“A serious rebuttal to my review would require Adler et al. to get into climate science rather than assuming CO2 as a ‘pollutant’. It would also require a much deeper look into climate economics….”

Previous posts this week have presented the case by Jonathan Adler (et al.) against climate policy activism based on the precautionary principle (here) and Alder’s turn in academia toward activism (here). Today’s post answers some very brief arguments made by Adler in response to my critical review of his new book, Climate Liberalism: Perspectives on Liberty, Property, and Pollution.

Adler’s criticisms involve either erroneous statements or non-sequiturs.

“Robert L. Bradley, Jr. of the Institute for Energy Research offers less favorable commentary on the book at Law & Liberty (which previously ran a favorable review).”…

The ability and beneficience of free minds and markets to handle the unknowns of future weather and ‘climate change’ has a strong intellectual case. Such is more true today than when the global warming debate began in the late 1980s and early 1990s.

Four decades on, the case of classical liberalism against climate alarmism and forced energy transformation remains intact and strong–probably stronger than ever given the “saturation effect” of greenhouse gas (GHG) forcing. [1] In fact, the debate should be not about the weather or climate but about Statism, that gargoyle of government intervention that makes rich people poorer and keeps poor people poor. Regarding climate, statism is what sets up the problems that are too often simplistically and erroneously blamed on ‘weather’ or ‘climate’.

I bring this up in relation to a new book that ignores and dumbs down the free-market, classical-liberal viewpoint on energy/climate in the name of … “classical liberalism.”…

“No insurance policy is worthwhile if the cost of the premiums exceeds the protection purchased. For greenhouse insurance to be worthwhile, it must either reduce the risks of anthropogenic climate change or reduce the costs of emission reductions designed to achieve the same goal, without imposing off-setting risks, such as those which would result from policies that slow economic growth and technological advance.”

“A true ‘no regrets’ approach to climate change is not greater government controls on economic activity, but fewer. Economic growth, market institutions, and technological advance are often the most effective forms of insurance that a civilization can have.”

– Jonathan Adler (et al.), “Greenhouse Policy without Regrets: A Free Market Approach to the Uncertain Risk of Climate Change,” Competitive Enterprise Institute, July 14, 2000.

Bingo! The Jonathan Adler of the Competitive Enterprise Institute circa 2000 made a case against governmental climate policy activism that is timeless and more true today than 23 years ago.…