Editor note: On November 10, 2009, Mr. Green testifedbefore the Senate Committee on Finance about global warming. During the course of his testimony, an obviously agitated Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) challenged Ken on different aspects of the climate debate. His responses are printed here. [Part I of this series ran yesterday.]
1. Peer-Reviewed Publishing Revisited
Kerry seemed to think it somehow damning that I do not choose to publish in the peer-reviewed climate literature. First—as I pointed out when I introduced myself—while I am an environmental scientist by training, I have chosen to work on policy analysis, which I believe is as important as, or more important than, the science.
However, I would challenge his very premise, which is that peer review is a meaningful indicator of trustworthiness. Plenty of research suggests that peer review is deeply flawed, biased in favor of both extreme and “positive” claims, resistant to nonconfirmation studies, and highly incestuous, because review committees regularly screen out divergent viewpoints and consist of peers who coauthor work with each other.…
Editor note: On November 10, 2009 Mr. Green testifedbefore the Senate Committee on Finance about global warming. During the course of his testimony, an obviously agitated Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.) challenged Ken on different aspects of the climate debate. His responses are printed here. [Part II of this series is tomorrow.]
1. Not One Peer-Reviewed Paper Contradicts the “Consensus” View of the Climate Crisis
Sen. Kerry asserted that not one peer-reviewed paper contradicts the “consensus” view that greenhouse gas emissions will cause devastating consequences, and that we must limit their emissions radically to avoid the maximum “consensus” value of two degrees Celsius, which Kerry claimed was the point at which catastrophic damage would occur to the Earth’s climate. I offered to provide several.
Perhaps the central issue in climate science involves estimates of the sensitivity of the climate to anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.…
Last week I summarized the economics literature on the impact of climate change on human well-being. Or more accurately, Richard Tol reviewed the economics literature for the Spring 2009 issue of The Journal of Economic Perspectives. I simply told you about it and tossed in a few observations that I thought relevant.
In short, I reported that the peer-reviewed literature suggests that worries about some climate-induced Armageddon are probably misplaced. We will likely gain or lose a year of economic growth sometime in the latter half of this century from forecasted changes in the world’s physical climate. More than that cannot be said with much confidence.
Then, by coincidence, a study crosses my desk from the Institute for Policy Integrity at the NYU Law School. The study, titled “Economists and Climate Change; Consensus and Open Questions,” reports the findings of a survey of 289 of those economists the institute considers to be “the world’s top economists with expertise in climate change.” …