Selling indulgences
Recently reading an interesting article by Stewart Franks, Associate Professor of Hydroclimatology at the University of Newcastle, in the Daily Telegraph on Friday 16 Feb. It says in part:
‘The reality is that the science of climate is in no way complete. The IPCC’s figure that it is 90 per cent sure of human influence comes not from any science but appears to be a figure plucked from the air….
[W]e know that carbon dioxide represents about 2 to 3 percent of the natural greenhouse effect whereas water vapour make up the vast majority of the remainder. While we know why carbon dioxide is increasing, the physics of water vapour – in particular of clouds – is almost entirely unknown despite dominating the natural greenhouse effect. This is at the heart of the real climate change debate as water vapour is the most significant greenhouse gas and varies substantially for reasons yet to be fathomed. Consequently, water vapour effects could potentially swamp the relatively small role of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. There is in fact some evidence for this based on available data (although you wouldn’t find this in the Stern report). However as the physics of water vapour is grossly uncertain in the models, this is never tested. It should not therefore be a surprise when the model results show carbon dioxide leads to warming – they’ve ignored the uncertain role of the largest greenhouse gas, water vapour. What these models can’t do is tell us how much of the historic warming is due to carbon dioxide and how much is due to water vapour. ‘
I must admit, I never heard before from any of the disputants of the technical questions that the best evidence implicates human activity in only 2 to 3 percent of the whole greenhouse effect. Did you?
But that doesn’t mean 2 to 3 percent of the greenhouse effect is man-made. It just means that they are trying to figure out, but don’t know, how much of that 2 or 3 percent is not the natural but the man-made component. Unlike many of the opinion-givers, I studied climatology at university level. The one take-home lesson was: the subject is so superlatively complex that even the climatologists are far from understanding it well. That is why in the IPCC report they explicitly resort to many different models: they know that the explaining and predicting power of climatological models is very limited and imperfect. The popular assumption that the uncertainties involved in these models are something that the scientists have handled in an unproblematic way, is simply wrong.
(I challenge anyone to catalogue here all the explicit assumptions about data uncertainties contained in all the analyses and models used in the IPCC report. Merely tracking them down and naming them all would be a major work in itself, let alone comprehending how they all relate to each other or to the total picture.)
Australia’s contribution to the fraction of the 2 or 3 percent that is man-made is also another tiny fraction. Your one twenty-millionth of that is miniscule, negligible.
And that is to say nothing of the uncertainties involved in other possible explanations: solar, planetary, tectonic, volcanic and so on; and nothing of the uncertainties inherent in the philosophical premises of the whole fret-fest, or even if all those did not exist, of the uncertainties in the use of coercion to achieve…. what?
And yet we are already suffering a plague of censorious know-it-alls robbing us of our liberties and property, for example forcing us to comply with green building codes which raise the price of housing by thousands of dollars, on the pretext of a supposed need to save the world from the doom of this impending crisis.
UN and governmental schemes for carbon trading and such like remind me of nothing so much as the selling of indulgences by the mediaeval church.
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Donno if this guy is right, but the last bit does:
“UN and governmental schemes for carbon trading and such like remind me of nothing so much as the selling of indulgences by the mediaeval church.”
Great observation Justin.
Like that husband who bought his wife $600 in carbon credits for her birthday.
Just tragic.
Haha – carbon credits as a present!
Nice article, JJ.
The selling of carbon credits as a gift idea is testament to the ingenuity of entrepreneurs. It says something else about the buyer (IMHO).
If memory serves me, the fraudulent ‘trading room’ set up by Enron to scam investors et al was for carbon credits. Enron’s house of cards collapsed in a heap because they were banking on Gore winning the presidency and him enacting Kyoto etc into law in one way or another.
I agree with you attempting to praise entrepreneurs per se, Terje, but I disagree in this instance. Decent people don’t try to make profits by peddling fraudulent products to imbeciles. In the present example of cashing in on environmentalism, that’s exactly the kind of moronic **and anti capitalsm** behaviour Lenin was on about when he said that some capitalists would sell the very rope he would use to hang them with. Ken Lay is stone cold dead and bloody good riddance.
JJM
John
Former greenpeace activists are in on the act, it seems.
John,
Just for the record I’m not in favour of fraud. However it’s not clear to me that the product being sold is actually fraud. It may well be exactly what it’s promoters claim it to be, although whether it is on sale at a good price is obviously a separate matter.
Regards,
Terje.
Regarding water vapour- an article in today’s Australian claims that cosmic rays cause a lot of water vapour! ‘Relax, it’s only the Sun’. Nigel Calder believes that the sun’s variable magnetic field influences how many cosmic rays reach the Earth’s atmosphere, and these influence cloud formation, and that influences the average temperature. This news item could overturn the whole debate.
I recently read Calder’s article in the Times, http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/uk/article1363818.ece His theory comments on Svensmark’s cosmic ray/climate experiments. I doubt it will overturn the debate though. I think it’s more likely to get ridiculed.
It’s similar to Zbigniew Jaworowski’s article, “Solar cycles, not CO2 determine climate” http://www.21stcenturysciencetech.com/Articles%202004/Winter2003-4/global_warming.pdf
However, it’s good to know that people are working on alternate hypotheses, see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientists_opposing_global_warming_consensus.
In addition, Douglas G. Martinson and Walter C. Pitman have recently published an article http://www.springerlink.com/content/p4034017m2h50130/
proposing “a hypothesis to explain the very abrupt terminations that end most of the glacial episodes”. The hypothesis focuses on the Nth Atlantic ocean. If true, it would appear that global warming is not the major factor involved in high rates of glacial melting.
The storm clouds are building to rain on the green parade.
I don’t think so, Keegan. I think the lunatics have taken over the asylumn with this stuff. MSM is scaring the shit out the public and lot’s of people have also seen the silly movie with the Uni drop out, Algore morphing into a climate scientist putting up cahrts fro 650,000 years.
every criticism in this article has long since been dispensed with. you guys would be well served by a little effort actually reading the science, rather than the so-called ‘debate’ going on at denialist websites. Some of you here are representing a political party – do you think your party will have any credibility on any issues if you show you can’t assess a scientific issue like this rationally?
The solar cycle argument has been considered and discounted long ago, for example. Some of those scientists “opposing the global warming consensus” publish in such luminary journals as Nexus. The article linked to by Tim merely shows a technical explanation for the rapid end of a glacial period, i.e. it’s a discussion of a feedback mechanism which, under a global warming scenario, would be expected to speed the reduction of sea ice. It is far from an article which disputes the existence of anything.
You might also find that green building codes have a lot more to do with water conservation than global warming; and also are being used to reduce the demand for peak energy, which is forecast to lead to brown outs within a few years. Of course, one might think that living in a state affected by drought for 5 years and with declining water levels, some sort of conservation would be in order – but I do forget that you libertarians subscribe to a cult of Simonism, in which technology will always find new resources. Presumably you even think that applies to water…
Flash
this isn’t a site representing a political party. I think this AGW schtik is way overblown in terms of the dangers. Even if I stick with the IPCC report it doesn’t spell the doom and gloom scenario we keep hearing that the world is going to melt.
“every criticism in this article has long since been dispensed with. you guys would be well served by a little effort actually reading the science, rather than the so-called ‘debate’ going on at denialist websites.”
You are talking bullshit Flash.
The science says that everyone is ‘buying at the top” to use a JC stock-market metaphor.
I’m coming to grips with the scientists. Its you alarmist-denialist that aren’t doing that.
The alarmists don’t give a toss about the science.
Haven’t you figured that out yet?
Lets see some science then Flash:
1. Have you got some evidence for the likelihood of catastrophic warming?
2. Have you got any evidence that MAN causing a tiny bit of warming during an ice age is a bad thing?
there is a huge gap between the science and the opinion that I’ve yet to see bridged
The market is not perfect in the real world. There exist imperfections and various reasons for market failure. Therefore the tendency is to advocate that the government step in and do something, anything. However, there is the alternative problem of government failure to be looked into.
A typical sign of government failure is when industries or ordinary citizens decide that it is more economical for them to spend precious time and effort in trying to get ‘rents’ out of the system than in engaging in direct production. When people are willing to spend days roaming the corridors of power to get a particular paper cleared, these are signs of government failure. In all such cases government should review the existing arrangements carefully and redesign the institution.
Whatever the science behind global warming, my reading of the papers in recent days doesn’t inspire confidence that the very real threat of government failure is being given appropriate attention in the policy solutions.
The government/courts have a role to play in environmental protection and making people pay for the mess they create. I read somewhere that American lawyers are looking at suing in tort over damage caused by climate change. If they can prove it in court, perhaps that would be one way to offset environmental externalities. Human beings would naturally adapt however, no matter what the climate. Insurance companies will take into account the changed circumstances and people would not build homes in areas prone to flooding, etc.
To have a particular activity reflect its true social cost there is a strong case for requiring the purchase of liability insurance and removing caps on damages (in tort) where an externality exists. In all other situations contract law might be the most flexible option. What do people think?
JC, no-one says the world is “going to melt”. They point to starvation, sea-level rises, increased insect-borne diseases, loss of liveable land, and more extreme weather fluctuations. This isn`t “doom”, and no-one says it is. The IPCC contains a few minor warnings about extremely unlikely (in their words) catastrophic events, but focusses primarily on the likely range of sea level rises that are less than a metre. The claim that it is overrated is either based on ignorance of the science, or based on the (unproven) assumption that the cost of action will be greater than the cost of inaction. This is Humphrey`s claim, but his claim is based on a complete failure to take account of the valuable eco-system services that your precious “market” values at nothing. The entire purpose of the response to global warming, ultimately, is to get your precious “market” to value things that aren`t directly used in producing wealth.
To hear the Denialists talk, you would think that scientists were a bunch of hairshirted hippies living in shacks and demanding that hte world degenerate to the middle ages. This kind of characterisation may help Denialists like Birdbrain to justify their lunatic fantasies, but they have nothing to do with reality or what these scientists think.
See here`s the thing. Someone ignorant of libertarianism, but intelligent otherwise (well, I would say ignorance of libertarianism is probably a mark of intelligence), comes to this site because they are interested in “freedom” and sick of other parties. So they think hmm, maybe this mob`s economic analysis has something going for it. But they`re concerned because it doesn`t seem to be consensus economics. Then they see that most of the commentators are so ignorant and blind that they can`t come to grips with a consensus like global warming, and they immediately think “if these guys can`t understand that there is no way I can trust their analysis of economics either.”
And there goes a potential recruit to your movement to bring back the oh-so-rational 19th century.
I realise that the solar cycle theories have in the past been heavily disputed. However, Calder points out that more information has been added by the Svensmark experiments. The theory is still highly incomplete and not largely accepted. But the current CO2 theory is also incomplete and computer modelling especially is still highly variable and unreliable even when used to predict past climatic data. Afterall, they can’t even predict what the temperature will be tomorrow to a high level of accuracy. On the weekend where I live the forecast was out by 2C on Saturday and out by 5C on Sunday.
Also, I’m all in favour of a complete investigation into climate science and all its factors, not just CO2 hysteria.
The CSIRO recently released a range of possible temperature increases in Australia, but the media typically only reported the upper more alarmist end or the range.
I don’t think any of the scientists listed at Wikipedia as global warming skeptics were initially published in Nexus. And even if they have been at some time this argument is ad hominem. Perhaps you would like to visit http://www.nrsp.com/people.html the “national resource stewardship project”. These scientists have plenty of credentials.
In addition, architecture and engineering companies are increasingly designing their buildings to be highly energy efficient. Saving costs and making people feel good about being environmentally friendly is increasingly in demand and doesn’t need government regulation.
flash_heart — all insults aside, the market does value the ecosystem. The market is nothing other than the voluntary interactions of free people, so whatever is valued by the people is valued by “the market”.
When people oppose the market they often say “the market doesn’t care about x,y,z”, but what they mean is that “other people don’t agree with my priorities and therefore I will force to over-ride their decisions”.
One problem in political debate is the fluffy definition people have of “market” and “society”, where these things are anthropomorphised and blamed for the problems of the world. We have replaced “the devil made me do it” with “society/market made me do it”. If people used “voluntary interaction of free individuals” instead of market and society then their comments would be more transparent and more obviously incorrect.
Tim, everyone knows the difference between climate and weather, and it`s a classic denialist tactic to confuse the two. Similarly the claim that the theory of global warming is “incomplete”. So is quantum mechanics, and until the Theory of relativity was published so was the theory of celestial mechanics. Very few people claimed that the planets weren`t going around the sun just because the perihelion advance of mercury couldn`t be calculated. You are doing the same thing with global warming, and you really should go and read a bit more about the consensus science before buying into this kind of denialism.
Pointing out that your list of shills has been published in Nexus is ad hominem, but your argument against consensus relies on the assumption that the reputations of the shills in question are in some sense comparable to those of the consensus group. Clearly, “scientists” who publish in Nexus, or who cannot develop a theory to compete with global warming theory in predictive accuracy, are not of the same worth in your argument as those in the consensus group. Need I point out, however, that arguing about consensus here is dangerous. Libertarians generally interpret consensus as meaning “tyranny”, and assume that any consensus must have been reached through coercion. That`s why you are so quick to buy the claims that anti-global warming scientists have been persecuted, against the evidence.
Mr. Humphreys, I have seen you argue this point before and I am entirely unconvinced, for two reasons. Firstly the main market players do not represent the voluntary actions of free people – they have more power than most “free people”, and can control the opinions and actions of free people by, for example, paying shills to deny global warming. Also, the market consistently acts in a rapacious way, and consistently has to be reined in by non-market actors. As evidence of this, I present the “value” the market placed on the White Rhinoceros. Or better still, sharks fin. Sharks play an important role in ecosystem balance but the market values them for nothing more than their primary commodity value. Whether or not the extermination of sharks is of zero concern in and of itself, the effect on ecosystem balance could be profound, and the market places no value on this. This is why external agents then have to rein in the market by, for example, putting armed guards around the last rhinos or curbing the consumption of sharks fin. You can pretend that this is the market making a decision if you want, but you`re wrong. It was people making a decision to rein in the activities of a rapacious business world.
Currently international business places zero value on curbing carbon emissions, i.e. it places zero value on maintaining the earth`s climate in its current state. Someone is going to have to force the market to change, and when this happens it will not represent the market acting to correct itself.
By the way John McVey, I think you are wrong about Enron. Its Energy Trading room was intended to buy and sell energy products (not carbon credits) in an increasingly deregulated energy market. It was anticipated that enron would cash in on the wave to deregulate energy markets across the US. Enron traders were caught on tape talking about how they were robbing Californians, and Enron was implicated in California`s energy crisis in 2000.
So it has nothing to do with carbon credits, for which there was not a market at that time. Now UBS Warburg owns Enron`s energy trading rooms and the business is growing again, primarily because there is interest in trading in a high profit sector. Enron is actually a great example of exactly how much more powerful big corporations are than we mere “free people” freely associating, and how important it is for the government to keep a careful eye on these shysters.
Also a good example of how you should check your facts before sheeting home every failing of the free market to left wing influence.
The californian energy crisis was due to retail price regulation, pure and simple. Price regulations routinely cause shortages. These shortages manifest themselves as blackouts, starvation, hospital waiting lists, immigration queues, housing shortages, petrol queues or unemployment depending on the price being regulated.
For example New York has a persistent housing shortage due to legislated rent caps and this shortage happens in spite of entire buildings being vacant (ie no real scarcity). As a result the level of homelessness is very high in New York.
When the USA placed price caps on petrol in the 1970s people queued for hours at service stations to fill up. This happened even though petrol supplies were only only very slightly down on the preceding year and in spite of the USA being more self reliant than most countries in terms of oil. Other countries experienced no such shortages or service station queues.
And when California put a price cap on electricity the net effect was rolling brownouts. Enron was clearly corrupt but making it a scapegoat for the energy crisis in California and for government ineptitude is very misleading and highly inaccurate.
You are correct about price regulation Terje, but only to a certain extent. The price regulation would have been less of a problem had companies like Enron not been actively price gouging. See this link for example.
Notice also I didn`t “make Enron a scapegoat” for the crisis. I said it was “implicated.”
My point was not in any case to go on a tangent about the evils of government vs. partiallly regulated vs. deregulated electricity markets, but to point out to Mr. McVey that he was wrong about the allegation of carbon credit trading. In fact if you read my comment again you`ll see that I didn`t mention the free market topic at all – the second to last paragraph was simply aimed at backing up a prior statement about corporate actors having more power than “free people” associating freely.
flash-heart — please call me John. It is strange that you’re aren’t convinced by my explaining libertarian philosophy. I wasn’t trying to make an argument, I was giving a definition. I’m afraid you don’t have the option of rejecting the definition. It’s there.
You change the topic to “the main market players”, and point out that people with more money get more say over how resources are used. True by definition. That is the nature of inequality. Are you against inequality?
Nothing about inequality decreases freedom, as you imply by putting “free people” in inverted commas.
You go on to complain that free people are allowed to try and influence others and you seem to fear that this voluntary interaction is so dangerous the only solution is to give some powerful people more power to prevent wrong speech. I disagree. While I accept that people make mistakes and that we influence each other, I’m not worried about this. The truth has nothing to fear from free speech. I also note that, despite the rhetorical gymnastics of the left, influence is most certaintly NOT the same as violence/coercion.
You say that the market acts badly sometimes. I’m sure. The market is nothing more than the voluntary actions of free people and people act badly sometimes. So once again if we boil down your complaint it amounts to “some people are mean”. Quite true. But hardly sufficient grounds for your dismissive attitude to freedom.
The white rhino & sharks aren’t owned. Their problems come from a lack of market forces… not an excess. When Zimbabwe (back when it was half-rational) recognised that the elephant population was about to die out they introduced elephant ownership and allowed elephants to be hunted. The owners had an incentive to keep the herd population high and elephant numbers boomed to the point where there were too many. There is not animal that we eat that is endangered.
Finally to climate change — you do have a point. I wasn’t trying to argue that the market would always create a perfect outcome. Carbon emissions may well turn out to be a good example of a negative externality. This doesn’t mean that free people acting voluntarily (ie what you are intent on calling “the market”) don’t care about the climate. It just means the natural incentive system isn’t working as best it can. Perhaps the government can improve on this situation? Perhaps. But if looking at the track record of government teaches you anything it should teach you to take a few breaths before you run into the loving arms of politicians and bureaucrats.
John
where in my little screed did I refer to corporations as people? They aren’t, and they share this property with the government that you are so irrationally afraid of: they have power as an organisation. To compare the free speech rights of individuals (who in our society essentially have no real, effective free speech rights) with corporations is just disingenuous and silly. Do you really claim to have the same right to free speech as Rupert Murdoch? These corporations control public perception about climate change, against the interests of the vast majority of the public. You can’t explain that by saying they are equal, because they aren’t individuals. This is right-wing illogic, and you know it.
The sad thing is, John, that if you followed your right wing illogic to its illogical conclusion, you would sit around claiming that inequality of free speech is good while these companies hide all the evidence of climate change until it is far, far too late. Just as they did with smoking.
As for my objections to inequality – who wouldn’t? The pursuit of equality has been the purpose of human life for as long as there has been a moral code. To even ask this question proves a lot about your understanding of the real impact of inequality on real people (a problem I notice consistently on this blog).
As for this:
…
…
tuna? whales? dodos? Perhaps you mean to say that there is not an animal we farm that is not endangered. In any case my argument was not about the sharks and their extinction themselves, as I thought i made clear enough when I said
It is well possible that the extinction of a shark species (or its population collapse, which is more likely) could be valued and considered by the current marketplace whether or not ownership of sharks is granted. My point was that the potential eco-system services provided by those sharks are not valued. I have seen you fail to understand this distinction before John, on deltoid, and you clearly haven’t adapted.
Now we reach the final point, regarding whether I should rush to embrace politicians and bureaucrats with open arms or embrace your market solutions. I don’t think I am going to listen to any solution you propose, and here is why:
imagine a group of people in the early 20th century, who have been around a couple of centuries and have been rabidly denying that the planets orbit the sun. Over the centuries they have been using various arguments, including claims that the consensus is stifling dissent, that it is a pagan plot, etc. Eventually in the early 20th century, when everyone else now knows it is true, and when governments are planning a trip to the moon, the bunch of loonies in question fall back on their last defense – the science is not certain, there are still errors in the calculations of the orbits and it would be terribly dangerous to trust human lives to a theory which is not proven. Then Einstein publishes the theory of relativity, the last inaccuracies in the orbits are extinguished, and your group is left out on a limb. Even the catholic church has long ago accepted this model, and has stopped funding Inquisition shills to attack its proponents. You finally have to admit that you were wrong all along. After 4 centuries of dissembling, lying, claiming oppression of your ideas and suppression of dissent, painting all your opponents as satanists and claiming they are only presenting this theory in order to suck up your hard earned taxes, you finally have to admit the theory is true. So what do you do straight away? Demand a say in the planning of the first trip to the moon!
This is exactly the scenario libertarians are in now, except with a different time scale. We can’t trust anything you say because a) your analytical skills were clearly blinded by your ideology b) you are a disruptive mob who can’t be trusted with public debate c) you have shown you don’t respect people you disagree with d) you are stupid e) you don’t understand science and f) you think you know it all and g) it would be unjust to the memory of all the scientists you have smeared, attacked, denigrated and lied about to even consider your views.
But obviously the most important point is a). You don’t have anything to contribute because everything you say is filtered through your ideology. And a grudging admission after everyone else has accepted the truth, while still associating with people who deny the entire thing, is hardly grounds to believe that there has been a genuine change.
Hey Flash_heart,
I do have the same right to free speech as Rupert Murdoch. He has a right to sell newspapers as I have a right to buy them, not buy them, believe what is said in them or not believe what is said in them. I also have a right to start a rival paper if I so choose.
I think what you’re upset about is that a lot of people tend to believe what they read without looking deeper. I think you imply from this that you’d rather Rupert Murdoch be not allowed to do that.
I don’t hold to that as I feel it’s a way to allow people to be intellectually lazy; they should not expect to have their news delivered to them FDA approved so to speak. When people in the old soviet union received their propaganda laden news they knew it was misleading and took it with a grain of salt. I think everyone should do this with just about everything they’re told about anything by anyone.
Cheers
Ben
Ben, you’re confusing right and power. You have the same rights as Rupert Murdoch in your libertarian dreamworld, but in the actual real world you don’t have hte same power as him. You can’t start your own paper, so all you can do is buy his. This is inequality. therefore, you can’t stop people broadcasting their opinions of global warming, but he can.
You need to get this straight before you suppose you know what I’m trying to say.
You didn’t refer to corporations as people. But corporations are made up of people who are voluntarily getting together. There is no coercion or violence involved. Their right to free speech is identical to yours and mine (the freedom to do what you like with what you own). Of course, some people/corporations own more than others. That’s the reality of inequality. But even repeating it 12 times doesn’t create violence/coercion.
You think it is irrational to be afraid of government power. Which examples would you like first? Being skeptical of power is a pretty smart approach to politics unless you’ve never looked at history or reality. Being afraid of free people acting voluntarily on the other hand seems like a strange phobia.
If you think free people interacting voluntarily is the same as people using violence/coercion then we obviously have a totally different understanding of human existence. Or perhaps the english language.
I find it amazing that you use climate change as an example. Despite the evil corporations trying to kill you, eat your babies and club baby seals… and hide climate change, the majority of people believe climate change is a problem. So that seems like a particularly bad example of your point.
There is nothing illogical about the position of freedom and property rights. You have provided no reason to challenge this position except for assertions and insults. Neither of which are effective.
You say you object to inequality. Can I then assume that you think the world would be better if we were all equal? You ask “who wouldn’t” object to inequality. Me. I think inequality is natural and good and I wouldn’t want to live in a world of equality. Equal rights — yes. But actual equality? No thanks. For example, I don’t work much. I’m happy to trade a lower income for more spare time. Why would you want to stop me?
Your eco-system point is simply another (fairly obvious) example of lack of private property rights. When the environment is owned, it is cared for according to the values that people put on the land.
And then you simply say you refuse to listen to anything we write. I wish you’d said that to start with and I wouldn’t have bothered. There are plenty of open-minded intellegent people out there for us to interact with. We don’t need to waste our time on trolls.
flash_heart: Do you really claim to have the same right to free speech as Rupert Murdoch?
Ben: I do have the same right to free speech as Rupert Murdoch.
flash_heart: Ben, you’re confusing right and power. You have the same rights as Rupert Murdoch in your libertarian dreamworld, but in the actual real world you don’t have hte same power as him.
Who is confused here?
Of course people with more money have the capacity to control more resources. That’s what more money means. It is only by being opposed to the concept of inequality that you can find this problematic.
But we all have the same rights. That’s what flash_heart asked and that’s what Ben answered. And now even flash_heart is admitting it. Good.
So the remaining debate is simply whether we should allow ineqeuality in the world. And if we don’t (as flash_heart wants) then how to you stop it when people naturally want inequality?
Well, John, it was a rhetorical point, but think of my example as an educational opportunity if you like. why would anyone listen to your suggestions? Because your grasp of the science is so good? You missed that boat. Because your willingness to engage in public debate is so obvious? In between accusing everyone of sucking up your tax dollars (a la graeme birdbrain in his earlier comment), accusing everyone of censoring you, and supporting organisations which pay people to lie, sure you were. Perhaps it was your commitment to pragmatism over ideology? No, it wasn’t that. Your movement squandered the chance to make a difference with your heads stuffed in the sands of your ideological desert.
(When I say “you” here I mean the movement – if I may call a group of individuals competing with each other a “movement”, and not a “rabble.” – but you in the individual sense have been very clearly part of that movement. Why, even a month ago you were heaping scorn on the Stern report. I wonder what the rest of the world will think of that?)
As for your take on inequality – you may recall earlier I commented on how libertarians confuse consensus with tyranny, and now we have you confusing equality with forced mediocrity. That’s straight out of Ayn Rand, that is. I don’t even know where to begin explaining this concept to you, but let me suggest this: equality is about having the same access to opportunities, not everyone being the same; and it is about having the same power. This is not the same as your bargain basement version of freedom, which is the right of the rich to kick the poor and keep them in their place. Your version of freedom is best described by the saying “free to those who can afford it; very expensive to those who cannot.”
yes, I’m sure that the people who suffered as a result of the Union Carbide accident would agree with you. As would all those happy people who lost their savings in the Enron crash; or David Hicks, being busily libelled every day by the Telegraph calling him a Traitor for crimes which don’t exist under Australian law; or that 16 year old sandwich shop worker who had her wages cut within days of Workchoices being enacted. What power did she have? The power to start her own company, at 16? You really are very very ignorant if you think that this is okay.
you still don’t understand do you John? How do private property rights protect ecosystem services? I exterminate all the animals in my plot so the person down the road has to put up with a plague of locusts? And even if everyone owns some portion of the land and its contents, this makes no odds if either a) they don’t value the ecosystem services on the land (so they all ruin the land together) or b) a big corporation buys it up and then ruins it.
And how do people get ownership of Tuna? They migrate, John, they move between places. You going to tag every one of them? These things need to be held in group ownership because everyone suffers the consequences of a few people’s bad behaviour. It signifies nothing if all the farmers out west own their land, so they all create a dust storm which gives people in the city asthma. Or they all poison the rivers so that the barrier reef is destroyed. Sure, it may mean nothing to you but when it’s gone and all of our fish stocks change, what are you going to do? You have to propose a mechanism to value the network of consequences of individual actions which flow through ecosystems – and private property is not that model.
However, I think you are wilfully ignorant about this. You have had this conversation before and you consistently refuse to accept even the existence of this network. You think it’s hippy talk, and you ignore it.
Well phew, I’m glad we sorted that out. Presumably since possession of the rights is more important than an ability to act on those rights, I presume you won’t mind if someone kills you? After all, you have the right to security of existence, but you can’t exercise it. That’s inequality of power. It’s only by opposing inequality of power that you can find this problematic.
Of course you will say this is “coercion”, and needs to be banned with a ban enforced by a highly empowered police force. But you have been assigned a right. Not anyone else’s problem if you don’t have the power to exercise it. why should I fund police to protect you if you can’t protect your own rights? Maybe you don’t value them…
I don’t even know where to begin explaining this concept to you, but let me suggest this: equality is about having the same access to opportunities, not everyone being the same; and it is about having the same power.
No, my friend, equality is about having equal rights under law.
No two people are the same. Not even identical twins! Different people are born with different gifts. It’s just a simple fact of reality. If you want to be happy and free you should learn to accept it.
Equality under law affords people equal access to opportunity. What you’re referring is equal reward for trying to utilise that opportunity, regardless of what you make of it. The libertarian, or indeed Objectivist, argument is simply that people who make the most of that opportunity should receive the most rewards. After all, in civilised society, the person who makes the most of that opportunity has given the most back to the society that provided it.
After all, you have the right to security of existence, but you can’t exercise it. That’s inequality of power.
Only with the current attitude of the legal system, which believes that it’s bad if someone tries to defend their life or freedom or property, or attempts to be empowered to do so!
flash_heart — you have already admitted you are not interested in serious discussion here so why do you continue? You now seem to admit your prime example (climate change) doesn’t support your thesis (that evil corporations brain wash the masses). And you only compound your confusion and with insults. I haven’t done any of the things you accuse my “movement” of doing… and I doubt you’d accept collective guilt for the combined comments of all on the left.
You now seem to be upset that I disagreed with the Stern Report, but give no reason why my critique (or that of many good economists) was wrong.
You now want to redefine equality as equality of opportunity. But unfortunately for you that undermines your original complaint about access to resources (including resources required to promote ideas). The relevant form of equality for that debate is equality of wealth. You initially said you support such equality and threw out a few insults for those who disagree. Now you seem to be changing your position, so I’ll ask again. Do you support inequality of wealth, knowing that such an inequality leads to unequal access to resources (by definition)?
Are you seriously claiming that the Enron crash constituted violence/coercion? And what on earth does David Hicks have to do with this? Gitmo isn’t a market institution.
Nobody is denying that bad things happen in the world and that we all have less than we want. Stating the economic problem doesn’t help solve it. The question is which institutions best allow us to use our limited resources to maximise utility, for everone. The answer is the market. You have offered nothing against this except insults, misrepresentations and repetition.
flash_heart: How do private property rights protect ecosystem services?
I never said they did. I said that if you have private property rights then the value placed on the property would be the value that people place on the property. And not just the person who owns it. Coase Theorem. You admit yourself that the problem (as you see it) is that people might not value the ecosystem as much as you do… and therefore the real problem is that everybody except you is stupid and you should be able to make their decisions. No thanks.
You again complain about externalities and simply assert that there is no way to introduce effective tradable property rights. That’s simply not true. It is convenient for the left to keep ignorant of market solutions, but that doesn’t stop them existing. However, I accept that in some instances creating effective property rights might be too difficult and then incentives will be wrong. That doesn’t necessarily lead to government intervention, because you have to assess the benefits and costs of that intervention.
I’ve already explained this to you. You make the same mistakes and I explain it again. And then you accuse me of being “wilfully ignorant”. Amazing.
flash_heart: I presume you won’t mind if someone kills you?
Actually, no. That would be violence/coercion. You really don’t understand this concept do you? Violence is different to influence. Different. Not the same. Lacking in sameness. I believe in equality under the law (ie we all are protected from violence/coercion) but not equality in access to resources (which you call “power”).
You follow that up with an appeal to anarcho-capitalism. Suffice to say, most people here aren’t anarcho-capitalists. Most people here accept the need for the government to maintain the institutions of liberty under the rule of law.
Further, those who are anarcho-capitalists would argue that they only believe in their system because they believe it would lead to a greater access to a higher quality legal system. I’m not interested in defending anarcho-capitalism because you only brought it up as an intentional irrelevant distraction… but if anybody is interested I suggest reading David Friedman’s “Machinery of Freedom”.
Flash Heart. The theory of quantum mechanics and relativity are highly predictive tools. Very accurate theories, especially relativity. On the other hand, global warming computer models are highly inaccurate. Climate science takes an incredible amount of computer power because there are so many variables. Often “constants” are assigned in the calculations of such variables and these equations cannot be compared to the theory of relativity. They often vary from model to model. You obviously don’t know your science very well.
You accuse me of being a global warming denialist. But this is not true, the world has heated up recently. My dispute is with extreme future forecasts that are blamed on CO2. There are also many unexplained global phenonomen. There are some areas where glaciers are growing, some areas where sea levels have dropped etc. However, the media will have you believe that every flood, drought, cyclone is now a direct result of global warming.
It’s obvious that in the past, global warming has been hijacked by people with a socialist political agenda. Any global warming skeptic is accused of being on the pay roll of oil companies. Even though the entire careers of global warming scientists depend on the theory.
People forget that over 95% of greenhouse gas is H2O, or that the climate has a high range of natural variability, or that the earth has survived large temperature extremes in the past, the earth has survived very large concentrations of CO2, what about the little ice age in the 1600s.
My argument for caution when predicting large temperature effects from increasing CO2, doesn’t rely on the reputation of those at the NRSP. I thought it would appeal to your authority dependent personality which is why I commented on these scientists.
I’ve read many disputes on the solar cycle type theories and I’ve read a lot of the material at realclimate.com.
I’m still miffed by the fact that according to all the ice core data temperature increases (and decreases) preceed (yes preceed) changes in CO2. Rising temperature preceeds rising CO2 and falling temperature preceeds falling CO2 levels. And the correlation between the two is otherwise very strong. It remains a mystery in need of better answers.
# Flash_heart Says:
February 21st, 2007 at 11:19 pm
“Ben, you’re confusing right and power. You have the same rights as Rupert Murdoch in your libertarian dreamworld, but in the actual real world you don’t have hte same power as him. ”
Thanks for your thoughts. I don’t have the same “power” as Murdoch because I don’t have his money or resources. That’s true. But is it wrong? He has built these resources up and I haven’t. By what right do you take them away from him?
“You can’t start your own paper, so all you can do is buy his. This is inequality. ”
I can start my own paper, or anything else I set my mind to. I don’t have the capital to start a paper by myself but if I can prove that I am capable of making the paper successful and show that there is a market for it then I would have no problems raising it.
Just ask Larry Page and Sergey Brin. They didn’t have the capital to start Google but because they had a good idea and the talent to bring it to fruition they were backed by savvy investors.
“therefore, you can’t stop people broadcasting their opinions of global warming, but he can.”
Rupert Murdoch has changed his tune on GW. Does that make you happier about his “power”.
“You need to get this straight before you suppose you know what I’m trying to say.”
You are excusing intellectual sloth. It’s the responsibility of the individual to remain informed and the best method of doing this is to gather information about a subject from many sources. It’s fantasy to think that any source of information can be in any way objective and this should be your starting point when you sit down to read anything.
If people are fooled by news with spin then it’s their own fault. I happen to have a high opinion of people and think that if they stop being treated like children who need to be protected by the government then they will start to properly look after themselves. This includes not believing everything they read.
never mind responding to his criticisms- I think I know who Flash-dance must be! Where else have we heard such invective against opponents, such disdain for those who don’t agree with him, such deliberate use of emotional words into an intellectual argument? Can it be that while we’re quite open about our identities, our intellectual opponent has reason to hide his real name? Is Flashy-dunce’s real name Mark Latham?
If i’m right, do I win a trip to Tahiti, please?
Terje, I`m guessing your thoughts on CO2 and temperature cycles are based on a misreading of a single paper which was published last year. The paper was (from memory) by Andrew Bolt, and like the paper Tim quoted earlier is just a model of a feedback mechanism occurring in wider climate cycles. So be as miffed as you like, but it would probably be reasonable to assume that that kind of material has been taken into consideration by the large body of scientists working on this topic.
Tim, if you go back to the example of relativity I gave John Humphreys, you`ll see that you have pretty much repeated several of the slurs and rhetorical devices described therein, in this one post. You have started with the claim of inaccuracy (requiring that a model be 100% accurate before you are willing to believe the general principles); blaming the media for exaggerating the problem (despite recent published evidence that the media is actually much more willing to publish skeptical reports in a skeptical tone than are scientific journals); and alleging suppression of opposition views of the topic. Then you finish by claiming that people are exaggerating the risk of global warming in order to suck up your taxes. Do you understand why this, plus your casual misrepresentation of the science, might make it difficult for people to believe you have anything to contribute?
On the topic of this sucking up of tax money, you said this:
which shows an incredible lack of respect for, or understanding of, scientists and the structure of public research. Atmospheric and climate scientists – the people who discovered the phenomenon of global warming – are paid by Universities to do climate research, not global warming research. The great majority of them were being paid to do climate research before the global warming issue developed, and would continue to do so after. Their income is not dependent upon what they write, but upon their studying climate science. This is why people wrote that paper about glacial melting which you quoted earlier – because Universities retain them to study the dynamics of climate. Global warming certainly provides a useful mechanism for these scientists to test their theories, but if it didn`t exist they would still be studying their theories. Climate research is essential for modern agriculture, shipping, meteorology and air travel. Understanding climate helps the entire physics community improve its understanding of complex thermodynamic processes, and is necessary in and of itself. These people do not need to beat up a drama in order to get paid.
On the other hand, global warming denialists do. I once saw an interview with a global warming denialist who was adamant that the issue was being beaten up by scientists for extra funding, and that people who opposed it were having their careers stifled. His argument was for more research. His position? Professor. His task? Deep ocean drilling to test prehistoric climate records, in order to disprove global warming. His career had hardly been damaged by his stance, and he was being paid by a university to criticise established science. Claiming “more research is needed” is a very good way to get more funding; claiming “this fact has been put to bed, let`s move on” is not. There aren`t many “global warming alarmists” claiming the former.
Regarding this:
this is the reason our planet is warm enough to live on at all. It has nothing to do with global warming, which is about the increasing concentration of CO2 against this background of water vapour. The water vapour issue is a furphy raised by the denialist community and long since dispensed with. Like the other “questions” which denialists raise about non-CO2 causes of warming (aerosols, methane, etc.) it has been accounted for. Similarly the previous phenomena you describe (little ice ages, etc.) You are laying a trail of furphies.
Which brings me back to my point. If your libertarian “movement” and its mates on the far right of the business world had not scattered the trail with these furphies right up until now, people would be more willing to consider the solutions you suggest.
Ben, regarding Murdoch:
Rupert Murdoch walked out of university into the position of managing director of News Ltd., which he inherited from his father. I`m not sure what part of “built” means “inherited”, but I think not much. So you should probably bear that in mind when you say you “can start” your own paper. What you might be better off saying is “if I were to inherit control of a newspaper, I could buy a second one”. It has been a long, long time since anyone built a newspaper from scratch. The usual response of the right to this kind of concentration of power in the hands of the rich is to bleat on about new media; but new media don`t concentrate power in the hands of their owners and users, they merely enable those owners and users to search more efficiently through the information which those who hold the power are able to disseminate.
This part of the conversation we are having is about the way power concentrates in the hands of the rich. I gave my example of global warming; but it matters not a jot if the Murdoch changes his tune on this. what is important is that his opinion is more important than yours or mine, on account of his having inherited money from his father. Libertarians want to ensure that people like Rupert can keep the money they never earnt, thus gathering more power, at the expense of those who were born without any money and have to accrue every little bit of power in their lives through hard scrabble. The end result of this is a system of coercion, and the more serious the inequalities between people like Rupert and people like you, the greater is the coercion.
(This, John, is the essence of my objection to inequality. It is also the essence of my definition of equality of opportunity. Opportunity to try whatever one wants to do is not spread evenly through society, and to be spread equally it does not require that everyone have equal wealth. For example, an education system where everyone has to pay up front to get to school does not give equality of opportunity, because people with poor parents cannot go to school. A system where how much you pay depends on how much you earn is likely to be more equal [don`t get sidetracked by this example as if it were my preferred model - it is an example]). A system where people with money cannot take advantage of people without money – i.e. where people are not rewarded with power for being rewarded by the previous generation with money – is a system with less coercion. Of course, when I read coercion here I always read it in tandem with the word “violence” – which is a foolish semantic trick. Coercion is different to influence, despite John`s claims to the contrary. It is mere semantics to claim that coercion is equal to violence or that only governments can coerce people.
Finally Ben, you say “If people are fooled by news with spin then it’s their own fault”. Which is exactly right: it`s your own fault that your movement has been fooled by corporate spin, and is stuck on the fringes of the lunatic world when talking about global warming.
John, regarding this:
Perhaps this has been explained in the prior comment. Access to resources gives better opportunities, unless someone steps in from outside the free market to balance the differences – for example, I imagine in your fuzzy libertarian world the poor will go to university on scholarships offered by kind and gentle rich benefactors. This is an example of someone subverting the direct market relationship (buying ones way into uni). [of course my argument is that people doing this voluntarily will be insufficient to offer effective balancing, and so we should establish an authority which coerces people into doing this. e.g. a government. I think you know this is my argument, but you`re hoping that contradictions will prevent me from making it plainly].
In any case we have got off track with this argument about power, and need to return to the global warming debacle, do we not? Indeed I agree I have not seen you elaborating on many of the slurs and malicious tricks that many of your movement have done, so my apologies if the rhetorical point seemed ill-suited to you particularly. I am even sensing that you are willing to admit a problem with the way in which markets assign value to externalities like clean air. It is difficult to assign ownership to mobile assets, as well, and free market solutions for problems of things like tuna stocks don`t seem very thick on the ground. This is my point.
Air is a particularly good example of this problem. How does a farmer in Finland bill a Russian nuclear power plant owner for the increased insurance costs associated with being downwind of it? How do English farmers factor European acid-rain making factories` activities fairly into their cost structure? Sure, they can accept it as a cost but it`s not fair, is it? One could almost call it coercion. Global warming is just this problem writ very very large, and there is a lot of coercion involved in the problem. For example, most of the global warming problem is caused by 2 countries (China and the US). The most immediate potential impacts are going to be on pacific Islands. I think you would be hard pressed to find a pacific Islander fleeing their inundated homeland who will be able to describe US activities as anything other than coercion. And I think you will also find it difficult to establish a method for factoring the damage done to those Islands into the market for energy in the US (or even the world); let alone all the other markets (like beef and transport) which are affecting those Islanders. At this point international treaties and government coercion are likely to become necessary. Which is why those few libertarians (like you?) who are waking up (too late) to the seriousness of the threat are generally suggesting first up a carbon tax – which is government coercion in your book (and social cooperation in mine).
And I have to ask, why do you insist on equating coercion and violence? They aren`t the same, either in reality or in the dictionary. Isn`t this a little … disingenuous?
What’s your proposal Flash_heart? Huey Long style wealth redistribution?
I fail to see a problem with Keith Murdoch leaving his assets to his Son. I would want to leave my assets to my family when I die and I fail to see how anyone can morally deny me that right.
The crux of your argument remains the same. You fail to see that people have a choice and simply refuse to exercise that choice. You equate power with wealth as if the size of a media empire means a human being is incapable of resisting it. As has been mentioned to you in previous posts, you disagree with what Rupert Murdoch’s papers say and, rather than allowing others to make their own decision, you want a way to force your opinion on them.
Besides which his opinion is only so very powerful inasmuch as it influences the government. If the government was reduced in a way that the libertarians feel it should be the wind would be knocked out of his political sails.
I understand your beliefs. You believe the problems of the world are caused by the greedy few stepping on the masses. I don’t disagree but I feel that the only way parasites are able to get a foothold is through regulation. If the playing field is level innovation and prosperity thrive.
As for GW I have no strong opinion on the subject as I’m not a scientician. I have tried looking into it but it’s such a politicized issue that it’s very difficult to get to the crux of the matter. I just wish people would stop screaming at me from either side of the argument and calling me a fascist or a bleeding heart or a lunatic if I dare raise up my hand and ask a question. I don’t think I’m any of those things and my Mum assures me I’m a very nice man.
One last point Flash. If you disagree so adamantly then why do you post here? It seems obvious that you won’t be able to convert anyone who posts here to your beliefs and the reverse is clearly true. If you’re happy to have a lively exchange of ideas then great. But I don’t think you’re all that keen to listen to any of us. So why would you bother trying to outwit and bunch of fringe lunatics like us?
Cheers
Ben
flash_heart — you once again say that inequality results in coercion. That’s simply not true according to the definitions of the words. Of course inequality leads to a different capacity to control resources… but that is not coercion. Rupert Murdoch does not coerce me or you.
You have made it clear that you’re against inequality (of wealth) because this leads to a different capacity to control resources, which means a different set of opportunities. It is true that different levels of wealth provide different opportunities. I don’t have the opportunity to get one of those fandangled space tourist trips to the International Space Station or buy an ultralight and fly around Australia. Some of my friends in Indonesia, Cambodia, Estonia etc don’t have the opportunity to travel like I do. I agree that inequality of wealth leads to inequality of access to education, health, housing, food, entertainment, hobbies, travel etc. This is the nature of inequality of wealth.
But (1) it is not coercion. And (2) I don’t think it’s a bad thing. Indeed, I think it is natural, desirable, inevitable and beneficial to society… including those people who currently have little wealth. Personally, I choose to sacrifice income for other pleasures, knowing full well that this will decrease my opportunity to use resources.
You mention a system where you pay as a percentage of your wage and mention that this would create greater equality. Very true. Indeed, if that example were extended to all things then it would effectively result in equality of wealth (measured in purchasing power parity).
You mention people “taking advantage of other people”, by which I assume you mean offering them a voluntary contract which is mutually benefical. That is not coercion… and if “exploitation” means offering people more than they can otherwise get, then please exploit me.
You complain about inherited wealth, which is the same as disagreeing with a person’s right to give gifts to their loved ones. Giving money to friends, family or charities is a perfectly legitimate “consumption” choice and I wouldn’t want the government to ban/control/regulate that activity.
The reason I often type “coercion/violence” is to show that I am opposed to both. I mention both because they are different. Violence is actually violating another person or their property. Coercion is the threat of violence. I have never said they are the same.
I have also never claimed that only the government can commit violence/coercion. If I hit you I have been violent. If I ask for your money and threaten to hit you if you don’t give it I have coerced you. If I ask for your money in voluntary exchange for a good/service then I have influenced you, but used neither violence or coercion. However, the government has a special place in this discussion because they are the only institution with a “legitimate” geographical monopoly on violence/coercion.
You say “coercion is different to influence, despite John’s claim to the contrary”… but I have been claiming they are different from the start and it is you who have been confusing the two issues.
You give an example of scholarships donated for poor people to go to university (much like I’m trying to do in Cambodia as it happens) and claim this is a subvertion of the market. Not true. There is nothing within the free-market approach that is contradictory with compassion-based voluntary transactions. Indeed, free-market systems tend to have a higher level of civil society than government-based systems.
I understand that you think the market and civil society is insufficient to provide appropriate education. That is a debate for a different day, though suffice to say I find the history, theory and reality of the situation overwhelmingly failing to support your assertions.
You then say that we should get back on the global warming debate. Fine. But that was not the debate I was having with you. I was simply responding to your misuse of the concept of a market.
My view on global warming, FWIW, is that there is more co2 & higher temps and these things are linked to some degree. Expectations for the future would be that further emissions of co2 will lead to further temp increases. I find the range suggested by the IPCC reasonable (though my instinct is towards the lower end). But I don’t think there has been an adequate case put forward for government action. This has been my position from my first contribution to the debate (2003).
http://australianlibertarian.wordpress.com/activities/kyoto-campaign/kyoto-questions/
However I think a fair proportion of the GW activists overstate their case, dramatise the costs, encourage fear, downplay uncertainties and inappropriately use ridicule to belittle skeptics.
I agree that global warming is perhaps the best example we have for an externality (ergo a market failure). But as I’ve stated too many times to remember, that is a necessary, but not sufficient, condition to justify government intervention.
Regarding a carbon tax, I do regard it as coercion because it is by definition. All tax is paid on the threat of violence. Otherwise nobody would pay it. And as an economist the question of how best to achieve certain ends if a relevant field of study.
Stewart Franks’ position does not dismiss the possibility that the observed global warming is anthropogenic – human practices such as farming and irrigation may be causing an increase in water vapour.
But it does highlight the fact that we really don’t know what is causing the warming.
An ammelioration strategy, rather than prevention, makes more sense – it covers us for all causes, and we can also obtain any benefits there may be from global warming.
But ammelioration dooesn’t fit in with the totalitarian agenda – ammelioration can be implemented by everyone looking after their own stuff. Prevention requires a global diktat.
As a businessman, I endorse green building codes. We own and operate factories in China and across SE Asia, and we’ve been utilising technologies included in such codes (from the EU and US) to reduce costs. Since FY02-03, we’ve spent around US$10 million to achieve in FY05-06 around 34% reductions in energy costs compared to 02-03 (electricity and associated costs across the group was in the vicinity of US$8 million in FY02-03 and roi has been obviously significant). FY06-07 will see even greater savings. It’s just good business sense.
Removing the regulatory requirement that you meet a given building code does not mean you are prohibited from using such benchmarks. If it makes good business sence then it does not need to be imposed through regulation. And if your competitors don’t want to make use of this benchmark then apparently you will have a competitive advantage (and buy them out shortly). The fact that you apply EU and US codes in China (where they are not legally required) illustrates the point.
So tell us again why you support “green tape”.
John, you say
For some reason my reply didn’t come up.
Flash Heart I think you’ve misinterpretted me pretty badly, possibly because I didn’t explain myself as clearly as possible, but I think you should re-read my posts if you’re really interested.
My point about bias is that everyone has a bias. Commonly, environmentalists claim global warming skeptics are biased but they too are biased and bias is not a reason to reject someone’s research. If you think university scientists that are skeptical of global warming dangers are more biased maybe you think that because you think they are a minority.
It should be noted that there are many authors who have published CO2 rising after temperature increases over geological time scales. But thanks for the heads up on Andrew Bolt. I’ll look him up. As a generalisation I’d appreciate it if you quoted more sources for your info.
I stand by my assertion that global warming models have no comparison to the highly accurate theory of general relativity. And I never said I want a model to be 100% accurate before I accept it. I’m familiar with concepts such as the Heisenberg uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics, confidence intervals in statistics, P values in science etc. I spend a large amount of my time determining error values, accuracy, precision etc in my line of work.
Flash_heart — your argument is based on semantic games that aren’t relevant to the core of the argument. The abusive boss wasn’t being coercive, they were violent. The actual power you’re complaining about is the power to fire… which isn’t violent or coercive. Nobody likes asshole boses, but it’s their business. There are plenty of good people in the world to deal with instead. Voluntarily.
Your semantic confusion then gets really strange. You insist that violence & coercion are different. That’s what I already said. You then say not everybody has access to coercion, but they quite obviously do (that’s what happens when a person is robbed at gunpoint). You then try to pretend that government and corporations have equal access to violence/coercion… but that simply not true as a point of fact. It’s legal for govenrment. Illegal for businesses and individuals. Then you really loose the plot and suggest that businesses can coerce the government! WTF!? So Murdoch tells the Australian government to pass his law or Murdoch will arrest the government? This is getting past silly.
I don’t deny the precautionary principle… I ignore it. And I didn’t say all GW activists are alarmists. I don’t think the IPCC report is alarmist.
There wouldn’t have been any additional benefits if the US & Aust signed Kyoto. The EU hasn’t done any better than Aus & the US in emissions even after they signed.
The point about equality was brought up by you. You said you wanted it. I pointed out that inequality was good. You insulted me. Now when you realise I was obviously correct you complain that I shouldn’t say something so obviously correct. Give me a break.
You now switch to an argument for equal opportunity to some things and not to other things. You mention health and education, but implicit in your earlier comments is also media resources. You give no reason why it makes sense to equalise things things and not other things and of course you don’t explain how you can grant equality of media resources.
And I’ve never mentioned Castro. Stop bringing up random strawmen.