight a distinct radiative signature of upper tropospheric moistening over the period 1982 to 2004. The observed moistening is accurately captured by climate model simulations and lends further credence to model projections of future global warming.”

3. The state of the science on climate “sensitivity”

“Sensitivity” refers to the expected equilibrium temperature increase expected to result from a doubling of atmospheric levels of CO2.  The sensitivity reflects not simply the direct warming effects of increased CO2 levels, but the short- and long-term of feedbacks, which are generally expected to be positive, such as increases in atmospheric water vapor resulting from higher temperatures, reduced surface reflectivity (albedo) as ice melts and darker ocean and land surfaces absorb greater solar radiation, and releases of methane (a much more potent GHG than CO2) from permafrosts (and possibly also ocean floor deposits).  Equilibrium effects are expected to be felt over hundreds and thousands of years, so we are already committed to future climate change – of an imperfectly known degree – as a result of the current 1/3 increase of atmospheric CO2 over preindustrial levels.  Plus, atmospheric levels continue to increase, and at increasing increments, as fossil fuel use grows worldwide.

Climate models have been used to estimate a fast-feedback (changes of water vapor, clouds, climate-driven aerosols, sea ice and snow cover) CO2 sensitivity of 3 ±1.5°C., but models cannot define climate sensitivity more precisely, as it is unknowable whether models realistically incorporate all feedback processes.  The model results reported by the IPCC do not include long-term sensitivity (including the effects of changes to long-lived atmospheric gases, ice sheet area, land area and vegetation cover).  Further, as a recent paper (Dana L. Royer, Robert A. Berner & Jeffrey Park) notes, “Most estimates of climate sensitivity are based on records of climate change over the past few decades to thousands of years, when carbon dioxide concentrations and global temperatures were similar to or lower than today, so such calculations tend to underestimate the magnitude of large climate-change events and may not be applicable to climate change under warmer conditions in the future.”

Studies of the Earth’s history provide empirical inferences of both fast feedback climate sensitivity and  long-term sensitivity.  Climate sensitivity has been estimated based on the 20th Century data, the constraints from responses to volcanic eruptions, and the last glacial maximum (LGM); these data have been combined on a Bayesian basis by one group to conclude that fast-feedback sensitivity is very unlikely (< 5% probability) to exceed 4.5°C, but some evidence is inconsistent with this range.  Jim Hansen has argued for a long-term sensitivity of up to 6°C.

A recent paper concludes, based on a comparison of estimations of carbon dioxide concentrations over the past 420 million years with a proxy record, that (1) “a climate sensitivity greater than 1.5 °C has probably been a robust feature of the Earth’s climate system over the past 420 million years, regardless of temporal scaling”, (2) “deep-time geological records exclude the possibility of weak climate sensitivities … the amount of warming for every doubling of carbon dioxide must be at least 1.5 °C.”, and (3) although high climate sensitivities cannot be entirely excluded, their best fit for the past 420 million years was about 2.8 °C per doubling.

Further, scientists have shown that, given the existence of net positive feedbacks, that there is an irreducible uncertainty about the climate effects of GHG increases, but that this uncertainty is not symmetric – rather, physics-based models and empirical evidence force the conclusion that climate change has a long tail on the “bad” side and a very short tail on the “good” side.   Gerard H. Roe and Marcia B. Baker recent article in Science “Why Is Climate Sensitivity So Unpredictable?” concludes:

“we show that the shape of these probability distributions is an inevitable and general consequence of the nature of the climate system. Further, we show that the breadth of the distribution and, in particular, the probability of large temperature increases are relatively insensitive to decreases in uncertainties associated with the underlying climate processes.”

“… it is evident that the climate system is operating in a regime in which small uncertainties in feedbacks are highly amplified in the resulting climate sensitivity. We are constrained by the inevitable: the more likely a large warming is for a given forcing (i.e., the greater the positive feedbacks), the greater the uncertainty will be in the magnitude of that warming.” (italics added)

A quick explanation of the Roe and Baker paper is laid out by John Cook here:  Does model uncertainty exaggerate global warming projections?

PhysOrg.com reports that a team of scientists led by the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory has “helped reconcile the differences between simulated and observed temperature trends in the tropics.”

“Using state-of-the-art observational datasets and results from computer model simulations archived at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, LLNL researchers and colleagues from 11 other scientific institutions have refuted a recent claim that simulated temperature trends in the tropics are fundamentally inconsistent with observations. This claim was based on the application of a flawed statistical test and the use of older observational datasets.

“Until several years ago, however, most satellite and weather balloon records suggested that the tropical troposphere had warmed substantially less than the surface.

“For nearly a decade, this apparent discrepancy between simulations and reality was a major conundrum for climate scientists. The discrepancy was at odds with the overwhelming body of other scientific evidence pointing toward a “discernible human influence” on global climate.

“A paper published online last year in the International Journal of Climatology claimed to show definitively that “models and observations disagree to a statistically significant extent” in terms of their tropical temperature trends. This claim formed the starting point for an investigation by a large team of climate modelers and observational data specialists, which was led by LLNL’s Benjamin Santer.

“In marked contrast to the earlier claim, Santer’s international team found that there is no fundamental discrepancy between modeled and observed trends in tropical temperatures.”

(emphasis added)