Editor note: Professor Dolan kindly submitted this rebuttal to Robert Bradley’s post yesterday, “Hayek was not a Malthusian or Global Tariff Advocate (link to a carbon tax peculiar, errant).” Bradley’s post, in turn, was a critique of Dolan’s original piece, “Friedrich Hayek on Carbon Taxes.”

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I am happy to comment on the validity of the nine points you raise regarding Hayek and a carbon tax.

1. Hayek was suspicious of scientific ‘consensus,’ given the consensus of Keynesianism and central planning in his lifetime.

I agree with what you say about Hayek’s attitude toward the Keynesian consensus. However, my reading is that he distinguished between social sciences and natural sciences, and between the ability of people to offer informed judgement on fields in which they have specific expert training compared with fields in which they do not have such training.…

“America has a short list of truly shameful ‘days,’—among them the Dred Scott decision, the Trail of Tears, Japanese internment, and Abu Ghraib—most of them symbolic of a larger national moral failure. I hope I am wrong, but I fear that today will join that list.”

“If all that [climate-policy-related] deregulation comes to pass, then I predict future generations will look back on today with particular scorn and shame.”

“A single executive order might therefore seem unremarkable. But today’s action is significant….  At stake are the global economy, entire ecosystems, and the lives of millions—most of them not yet living. Those future generations will judge the authors of today’s policy harshly.”

– Nathan Richardson, “Trump’s Climate Executive Order Discards American Values.” Resources for the Future, March 28, 2017.

“I realized that the premature consensus on human-caused climate change was harming scientific progress because of the questions that don’t get asked and the investigations that aren’t made. We therefore lack the kinds of information to more broadly understand climate variability and societal vulnerabilities.”

“Scientists who demonize their opponents are behaving in a way that is antithetical to the scientific process. These are the tactics of enforcing a premature theory for political purposes.”

“Let’s make scientific debate about climate change great again.”

“Groupthink” … “sausage making” … “bullying” … “substantial uncertainties” … “premature consensus” … These terms were used by the scholarly Judith Curry in her important, the-future-will-note Congressional testimony last week against the neo-Malthusian, nature-is-optimal natural-science community.

And what has she endured by leaving the “consensus”? Among other things, she has been labeled “serial climate disinformer” … “anti-science” … “denier.”…

“[T]here is growing evidence of much smaller climate sensitivity to CO2; and even if these drastic emissions reductions occurred, we see little impact on the climate in the 21st century (even if you believe the climate models).”

“It seems rather futile to make token emissions reductions at substantial cost. Deciding that all this is impractical or infeasible seems like a rational response to me.”

– Judith Curry, “A Roadmap for Meeting Paris Emissions Reduction Goals.” Climate Etc., March 25, 2017.

Numerous posts at MasterResource have summarized the thinking of climate scientist and straight shooter Judith Curry. Bravely, and with intellectual vigor, she has personified the adage: “One plus the truth equals a majority.”

Curry has not only documented the fact that estimations of climate sensitivity to the enhanced greenhouse effect have been coming down, and tie-in’s of climate forcing and extreme weather events remain unproven.…