[Editor note: This continues a series on the climate views of the late William Niskanen from his Fall 1997 symposium essay, “Too Much, Too Soon: Is a Global Warming Treaty a Rush to Judgment?” Last week’s posts were:
Part IV today reprints his section, “What’s the Hurry,” followed by my concluding comment]
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“Since 1990, when [William] Nordhaus endorsed this approach, no substantial information has developed that would make the case for more comprehensive and costly measures such as a carbon tax or emissions permits.”
– William Niskanen, Fall 1997
“[A mandatory] abatement strategy … will prove to be both costly and ineffective…. [A] rush to judgement on the optimal response to the increase in temperature is the greater danger [than adaptation].”…
[Editor note” Part I presented the key questions regarding the climate-change issue from William Niskanen’s Fall 1997 symposium essay, “Too Much, Too Soon: Is a Global Warming Treaty a Rush to Judgment?.” Part II was Niskanen’s views on How Good is the Science of Global Warming? Part III today is his views on Should We Fear Some Moderate Warming?]
“On the whole, it is not yet clear whether some moderate warming should be a cause for concern. The balance of conditions suggests that moderate warming may generate net benefits to people in temperate regions and net costs to people in the tropics.”
“As now envisioned, however, the major costs of the measures presumed necessary to avoid global warming would be borne by people in the rich countries of temperate regions.…
https://niskanencenter.org/blog/last-week-trump-kneecapped-conservative-climate-policy/
“Republicans have gone from measured resistance to climate action into total, unreasoning incoherence.”
“There are Republicans who know better, but they’ve been cowed into silence while their party drifts ever further into madness.”
Jerry Taylor, “Last Week, Trump Kneecapped Conservative Climate Policy.”
Lost in the firestorm that followed last week’s withdrawal from the Paris climate agreement is the arresting display of intellectual meltdown within the GOP. Republicans—with Trump at the helm—are gleefully blowing up an agreement that was everything they have long said they wanted out of international climate talks. They are likewise shredding Obama-era compliance plans that are anchored in everything conservatives still say they want out of domestic environmental policy. Republicans have gone from measured resistance to climate action into total, unreasoning incoherence.
The Republican battle cry in the 1990s and 2000s was that no U.S.…