I will still defer to the collected expertise of climatologists, which, for the moment, still supports the AGW hypothesis. I also expect climatologists to defer to economists when it comes to the question of “what to do about it”.
I still think a well-designed carbon tax or cap-and-trade system (the former being preferred to the latter) could result in significant welfare gains if paired with a cut in distortionary taxes (particularly payroll taxes), but I also think the odds of getting a well-designed regulation out of the political system are low.
The question of whether a real-world regulation would create benefits greater than costs isn’t yet clear to me. I’m not an advocate of the “we must do something, this is something, therefore we must do this” position on global warming.
7 responses so far ↓
1 john miller // Dec 6, 2009 at 10:28 pm
Not mine.
When the Spanish Inquisition tortured Galileo because they disagreed with him on the basis of what their god had told them, rather than saying: “Hey, G, look at these observations our guys have made”, you sort of knew they were up the old brown creek sans locomotion.
Same here. These guys know what they don’t know. (Thanks, Gerald). And they can see all those billions of dollars staying in peoples’ pockets rather than flowing into university grants and first class air fairs to Copenhagen.
Their Dunkirk moment has arrived.
2 john miller // Dec 6, 2009 at 10:29 pm
Fairs? I wrote fairs? Fme…
3 AntiCitizenOne // Dec 7, 2009 at 12:31 am
The Tax System merely moves pollution from the person who earned the money to a less economically efficient (and therefore less likely to be CO2 efficient) entity.
4 Dennis the Peasant // Dec 7, 2009 at 2:04 am
Climatology is just about as scientific as Economics… Which is to say not much at all.
When either develops the ability of relatively correct prediction, call me. In the meantime, I will continue to regard climate change as pure rubbish.
5 Ed Snack // Dec 7, 2009 at 7:46 am
The problem is, Tim, I suggest that right now we should be rightfully suspicious of the results that have been produced to support the “climatologists”, and without that empirical underpinning, they don’t have much to support their views. The models are also critically undermined.
The key part here is that, on the face of it, the surface record is seriously unreliable. The paper the IPCC relied upon with regard to UHI has been shown to be fraudulent, and the potential magnitude of a proper UHI adjustment is the same as the claimed warming signal. Add to that demonstrable issues with thermometer selection and other adjustments, and I’d have to say that the actual temperature picture needs a thorough re-evaluation so we can speak with some clarity about what actually has happened.
Some of this will happen, but sadly it will probably be reprocessed by the same people with the same selective blindspots, and the result will be engineered to show that “IT’S WORSE THAN WE THOUGHT ! OMG !
6 No one in particular // Dec 7, 2009 at 8:25 am
Galileo never even met the Spanish Inquisition, and was never tortured.
While we’re talking about facts.
7 Dennis the Peasant // Dec 7, 2009 at 12:49 pm
No one-
Nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition!
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