“The late economist Julian Simon offers a cautionary tale for both climate scientists and economists…. His views have stood the test of time relatively well. But he also had strong views on topics that he was not an expert — climate change being a particular example — and on that topic his views have not fared well…. Simon was wrong about global warming….”
On climate change, what is our obligation to future generations? Spring 2022 • Regulation By David Levine
This article starts with Greta Thunberg, assumes a negative externality of untold proportion, and ends with the assertion that Julian Simon being wrong on climate change because “he was not an expert.”
And the article pretends to be objective, fair, and impartial.
Things have gotten intellectually sick at the Cato Institute. (Note: I was an adjunct scholar at Cato and their ‘energy person’ for many years. I was ‘fired’ from my position by David Boaz last year, whereupon I commented that “Cato failed me, I did not fail Cato.”
And so I sadly review an essay in the most recent issue of Regulation that does not rely on climate data, Public Choice, . The benefits of global lukewarming and CO2 enrichment? The costs of wind and solar and batteries as a ‘cure’ to “climate change”?
No, there is no analytic failure or government failure. There is no Spencer/Christy satellite data. There is no Lomborg/Pielke extreme-weather data analysis.
Pretended Neutrality
No doubt, [this article] will face two groups of critics: those who deny the current, best‐available science indicating that the climate is changing, and those who deny the economic analysis of the effects of that change. This article is intended for people who aren’t among either group of ‘deniers.’
Yet:
“Among the most respected of [climate] models are those produced by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC).”
“For this analysis, I will mainly use the Nordhaus numbers [‘Nordhaus’s worst‐case estimate of a 16.5% GDP per‐capita loss from climate change’] because he presents the most worrisome future.”
Subtitles to Levine are “What If Climate Change Is Worse Than We Expect?” and “Climate scientists’ pessimism /
Through Away Scraps
The author is evidently not conversant with classical liberalism or the data-driven case against climate alarmism or
The best science indicates that if we do nothing to halt climate change, the effect of global warming on our children will be modest and descendants will be considerably better off than we are. Moreover, the positive effects of economic growth are so much stronger than the expected damage from climate change as to make these rough calculations robust to substantial errors in either the rate of warming or its resulting economic damages.
Then comes the kicker:
Still, there is reason to try to mitigate climate change, but it is important that those efforts not blunt the economic growth that will benefit future generations, especially those living in poorer countries.
This is like saying that price controls have bad consequences but emergency situations have their own logic. That is not classical liberalism and plain evasive scholarship.
Ditto here:
Although our best available science indicates that the positive effects of economic growth will substantially eclipse the negative effects of climate warming, this should not be understood as a call to inaction. The expected effects of warming are serious and represent costs imposed on people who are not responsible for them. Further adding to the concerns about climate change, the expected effects could prove inaccurate and the actual effects be far more severe.
He cites “Martin Weitzman in a 2007 Journal of Economic Literature article that I summarize.” Weisman, whose analysis has been repeatedly weakened and refuted in the last 15 or so years? (And the fellow who committed suicide over his perceived-or-real lack of scholarship?)