TT`s Lost in Tokyo : climate change

The Road Not Taken V: Libertarian hatred of misanthropic "watermelons" and the productive love of aloof ad-homs

TokyoTom — Thu, 05 Nov 2009 05:03:00 GMT

I copy below a comment I just left at Stephan Kinsella`s post on the main LvMI Blog, "Physicist Howard Hayden's one-letter disproof of global warming claims", which I have discussed here in several preceeding posts.

TokyoTom Published: November 4, 2009 10:54 PM (minor edits; links added)

Stephan:

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

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

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

So instead of any effort to engage ON the libertarian agenda, we get guys like you pandering - with demonstrable nonsense from guys like Harvey - to libertarians who hope the statists and the purported problem will just kindly go away.

What a great way for libertarians to muzzle themselves, and to stand by helplessly instead of weighing in.

Trying to reassure yourself and your buddies that the man with a gun is either deluded or trying to take over the world is hardly either reassuring, or a step on the way to getting him to put the gun down.

Nor is calling those [like me] who think conversation may be more efficiacious a "comrade to rotten watermelons" in any way helpful, unless the goal is simply to reinforce the echo chamber.

Watermelons, ahh, watermelons! How helpful, and so much fun to bandy about this little bit of ad hom! Is it getting time for Austrians once more to gather `round the fire, and roast some watermelons? Holiday joy: roasting "watermelons" on an open pyre! A little eliminationist fantasy [a la Czech physicist Lubos Motl is not that far away ....

As I noted in my above post explaining the use of the "watermelon" ad hom:

"watermelon" is a venerable ad hominem here, useful for Miseseans to put fingers in their ears and dismiss what practically everyone who disagrees with them on climate change - from our national academies of science on down - has to say.

The trick is to first dismiss the evil "enviros" - you know, that class of rent-seekers that Rothbard and others tell us were created when statist corporations managed to subvert common law protections against polution damage to property - by focussing on their efforts to use the state to control corprations, while resolutely ignoring not only corporate statism but what Austrian economics tells us about how markets and private transaction are inefficient with respect to resources that are not clear owned or protected by enforceable property rights.

Then, having dismissed those wacky "watermelons", we can simply ignore everyone else, by jeering at the enviros and thereby implicitly imputing to the whole scientific, economic, business and government community the same malevolent and stupid misanthropism.

Neat trick, isn`t it?

IOW, enviros should be burned at the stake for the heresy of trying to use the state to solve a possible problem, and everyone else, who have gullibly been corrupted by them, ignored. In this way, we can cleanse the body politic and avoid serious mistakes. See?

Serious people know that only irreproachable commentators like Dr. Reisman get to suggest that we use the state to address possible climate change:

"there is a case for considering the possible detonation, on uninhabited land north of 70° latitude, say, of a limited number of hydrogen bombs. ... This is certainly something that should be seriously considered by everyone who is concerned with global warming and who also desires to preserve modern industrial civilization and retain and increase its amenities. If there really is any possibility of global warming so great as to cause major disturbances, this kind of solution should be studied and perfected. Atomic testing should be resumed for the purpose of empirically testing its feasibility."

We can distinguish you from Dr. Reisman, Stephan, since you helpfully insist that the state should not engage in this testing, so that we must first privatize the holding of nuclear weapons, so that firms and individuals, unhindered by the state, can engage in such experimentation. Such clear-mindedness is commendable, since freedom-loving commenters here or elsewhere seldom consider the difficult statist elements implicit in most discussions of active "geo-engineering" to dampen or reverse any climate change problem.

But while we`re on the subject of criticizing "watermelons" and their supposed "comrades"-in-arms, one wonders when aloof purists like you will ever deign to criticize fellow libertarians like Rob Bradley and Bob Murphy, who are also actively engaged in this statist discussion - shame! - but on behalf of the fossil fuel firms and utilities that until now have been the most successful rent-seekers.

So far, all we see with regard to the way libertarians actively defend successful rent-seeking is a studied indifference.

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

Absolutely; I was just concerned not to leave you hanging out there on the "irrelevant" limb all by yourself.

Best,

TT

As I noted on the main thread, surely it wouldn`t be helpful if I in like fashion called libertarians who refuse to engage in a principled discussion on the issue of climate policy (preferring instead to comfort themselves with one-page letters that tell us that our massive releases of greenhouse gases. etc. is peachy-keen) "coconuts" - hard on the outside, but empty on the inside?

A few more comments to John Quiggin on climate, libertarian principles and the enclosure of the commons

TokyoTom — Wed, 04 Nov 2009 05:41:00 GMT

I note first that I am reminded by a pithy comment from someone else that, despite the length of my previous post addressing John Quiggin`s post on libertarian delusion, sometimes less is more.

Writes commenter "ABOM", in a comment made elsewhere and linked back in to Quiggin`s thread (done for the purported reason that Quiggin was deleting some of ABOM`s comments) (emphasis added):

I found it ironic that JQ (an economist) was using a scientific hypothesis (climate change) as a litmus test to determine whether Austrians were “serious” economists. JQ (1) assumes he knows about climate science (he doesn’t) (2) assumes anyone who questions climate science is mad (they may not be) (3) thinks anyone who questions the govt’s solutions to the “problem” is also mad (even if you accept the science, govt may not be the answer – raising interest rates to their ‘natural’ level and a simple “depression” in consumption may be a simpler solution) (4) isn’t allowing an open debate (he keeps censoring me for some bizarre reason) and (5) to top it off accuses Austrians of being part time scientists – when he is the King of Part Time Amateur Science ...

Being verbose, this and a review of Quiggin`s post prompts me to write more.

I`m not sure I agree with ABOM`s initial comment; while Quiggin might be implicitly using Austrian`s behavior regarding climate change to question whether they are "serious" economists, more straightforwardly he`s questioning why on climate they seem not to care to show it.

I failed to address the following points from John:

1. " it seems clear that, if mainstream climate science is correct, neither anarcho-capitalism nor paleolibertarianism can be sustained. The problem with anarcho-capitalism and other views where property rights are supposed to emerge, and be defended, spontaneously, and without a state is obvious. If states do not create systems of rights to carbon emissions, the only alternatives are to do nothing, and let global ecosystems collapse, or to posit that every person on the planet has right to coerce any other person not to emit CO2 into the atmosphere."

First, the alternatives to states creating systems of rights to carbon emissions (or imposing carbon taxes, funding energy alternatives etc.) are NOT simply to do nothing, or to assume that all individuals will be left to try to coerce everyone else. While I agree that an-caps typically do not stress the desirability of undoing statist actions that feed into the climate problem, of course this is something which can and should be done, as I have tried to point out. And there are many voluntary and organized responses now underway that address climate change: organizations that cater to people (and firms) who want to track and lower their carbon footprint or buy offsets, firms that are competing to monitor and control their carbon footprint, both to lower costs and to stay ahead of competitors in the marketplace for consumer favor, voluntary corporate-oriented carbon trading/offset programs underway, insurance companies and others projecting and publicizing risks, etc.

Ancaps and other libertarians may be wrong, but they essentially conclude that the large information and transaction costs that society faces in dealing with climate change cannot be overcome by fiat, which clearly is not simple. Using government typically brings a whole host of problems. Viz., the knowledge problem, rent-seeking and -farming, bureaucratic mal-incentives, & enforcement.

2. "For paleolibertarians, the fact that property rights must be produced by a new global agreement, rather than being the inherited ‘peculiar institutions’ of particular societies seems equally problematic."

Yes. But there`s also the problem of justice in the original allocation. Why should the new property rights in the atmosphere be allocated to corporations, as opposed to citizens?

3. "For more moderate libertarians, who accept in principle that property rights are derived from the state, I think the problem is more that the creation of a large new class of property rights brings them face to face with features of their model that are generally buried in a near-mythical past.

"To start with, there’s the problem of justice in the original allocation. Until now, people [in] developed countries have been appropriating the assimilative capacity of the atmosphere as if there was always “enough and as good” left over. Now that it’s obvious this isn’t true, we need to go back and start from scratch, and this process may involve offsetting compensation which effectively reassigns some existing property rights."

I don`t think moderate libertarians so much "accept in principle that property rights are derived from the state," as they recognize that the state has codified, circumscribed and enforces such rights. Right now, there are simply NO "existing property rights" regarding climate, other than the shared right to exhaust CO2 (and other GHGs) into the atmosphere, and to engage in other activities that alter albedo. Starting from scratch in the sense you use it, especially the "compensation" aspect, means governments taking property from some and giving it to others

4. "Then there is the problem that the emissions rights we are talking about are, typically time-limited and conditional. But if rights created now by modern states have this property, it seems reasonable to suppose that this has always been true, and therefore that existing property rights may also be subject to state claims of eminent domain."

"Property rights" are essentially a portfolio of formal and informal institutions that communities have devised, over long periods of trial and error. Most such "rights" - whether informal or state-recognized - are time-limited and conditional. That states have always and continue to alter, and take, property rights tells us nothing about the justice or efficacy of such actions - and you might have noticed that Elinor Ostrom and the progressives (some of whom I quoted in my prior post) who want to "take back the commons" argue very strongly about both.

Where our fisheries are collapsing, they are doing so chiefly because our governments have trampled native rights or community-developed practices in favor of bureaucratic management and the resulting tragedy of the commons. While the solution in such cases appears to be the re-creation of property rights that give fishermen a stake in preserving the resource they rely upon, such situations are hardly akin to the worldwide creation of CO2 emission rights, which present much more severe difficulties in allocating and enforcing.

John Quiggin plays Pin-the-tail-on-the-Donkey with "Libertarians and delusionism"

TokyoTom — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 17:59:00 GMT

John Quiggin, a left-leaning Australian economist and professor at the University of Queensland, has noted my recent post on the penchant for bloggers and readers at the Mises Blog to attack climate science - are "almost universally committed to delusional views on climate science", as he puts it - though these are not words fairly put into my mouth. Like me, though, Quiggin wonders why wonders why libertarians focus on climate science at the near-exclusion of policy discussions, since (1) he sees "plenty of political opportunities to use climate change to attack subsidies and other existing interventions" and (2) he supposes that the environmental movement`s widespread shift "from profound suspicion of markets to enthusiastic support for market-based policies such as carbon taxes and cap and trade" seems like a big win for libertarians.

Quiggin previously commented on "Libertarians and global warming" last June; this seems to be a follow up.

Quiggins posits that Austrians/libertarians exhibit a "near-universal rejection of mainstream climate science," and asserts that:

we can draw one of only three conclusions
(a) Austrians/libertarians are characterized by delusional belief in their own intellectual superiority, to the point where they think they can produce an analysis of complex scientific problems superior to that of actual scientists, in their spare time and with limited or no scientific training in the relevant disciplines, reaching a startling degree of unanimity for self-described “sceptics”
(b) Austrians/libertarians don’t understand their own theory and falsely believe that, if mainstream climate science is right, their own views must be wrong
(c) Austrians/libertarians do understand their own theory and correctly believe that, if mainstream climate science is right, their own views must be wrong

John concludes:

"Overall, though I, think that acceptance of the reality of climate change would be good for libertarianism as a political movement. It would kill off the most extreme and unappealing kinds of a priori logic-chopping, while promoting an appreciation of Hayekian arguments about the power of market mechanisms. And the very fact of uncertainty about climate change is a reminder of the fatality of conceits of perfect knowledge."

While John asks a good question and reveals some appreciation of markets, it`s clear that he is still pretty much groping in the dark when it comes to understanding libertarians` concerns about climate policy, indeed, even as to libertarian aims and concerns generally. He also overlooks various cognitive/psychological factors that appear to be at play. Naturally, I appreciate the opportunity for discussion.

1. Before addressing his three possible conclusions, let me note that while "market-based policies such as carbon taxes and cap and trade" may seem to John "like a big win for libertarians", this is most definitely NOT the case for most libertarians in the context of climate change, as these "market-based policies" represent an enormous expansion of government that libertarians feel very strongly, based on past experience, will be profoundly porky, counterproductive and costly. In the face of the fight for favor in Washington and the choice of opaque cap-and-trade over a more open rebated carbon tax and other deregulatory options, there is good reason to believe that libertarians are right.

2. Regarding conclusion (a), let me first note that John reveals the self-same "conceit of perfect knowledge" that he accuses Austrians/libertarians of having: the "acceptance of reality of climate change" would undoubtedly be good for everyone, but just what is that reality, and how can a layman of any stripe confirm himself that climate is changing and that man is responsible? The very fact that this "reality" is nearly impossible to confirm personally (even over the course of a lifetime) means that even those whom John considers as having "accepted reality" have basically just adopted a frame of reference, on the basis of the consistency of the AGW frame with other previously established mental frames, a reliance on authority, peer-group acceptance, etc.

"Reality" in this case inevitably, for most people, has very large personal and social components; accordingly, both "acceptance" and "skepticism" of it may look like a group belief, which may help to explain why it is possible to perceive "a startling degree of unanimity" of views on climate science, the contents of such views varying by group.

As for Austrians/libertarians, while I don`t think it is fair to conclude they (we) are characterized by delusional belief in their own intellectual superiority, but that many do have a belief, not so much in the superiority of their intellect, but in the correctness of their views on political science and economics (this is common in other groups, of course). This may affect their views on climate science, for several reasons that I have noted to John previously, and may be related for some of them to his conclusions (b) and (c).

3. Concerning conclusions (b) and (c), these are both over-generalizations; libertarians are a heterogenous bunch. But if I may generalize myself, to me there appears no conflict whatsoever between Austrian views, which are primarily about interpersonal relations and the role of government, and climate science. "Mainstream science" has nothing to do with these views, so if Austrians are wrong about "mainstream climate science", this does not imply that any Austrian views must be wrong. So Quiggins` (c) is wrong.

Quiggins`(b) - that Austrians may not understand their own theory and may falsely believe that, if mainstream climate science is right, their own views must be wrong - may be right for some Austrians, but certainly not generally. Rather, what I suspect is going on is much more ordinary, as I previously noted to Quiggin as a comment on his related June post; that I need to repeat myself indicates that maybe John is having cognitive difficulties of his own (emphasis added):

John, thanks for this piece. As a libertarian who believes that climate change IS a problem, I share some of your puzzlement and have done considerable commenting on this issue [see this long list]. Allow me to offer a few thoughts on various factors at work in the general libertarian resistance to taking government action on climate change:

– As Chris Horner noted in your linked piece, many libertarians see “global warming [as] the bottomless well of excuses for the relentless growth of Big Government.” Even those 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. Even though they still share a mistrust of big government, environmentalists generally believe that MORE government is the answer, while ignoring all of the problems associated with inefficient bureaucratic management (witness the crashing of many managed fisheries in the US), the manipulation of such managment 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. Libertarians see that socialized property rights regimes can be just as “tragedy of the commons” ruinous as cases where community or private solutions have not yet developed, and have concluded that, without privatization, government involvement inevitably expands. 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. This 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 also when governments (mis)manage resources.

I`ve discussed a number of times how we all easily fall into partisan cognitive traps, as summarized here.

A related piece of the dynamic is that some libertarians may feel that if they agree that AGW may be a problem, that this will be taken - wrongly - by others in the political arena as a conclusion that the libertarian message is no longer relevant.

4. Some support for these points can be seen in Edwin Dolan`s 2006 paper, "Science, Public Policy and Global Warming: Rethinking the Market Liberal Position" (Cato), in which Dolan suggests that many libertarian climate skeptics are acting quite as if they are "conservatives" of the type condemned by Friedrich Hayek. Dolan cites Hayek’s 1960 essay, “Why I am Not a Conservative” (1960), in which Hayek identified the following traits that distinguish conservatism from market liberalism:

• Habitual resistance to change, hence the term “conservative.”
• Lack of understanding of spontaneous order as a guiding principle of economic life.
• Use of state authority to protect established privileges against the forces of economic change.
• Claim to superior wisdom based on self-arrogated superior quality in place of rational argument.
• A propensity to reject scientific knowledge because of dislike of the consequences that seem to follow from it.

Further support is provided by Jonathan Adler, a libertarian law professor at Case Western who focusses on resource issues, and who has concluded that climate change is a serious concern, and that man is contributing to it. His February 2008 post, "Climate Change, Cumulative Evidence, and Ideology" (and the comment thread) is instructive:

"Almost every time I post something on climate change policy, the comment thread quickly devolves into a debate over the existence of antrhopogenic global warming at all. (See, for instance, this post on "conservative" approaches to climate change policy.) I have largely refused to engage in these discussions because I find them quite unproductive. The same arguments are repeated ad nauseum, and no one is convinced (if anyone even listens to what the other side is saying). ...

"Given my strong libertarian leanings, it would certainly be ideologically convenient if the evidence for a human contribution to climate change were less strong. Alas, I believe the preponderance of evidence strongly supports the claim that anthropogenic emissions are having an effect on the global climate, and that effect will increase as greenhouse gases accumulate in the atmosphere. While I reject most apocalyptic scenarios as unfounded or unduly speculative, I am convinced that the human contribution to climate change will cause or exacerbate significant problems in at least some parts of the world. For instance, even a relatively modest warming over the coming decades is very likely to have a meaningful effect on the timing and distribution of precipitation and evaporation rates, which will, in turn, have a substantial impact on freshwater supplies. That we do not know with any precision the when, where, and how much does not change the fact that we are quite certain that such changes will occur.

"So-called climate "skeptics" make many valid points about the weakness or unreliability of many individual arguments and studies on climate. They also point out how policy advocates routinely exaggerate the implications of various studies or the likely consequences of even the most robust climate predictions. Economists and others have also done important work questioning whether climate risks justify extreme mitigation measures. But none of this changes the fact that the cumulative evidence for a human contribution to present and future climate changes, when taken as a whole, is quite strong. In this regard, I think it is worth quoting something Ilya wrote below about the nature of evidence in his post about 12 Angry Men":

People often dismiss individual arguments and evidence against their preferred position without considering the cumulative weight of the other side's points. It's a very easy fallacy to fall into. But the beginning of wisdom is to at least be aware of the problem.

"The "divide and conquer" strategy of dissecting each piece of evidence independently can make for effective advocacy, but it is not a good way to find the truth"

I noted the following in response to Adler:

I think that there are many Austrians who understand WHY there might be a climate change problem to which man contributes, as the atmosphere is an open-access resource, in which there are no clear or enforceable property rights that rein in externalities or that give parties with differing preferences an ability to engage in meaingful transactions that reflect those preferences.

But, flawed human beings that we are, we have difficulty truly keeping our minds open (subconscious dismissal of inconsistent data is a cognitive rule) and we easily fall into tribal modes of conflict that provide us with great satisfaction in disagreeing with those evil "others" while circling the wagons (and counting coup) with our brothers in arms.

Sadly, this is very much in evidence in the thread to your own post.

5. I have pulled together a post that indicates that a number of libertarians are trying to engage in good faith on climate change, and which may also serve as a good introduction for interested readers to libertarian thinking on environmental issues.

6. Finally, let me note that many of the problems that concern libertarians also concern progressives, chief of these being the negative effects of state actions on communities, development and on open-access (and hitherto local, indigenous-managed) commons. This is the same concern that the Nobel Prize committee expressed when extending the prize in Economics to Elinor Ostrom, signalling their desire for a change in international aid policy.

You might find these remarks by Nicholas Hildyard, Larry Lohmann, Sarah Sexton and Simon Fairlie in "Reclaiming the Commons" (1995) to be pertinent; domestic cap-and-trade is an enclosure of the atmospheric commons, for the benefit of firms receiving grants of permits and costs flowing regressively to energy consumers, and internationally represents a vast expansion of state authority and bureaucracies, with attendant enclosure of local resources:

The creation of empires and states, business conglomerates and civic dictatorships -- whether in pre-colonial times or in the modern era -- has only been possible through dismantling the commons and harnessing the fragments, deprived of their old significance, to build up new economic and social patterns that are responsive to the interests of a dominant minority. The modern nation state has been built only by stripping power and control from commons regimes and creating structures of governance from which the great mass of humanity (particularly women) are excluded. Likewise, the market economy has expanded primarily by enabling state and commercial interests to gain control of territory that has traditionally been used and cherished by others, and by transforming that territory - together with the people themselves - into expendable "resources" for exploitation. By enclosing forests, the state and private enterprise have torn them out of fabrics of peasant subsistence; by providing local leaders with an outside power base, unaccountable to local people, they have undermined village checks and balances; by stimulating demand for cash goods, they have impelled villagers to seek an ever wider range of things to sell. Such a policy was as determinedly pursued by the courts of Aztec Mexico, the feudal lords of West Africa, and the factory owners of Lancashire and the British Rail as it is today by the International Monetary Fund or Coca-Cola Inc.

Only in this way has it been possible to convert peasants into labour for a global economy, replace traditional with modern agriculture, and free up the commons for the industrial economy. Similarly, only by atomizing tasks and separating workers from the moral authority, crafts and natural surroundings created by their communities has it been possible to transform them into modern, universal individuals susceptible to "management". In short, only by deliberately taking apart local cultures and reassembling them in new forms has it been possible to open them up to global trade.[FN L. Lohmann, 'Resisting Green Globalism' in W. Sachs (ed), Global Ecology: Conflicts and Contradictions, Zed Books, London and New Jersey, 1993.]

To achieve that "condition of economic progress", millions have been marginalized as a calculated act of policy, their commons dismantled and degraded, their cultures denigrated and devalued and their own worth reduced to their value as labour. Seen from this perspective, many of the processes that now go under the rubric of "nation-building", "economic growth", and "progress" are first ad foremost processes of expropriation, exclusion, denial and dispossession. In a word, of "enclosure".

Because history's best-known examples of enclosure involved the fencing in of common pasture, enclosure is often reduced to a synonym for "expropriation". But enclosure involves more than land and fences, and implies more than simply privatization or takeover by the state. It is a compound process which affects nature and culture, home and market, production and consumption, germination and harvest, birth, sickness and death. It is a process to which no aspect of life or culture is immune. ..,

Enclosure tears people and their lands, forests, crafts, technologies and cosmologies out of the cultural framework in which they are embedded and tries to force them into a new framework which reflects and reinforces the values and interests of newly-dominant groups. Any pieces which will not fit into the new framework are devalued and discarded. In the modern age, the architecture of this new framework is determined by market forces, science, state and corporate bureaucracies, patriarchal forms of social organization, and ideologies of environmental and social management.

Land, for example, once it is integrated into a framework of fences, roads and property laws, is "disembedded" from local fabrics of self-reliance and redefined as "property" or "real estate". Forests are divided into rigidly defined precincts - mining concessions, logging concessions, wildlife corridors and national parks - and transformed from providers of water, game, wood and vegetables into scarce exploitable economic resources. Today they are on the point of being enclosed still further as the dominant industrial culture seeks to convert them into yet another set of components of the industrial system, redefining them as "sinks" to absorb industrial carbon dioxide and as pools of "biodiversity". Air is being enclosed as economists seek to transform it into a marketable "waste sink"; and genetic material by subjecting it to laws which convert it into the "intellectual property" of private interests.

People too are enclosed as they are fitted into a new society where they must sell their labour, learn clock-time and accustom themselves to a life of production and consumption; groups of people are redefined as "populations', quantifiable entities whose size must be adjusted to take pressure off resources required for the global economy. ...

enclosure transforms the environment into a "resource" for national or global production - into so many chips that can be cashed in as commodities, handed out as political favours and otherwise used to accrue power. ...

Enclosure thus cordons off those aspects of the environment that are deemed "useful" to the encloser -- whether grass for sheep in 16th century England or stands of timber for logging in modern-say Sarawak -- and defines them, and them alone, as valuable. A street becomes a conduit for vehicles; a wetland, a field to be drained; flowing water, a wasted asset to be harnessed for energy or agriculture. Instead of being a source of multiple benefits, the environment becomes a one-dimensional asset to be exploited for a single purpose - that purpose reflecting the interests of the encloser, and the priorities of the wider political economy in which the encloser operates....

Enclosure opens the way for the bureaucratization and enclosure of knowledge itself. It accords power to those who master the language of the new professionals and who are versed in its etiquette and its social nuances, which are inaccessible to those who have not been to school or to university, who do not have professional qualifications, who cannot operate computers, who cannot fathom the apparent mysteries of a cost-benefit analysis, or who refuse to adopt the forceful tones of an increasingly "masculine" world.

In that respect, as Illich notes, "enclosure is as much in the interest of professionals and of state bureaucrats as it is in the interests of capitalists." For as local ways of knowing and doing are devalued or appropriated, and as vernacular forms of governance are eroded, so state and professional bodies are able to insert themselves within the commons, taking over areas of life that were previously under the control of individuals, households and the community. Enclosure "allows the bureaucrat to define the local community as impotent to provide for its own survival."[FN I Illich, 'Silence is a Commons', The Coevolution Quarterly, Winter 1983.] It invites the professional to come to the "rescue" of those whose own knowledge is deemed inferior to that of the encloser.

Enclosure is thus a change in the networks of power which enmesh the environment, production, distribution, the political process, knowledge, research and the law. It reduces the control of local people over community affairs. Whether female or male, a person's influence and ability to make a living depends increasingly on becoming absorbed into the new policy created by enclosure, on accepting -- willingly or unwillingly -- a new role as a consumer, a worker, a client or an administrator, on playing the game according to new rules. The way is thus cleared for cajoling people into the mainstream, be it through programmes to bring women "into development", to entice smallholders "into the market" or to foster paid employment.[FN P. Simmons, 'Women in Development', The Ecologist, Vol. 22, No.1, 1992, pp.16-21.]

Those who remain on the margins of the new mainstream, either by choice or because that is where society has pushed them, are not only deemed to have little value: they are perceived as a threat. Thus it is the landless, the poor, the dispossessed who are blamed for forest destruction; their poverty which is held responsible for "overpopulation"; their protests which are classed as subversive and a threat to political stability. And because they are perceived as a threat, they become objects to be controlled, the legitimate subjects of yet further enclosure. ...

People who would oppose dams, logging, the redevelopment of their neighbourhoods or the pollution of their rivers are often left few means of expressing or arguing their case unless they are prepared to engage in a debate framed by the languages of cost-benefit analysis, reductionist science, utilitarianism, male domination -- and, increasingly, English. Not only are these languages in which many local objection -- such as that which holds ancestral community rights to a particular place to have precedence over the imperatives of "national development" -- appear disreputable. They are also languages whose use allows enclosers to eavesdrop on, "correct" and dominate the conversations of the enclosed. ...

Because they hold themselves to be speaking a universal language, the modern enclosers who work for development agencies and governments feel no qualms in presuming to speak for the enclosed. They assume reflexively that they understand their predicament as well as or better than the enclosed do themselves. It is this tacit assumption that legitimizes enclosure in the encloser's mind - and it is an assumption that cannot be countered simply by transferring what are conventionbally assumed to be the trappings of power from one group to another....

A space for the commons cannot be created by economists, development planners, legislators, "empowerment" specialists or other paternalistic outsiders. To place the future in the hands of such individuals would be to maintain the webs of power that are currently stifling commons regimes. One cannot legislate the commons into existence; nor can the commons be reclaimed simply by adopting "green techniques" such as organic agriculture, alternative energy strategies or better public transport -- necessary and desirable though such techniques often are. Rather, commons regimes emerge through ordinary people's day-to-day resistance to enclosure, and through their efforts to regain livelihoods and the mutual support, responsibility and trust that sustain the commons.

That is not to say that one can ignore policy-makers or policy-making. The depredations of transnational corporations, international bureaucracies and national governments cannot be allowed to go unchallenged. But movements for social change have a responsibility to ensure that in seeking solutions, they do not remove the initiative from those who are defending their commons or attempting to regenerate common regimes -- a responsibility they should take seriously.

Might there be good reason NOT to rush into a vast expansion of government world-wide?

A libertarian immodestly summarizes a few modest climate policy proposals

TokyoTom — Tue, 03 Nov 2009 12:52:00 GMT

[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.]

Rather than simply pointing out how unproductive the approach of Mises Blog posters has been on climate issues, 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.

Comments, suggestions and criticisms are welcome. I will return and work on this later.

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 [persistently pointing this out it, and 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:

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 and relatively balanced analyses.

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

Edwin Dolan, in his Fall 2006 Cato Journal essay, "Global Warming: Rethinking the Market Liberal Position", analyzes relevant Lockean considerations and cautions that market liberals appear to be hamstringing their own analytic strengths by falling into a reflexive and conservative mind-frames that benefit established economic interests.
Sheldon Richman of the Foundation for Economic Education also recommends Dolan's essay and calls for less wishful thinking and greater engagement by libertarians in the December 8, 2006 edition of The Freeman: The Goal Is Freedom: Global Warming and the Layman.
Gene Callahan makes a similar warning in his essay "How a Free Society Could Solve Global Warming", in the October 2007 issue of The Freeman.
Ron Bailey, "Congratulations to Al Gore; But be wary of the man's proposed solutions for global warming", October 12, 2007.

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 ato 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 here.

Reason Foundation, Climate Change and Property Rights June 12th, 2008 (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?

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

TokyoTom — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 06:59:00 GMT

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. … ocial welfare or efficiency problems arise because of interpersonal conflict. 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?

TokyoTom — Mon, 02 Nov 2009 05:03:00 GMT

[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. … ocial welfare or efficiency problems arise because of interpersonal conflict. 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

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

TokyoTom — Wed, 28 Oct 2009 14:14:00 GMT

[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

a rebated carbon tax,
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 dirtiest 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), and
speeding economic growth and adaptation in the poorer countries most threatened by climate change by rolling back domestic agricultural corporate welfare programs,

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.

# posted by : October 28, 2009 10:31 AM

, 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.

# posted by TokyoTom : October 29, 2009 12:08 AM

Obama uses climate change concerns to mandate a slimming of government energy use and carbon footprint

TokyoTom — Thu, 08 Oct 2009 00:42:00 GMT

I`d like to see how conservatives can figure out how to bitch about Obama`s new executive order. From WaPo on Monday (Juliet Eilerin)

The federal government will require each agency to measure its greenhouse-gas emissions for the first time and set targets to reduce them by 2020, under an executive order signed by President Obama Monday.

The measure affects such things as the electricity federal buildings consume and the carbon output of federal workers' commutes.

"As the largest consumer of energy in the U.S. economy, the federal government can and should lead by example when it comes to creating innovative ways to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, increase energy efficiency, conserve water, reduce waste, and use environmentally-responsible products and technologies," Obama said in a statement. "This executive order builds on the momentum of the Recovery Act to help create a clean energy economy and demonstrates the Federal government's commitment, over and above what is already being done, to reducing emissions and saving money."

Each agency must report its 2020 emission targets to the Council on Environmental Quality within 90 days.

Administration officials said they could not estimate the federal government's carbon footprint, since it has never been measured before, but the government ranks as the nation's largest energy consumer. It occupies nearly 500,000 buildings, operates more than 600,000 vehicles and employs more than 1.8 million civilian workers.

Under the executive order, all federal agencies will have to meet a series of environmental targets over the next decade. They include 50 percent recycling and waste diversion by 2015; a 30 percent reduction in vehicle-fleet petroleum use by 2020; and a 26 percent improvement in water efficiency by 2020.

President George W. Bush signed an executive order in 2007 that asked four agencies to draw up regulations to reduce greenhouse-gas emissions from cars and trucks by the end of his administration, but didn't ask for specific targets. His move came after the Supreme Court ruled that his administration did not follow Clean Air Act requirements in not regulating greenhouse-gas emissions from motor vehicles.

Okay, I got one: if it applies to "defense" spending, how dare Obama cripple our ability to defend America!

Ringside seat on the fight to steer the Chamber of Commerce`s climate bus

TokyoTom — Wed, 07 Oct 2009 02:37:00 GMT

On the heels of my post about Apple leaving the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, here are a few more links and excerpts for eager readers (who have been spared a longer post that vanished into the ether as pixie dust crashed Mozilla and my prior unsaved draft) (emphasis added).

1. The Chamber`s opaque policy-making mechanism on climate, and the trigger for the wave of departures from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce;

see long article at NYT:

U.S. Chamber of Commerce staff decides the trade group's climate and energy policy positions without approval from the board of directors, Nike Inc. charged as it formulated a plan to call for greater chamber openness.

Nike, which last week left the chamber's board of directors but decided to remain a chamber member, described a lack of transparency at the group that conflicts with how the chamber describes its operations. ...

"We just weren't clear in how decisions on climate and energy were being made," said Brad Figel, Nike's director of government relations. "They're not being made at the board-of-director level, because we're a member of the board of directors. We were not consulted. We're convinced that's not really where the action on climate change is being made."

The chamber reaches its positions through a "democratic process" that is "driven by members," chamber spokesman Eric Wohlschlegel said yesterday. ...

"Policy is developed and recommendations are made to the whole board," spokesman Wohlschlegel said yesterday. "It's an open and voluntary process, and it's formulated by a majority of our members that represents the broader business community's perspective and not just the interests of one sector, one energy sector ... or one sector of the economy."

He would not address Nike's statement, however, that while it had representation on the board of directors, the board did not vote on climate policy positions. Wohlschlegel would not say when the board last took a vote on its position on climate legislation. ...

"They told us these decisions were made by staff [and not pursuant to the Board`s committee system]," Figel said. He said that Nike was told that "this is a longstanding chamber policy," and that "once the policy is established, a lot of these decisions can be made at the staff level."

Last spring, Figel said, Nike told the chamber that it wanted to be consulted on climate issues. After that, he said, "there were several decisions that were made by the chamber that we weren't consulted on."

In particular, Figel said, Nike recoiled at a chamber official's call for an EPA trial similar to the Scopes Monkey Trial on evolutionary theory [regarding EPA`s steps to employ regulatory authority affirmed by a Supreme Court decision during the Bush administration].

"That's not helpful in any way," Figel said. "That put a lot of companies on edge, how they phrased that."

The statement this summer by William Kovacs, a chamber senior vice president, that the science of global warming should face a public trial similar to the Scopes Monkey Trial thrust the trade group into a new realm, [Kenneth] Green [resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute] said.

"That was beyond the pale in terms of aggressiveness that I've seen in a trade association," Green said. "At that point, they were really inserting themselves into the political process in an extremely visible way, not just a matter of lobbying for their companies but really engaging in the bigger cultural argument. I wouldn't be surprised if that wasn't what scared some people away."

Note (from Marc Gunther at Salon in April): " Nike—along with Starbucks (SBUX), Levi Strauss, and Timberland (TBL)—helped form a green-business coalition to lobby for strong federal actions on climate. The coalition is called BICEP: Business for Innovative Climate and Energy Policy."

From blog of Marc Gunther (who is a Fortune contributing editor):

To be sure, the chamber, which calls itself “the voice of business” and spent about $62 million lobbying Congress last year, also has lots of members from the oil, coal and energy-intensive industries who oppose federal regulation of greenhouse gases. Its 122-member board includes executives from Consol Energy, Massey Energy, Peabody Energy, and the Southern Co.

The smart thing for the chamber to do would be to stay neutral—to admit that business is divided on the issue and to leave lobbying up to individual companies. Instead, some chamber officials offered up reasonable arguments against the bills pending in Congress and others went off the deep end. In a remark that was ill-advised at best and downright dumb at worst, William Kovacs, the chamber’s senior vice president for environment, technology and regulatory affairs, called for a public trial about climate science that he said would be “the Scopes monkey trial of the 21st century.”

2. Who dissents from the Chamber`s long-standing opposition to climate change legislation? (with links to statements)

Quit the Chamber: Exelon, PNM Resources, PG&E, Apple.

Quit the Chamber`s Board: Nike.

Says Chamber doesn't represent their views on climate:

- seven Board members from companies that are part of the U.S. Climate Action Partnership, a wide business coalition pushing for passage of climate legislation: Alcoa, Caterpillar, ConocoPhillips, Dow Chemical, Duke Energy, Siemens and Xerox

- General Electric, General Motors, Ford, Shell, DuPont, American Electric Power, and John Deere also support mandatory controls on greenhouse gas emissions.

- ExxonMobil favors a carbon tax (as I have noted several times).

- Entergy, a New Orleans-based utility also on the board

- General Electric,

- Johnson & Johnson,

- San Jose Chamber of Commerce.

Note: Those expressly in favor of the Chamber`s go slow approach on climate appear to be limited to coal firms Peabody Energy, Massey Energy Corp., and CONSOL Energy, and freight shipper Con-Way Inc. As noted previously, Chamber CEO Tom Donohue is closely tied to coal shipper Union Pacific.

3. In a move that shows how little the Chamber cares about the opinion and positions of its dissenting members, CEO Tom Donohue took at jab at Apple in this October 6 letter that he addressed to Apple CEO Steve Jobs in response to Apple`s announced resignation from the Chamber (with editorial comments):

Dear Mr. Jobs:

"I am sorry to learn of Apple's resignation from the U.S. Chamber of Commerce. It is unfortunate that your company didn't take the time to understand the Chamber's position on climate and forfeited the opportunity to advance a 21st century approach to climate change. [Needless, to say, Apple quit because it fully understood and was fed up with the Chamber`s actual position - unrelenting intransigence; PG&E said in its letter to the Chamber announcing its withdrawal: "Extreme rhetoric and obstructionist tactics seem to increasingly mark the Chamber's public stance on this issue."]

"The U.S. Chamber of Commerce continues to support strong federal legislation and a binding international agreement to reduce carbon emissions and address climate change. [The Chamber has no consistent expressed approach; it has opposed all federal legislation, and opposes provisions that would penalize foreign countries not adopting similar legislation. It is simply trying to put lipstick on a pig.] Furthermore, we believe that Congress should set climate change policy through legislation, rather than having the EPA apply existing environmental statutes that were not created to regulate greenhouse gas emissions. This is also the stated position of the President and Congressional leaders. [The regulatory threat exists only because the Bush administration and Republican Congress refused to act, and because the Chamber has exercised no leadership in outlining constructive legislation.]

"Your letter states that "Apple is committed to the environment and the communities in which we operate around the world." So is the Chamber but we are also committed to preserving the competitiveness and prosperity of the communities and businesses in our nation. [Particularly the competitiveness and prosperity of the Chamber members that mine, transport and burn coal.]

"While we do support legislation to address climate change [the Chamber continues to take the position that even an average 3 degrees C increase over the next century would bring net benefits], we oppose legislation such as the Waxman-Markey bill that numerous studies show will cause Americans to lose their jobs and shift greenhouse gas emissions overseas, negating potential climate benefits. An effective climate change response must include all major CO2 emitting economies, promote new technologies, emphasize efficiency, ensure affordable energy for families and businesses, and defend American jobs while returning our economy to prosperity.

"The American business community that we proudly represent is the single largest investor and innovator in clean energy solutions and remains committed to a strong economy and clean environment. ... The Chamber believes that the business community will continue to be the catalyst for reducing greenhouse gas emissions and we support efforts to tackle climate change in a way that will strengthen our economy, protect American jobs, and benefit our environment.

"Climate change is a global problem that requires a global solution. The Chamber supports an international agreement that will set realistic and achievable goals, ensure global participation, protect intellectual property rights and remove trade barriers to environmental goods and services.

"I would have hoped that Apple would have supported our efforts to improve environmental stewardship and keep Americans at work and our economy competitive. As the world's largest business federation representing more than 3 million businesses and organizations of every size, sector, and region, the Chamber is leading the way to support the innovation needed to transition to a lower carbon future, including the elimination of barriers to the deployment of clean energy technologies. Supporting innovation and technology is at the very heart of our efforts to combat climate change, and we will continue to fight for an approach that embraces their merits.

"It is a shame that Apple will not be part of our efforts." [Yes; the Chamber will just have to "lead" with fewer followers, fewer resources, and less prestige. And it appears that Tom Donohue is trying to "lead" the way to even fewer Chamber members; Dale Carnegie`s "How to Win Friends and Influence People," anyone? ]

4. More ongoing insightful (if skewed) commentary on the Chamber of Commerce here by Peter Altman, "Climate Campaign Director" of the mainstream enviro group NRDC (which largely "depend on the kindness of rich people to stay afloat." Its board and major donors "come from Wall Street, corporate law firms and big companies."

5. It`s clear that we are looking not merely at a clash of preferences, but a clash of preferences over how government is used - and in whose favor. This would look like classic "rent-seeking", but for the fact that it relates to the management of an un-owned, open-access commons that affects all of us - the atmosphere and climate system - and the fact that Coasean bargaining on an international scale cannot, in any practical sense, be conducted without involving states.

Confirmation bias, rent-seeking and the rush to print the latest climate science "scoop" (Lindzen-Choi)

TokyoTom — Fri, 04 Sep 2009 16:30:00 GMT

Since I`m in Tokyo and deprived of Bob Murphy`s enviable access, via talk radio, to cutting-edge climate science, I thank him using his blog to bring it to the attention of his audience (which occasionally includes me). Says Bob (emphasis added):

Chip Knappenberger explains the significance (and remaining holes to be plugged) in the recent Lindzen-Choi paper that's got talk radio in such a tizzy. The opening sentence: "MIT climate scientists Richard Lindzen and collaborator Yong-Sang Choi soon-to-be published paper (Geophysical Research Letters, American Geophysical Union) pegs the earth’s “climate sensitivity”—the degree the earth’s temperature responds to various forces of change—at a value that is about six times less than the “best estimate” put forth by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC)."

Well, well, if talk radio is covering a new article that purportedly downplays climate risks, then others who have invested time in casting doubt

I`ve blogged previously about my various conversations with Chip Knappenberger, who is employed by the self-described "advocacy" group of Pat Michaels, New Hope Environmental Services.

I went to pay a visit to his post at Rob Bradley`s pro-coal, "free market" MasterResource blog, which I have discussed on any number of occasions here - especially after Mr. Bradley unceremoniously withdrew the welcome mat for libertarian critics (yours truly) while in mid-conversation with (and without notice to) several of his guest bloggers.

I reviewed Chip`s precis of the Lindzen-Choi paper and attempted to leave comments at MasterResource, but they were "disappeared" as soon as they were posted, so I forwarded a copy of my comments by email directly to Chip, which I copy below (with minor edits):

Chip, I couldn`t resist trying to comment on your post at MR, and
checking to see if Rob still has his blog set up to automatically
exclude all of my comments. Unfortunately, he still seems to be
convinced that a principled and libertarian approach (or his clients`
needs) requires maintaining his echo chamber by excluding me.

To check the sophistication of his method, I have for the first time
just tried commenting anonymously (I have until stayed away and simply
hoped Rob would change his mind), and to my surprise the comment went
through - though it is "awaiting moderation". [update: this post has now received immoderate , "echo chamber" moderation]

I thought I would give you a head`s up on my pending comment, which I
do not expect to see published - but who knows? Strange things
sometimes happen, such as Rob quoting with approval a link to a
comment that I have made:
http://mises.org/Community/blogs/tokyotom/archive/2009/08/26/fun-with-partisanship-and-self-deception-the-climate-follies-and-rob-bradley.aspx.

My comment is below; I will wait until tomorrow before cross-posting
at my own blog.

Sincerely,

Tom

[comment left at MasterResource]
"It is too early to tell whether Lindzen and Choi’s findings will
prove to be the end-all be-all in this debate."

But it`s not too early for you, for others who act as paid mouthpieces
for fossil fuel and others who wish to avoid policy action, to trumpet
this as yet unpublished paper all over the intertubes, is it Chip?

By the way, continuing studies on the "sensitivity" of temperatures to
GHG increases should not lead us to ignore either the problem of ocean
acidification from our accelerating CO2 build-up or the very exquisite
sensitivity of the Earth`s climate and ecosystems to the 0.6 C average
temp increase that we have experience over the past 50 years
(remaining stuck at a peak for the past 10). The Arctic and temperate
zone glaciers continue to rapidly thaw, and other changes affecting
ecosystems and human livelihoods are still underway.

I note I have seen very preliminary remarks by James
Annan here, and by

Gavin Schmidt here.

"a waste of time and effort"

More directly, don`t you mean that such efforts would cost your clients money?

Sure, there are reasonable grounds to dispute practically any use of
government (though I note that Exxon and Margo Thorning of the ACCF
are both expressly advocating carbon taxes), but let`s not pretend to not

notice that those speaking most loudly in support of our radical, ongoing
planet-wide "experiment" on the affect of GHG emissions and albedo
changes are precisely the investors and firms (and their mouthpieces)
who benefit from the status quo (leaving all of these activities
unpriced), while it`s the world`s populations more generally who end
up with all of the risks.

This climate experiment and those paid to provide it cover are hardly
a "conservative" or "libertarian" enterprise.

I note that Bob Murphy is no climate expert, but simply posting blindly about something that he thinks cuts in the direct he wants; in a similar vein, Knappenberger also evidently is puffing the importance of a scientific article that is hot off the presses, but can`t be troubled to link to any articles providing additional context. (A recent blog post and comments by Steve McIntyre at Climate Audit also point out the difficulties in reaching conclusions from the new research.)

I also note, as I have previously, that not only Chip but Bob as well - when he has on his "economist for IER" (which is a coal and public utility front group that was de-funded last year by Exxon) hat - are, at least in part, being compensated to undercut climate change policy.

In this context, we all are prone to note evidence that fits into our existing world view, while discounting contrary information, such "confirmation bias" is readily apparent in the internet and radio coverage of this piece. While climate change and climate policy are certainly hot topics, it doesn`t seem to me that the so-called "skeptics" are at all taking this new study skeptically, but are instead eagerly lapping it up, assume it is good news, are are loudly trumpeting it. Now who`s fooling whom? Many "skeptics" look just like the "alarmist" "global warming cult" "believers" whom they abhor.

Unfortunately, while it`s impossible to know what Rob and Chip are actually thinking and why, it`s clear that a dangerous mix of self-deception, confirmation bias and rent-seeking permeates the tribal conflicts that we are seeing in current over the use of government, not the least in the case of climate change, which is a difficult scientific and policy issue.

Atlas Does Not Shrug at Climate Change: Exxon, Rob Bradley`s favorite "principled entrepreneur", embarks on $600+ million biofuels venture

TokyoTom — Wed, 15 Jul 2009 12:01:00 GMT

...(read more)

Food, water, agrotech & climate change: More "NeoMalthusian" charlatans, this time at National Geographic

TokyoTom — Wed, 20 May 2009 05:39:00 GMT

[note: my title has a bit of snark, designed to point out the emptiness of some anti-Enviro scare-mongering.] A reader of my previous post - regarding Ron Bailey `s review of the concerns that "famine-monger" Lester Brown recently wrote about...(read more)

[Update] Rot at the Core: Rob Bradley at "free market" MasterResource blog shows his true colors as a rent-seeker for fossil fuels

TokyoTom — Wed, 11 Mar 2009 11:27:00 GMT

[Update: I`ve added more background on Exxon, "Malthusians" and productive engagement.] How has Rob Bradley showed his hand? By shutting down reasoned (if challenging) debate at his blog, in the face of comments that were certainly more "free...(read more)

Fat Tails Part Deux: cost-benefit analysis and climate change; Weitzman replies to Nordhaus

TokyoTom — Fri, 13 Feb 2009 10:55:00 GMT

[Note: Although the giant snakes I mentioned in my preceding post may have fat tails, I didn't want my description of the discussion between Harvard`s Martin Weitzman and Yale`s William Nordhaus of the limits of cost-benefit analysis to be overlooked...(read more)

Paul Joskow: What electric power regulatory reforms are need? A Federal Power Act of 2009

TokyoTom — Sun, 08 Feb 2009 09:20:00 GMT

Further to my previous posts , excerpted below are the recommendations that Paul Joskow (energy expert, MIT economist and current president of the Alfred P Sloan Foundationn) recently made in a speech at the National Press Club : What is to be done? We...(read more)