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Jim Manzi/Cato: Climate progressives?

August 31st, 2008 No comments

Jim Manzi has just posted the close-out essay in the online forum (at Cato Unbound) that the Cato Institute has devoted recently to the issues of climate change risks and policy.  I alerted readers to the Cato effort and provide comments here, here and here.

My thoughts on Manzi`s final essay?  Briefly, while there`s much here to warm the cockles of any climate hysteric, misanthropic enviro-fascist or their dupes and co-religionists throughout the business and policy world [snark, to those not familiar with me or LvMI], I`m disappointed that Manzi has not tried to seriously explore libertarian approaches – involving serious de-regulation and tax changes – to climate change.

But let me let Jim Manzi speak for himself (emphasis added):

“I’d also like to thank Joseph Romm, Indur Goklany, Michael Shellenberger and Ted Nordhaus for their extensive efforts in considering and responding to my essay and subsequent comments.  It’s always inspiring to me to see people who’ve devoted so much time, work, and intellect to analyzing hard problems.

“Mr. Romm and I, in particular, have disagreed quite directly about the likely impacts of carbon dioxide emissions, and I’ll just refer interested readers to the series of detailed exchanges between us ….  I’d like to try to establish what I think is common ground between us.  I think that vigorous, but respectful and fact-based, disagreement is almost always a precondition for practical progress on complicated issues, but that ultimately some consensus needs to be achieved to get anything done.

“It seems to me that all contributors believe that anthropogenic global warming is real and poses a serious risk.  We all agree that an R&D program of the type that I have proposed is a component of a solution, and I hope that we all can get behind this idea.  I think that we would all support adaptation to weather problems that may arise as a wise investment of resources.  Most adaptation measures have the advantage that, in comparison with R&D or mitigation efforts, they can be executed in fairly short order and only in response to problems as they become manifest, and hence would likely have very attractive cost-benefit ratios.  Finally, I think that we would all agree that the ongoing efforts to analyze physical and economic trade-offs involved in various proposals through the IPCC and similar bodies are valuable and should be supported.   (In fact, I would like to see such processes incorporate case-by-case analyses of the kinds of incremental R&D/technology-deployment ideas that Messrs. Shellenberger and Nordhaus have proposed).  Improved science, along with increased structure and rigor in the debate of its implications, should enable further progress.”

 

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