Consulting by RPM || Free Advice Blog

Can You Stand It? More Climategate

Joe Romm hosts a conference call featuring Michael Mann (of hockey stick fame), Gavin Schmidt (RealClimate), and Princeton’s Michael Oppenheimer. I am not allowing myself to listen to the audio, since I have backed-up work from my last-minute trip to DC to appear on a panel discussing renewables. (I will post the YouTube of that when it’s available. Joe Romm would not approve one bit.)

Anyway the transcript is not yet available (though the full audio is, at the link) so Romm just posted some of the highlights. Who knows if they started out with apologies, but from the quotes these guys are as confident as Dick Cheney discussing no WMD in Iraq.

Yet besides the “no regrets” attitude, what most interested me was this quote Romm highlighted from Oppenheimer:

“From my point of view, the most important issue is whether anything has been added to or subtracted from the scientific picture of global warming. The answer is simple. Nothing has changed. It remains true that the temperature has warmed over 1.2 degrees last centeury [sic]. It remains true, that the sea level has risen by about 2 inches over the last centuer [sic], and that’s enough to erode 60 feet around average beech [sic?]. It remains true that glaciers are warming. And it remains true that the ocean is more acidic than it used to be because of the build up of carbon dioxide.”

This is simply fascinating; it perfectly illustrates the mentality I was criticizing in my recent MasterResource post.

Suppose for the sake of argument that every last word of Richard Lindzen’s recent WSJ op ed were perfectly true. Even in that scenario, every word in Oppenheimer’s quote above could be equally true.

In other words, the “scientific picture of global warming” that Oppenheimer describes is perfectly consistent with the non-alarmist, governments-don’t-need-to-do-anything-yet-with-CO2 view of Lindzen. And yet Romm–and possibly Oppenheimer himself–is clearly quoting this to show that the case for aggressive government action is just as “solid” as it was two months ago.

Oppenheimer’s summary of what we know–and Romm’s endorsement of it–is classic bait-and-switch. They are making it sound as if the only way you can question the urgent need for strong agreement at Copenhagen, is if you doubt that the globe has warmed or that CO2 has increased.

Murphy Twin Spin

I think I’ve probably covered most of the points already on Free Advice, but maybe some of you have relatives or co-workers who will read an “official” argument and you want to forward either of the below.

* I criticize the Administration’s “stimulus” record on job creation in the Atlanta-Journal Constitution.

* My thoughts on Climategate. This post has everything: Discussions of Isaac Newton and Richard Feynman, and I throw Rush Limbaugh under the bus.

Who Said It?

There is no doubt that the world monetary and banking system is unsound, and would be unbelievably better off if governments returned these vital institutions to the free market. For their part, my…critics have always agreed that tariffs and other government barriers to trade are immoral and inefficient.

I believe the answer is no, and that’s why I predicted that (absent a terrorist attack) the dollar would strengthen against the euro in 2007, and that (despite the inverted yield curve) there would be no recession, as officially defined. In making such predictions, I am fully aware that I run the risk of mimicking Irving Fisher’s infamous statements immediately before the Crash in 1929. — February 15, 2007

Yet Another Murphy Sermon

In the comments at Mario Rizzo’s Mises.org guest blog on “Peace,” I wrote:

Mario,

Thank you for the courageous post. Some might think that is an odd term to use, but it takes courage to say what 95% know is the right thing yet could be construed as “wimpy.”

I think what all of us–and I myself played a part in the recent unpleasantness–need to remember is it’s not simply a matter of personally refraining from using profanity. There is also the matter of provoking a heated debate that then leads other people to “go too far.”

So I challenge all of us (who agree with Mario) to not merely ask before firing off an email or especially a blog post, “Am I being a jerk here?” but to up the ante and ask, “Will my email lead to a response, which will lead to a response, which will then provoke someone else to be a jerk and start another battle?”

Mario Rizzo Calls for Ceasefire

And he leaves the safety of his own blog to do so. As goofy as it might sound for me to say that, I am serious. It makes a difference that he posted it at Mises as opposed to just at ThinkMarkets or TheAustrianEconomists.

Here it is:

I am not talking about peace in the world of foreign affairs, Afghanistan, Iraq or wherever else people are senselessly killing each other. That goes without saying.

I am talking about the war of words among people who subscribe to various strains of Austrian economics. I am not going to be very specific here because I do not want to stoke the fires. If you don’t know what I am talking about, that is great. Please do something more productive than reading this.

If you do know what I am talking about, then you know that much energy has been expended recently and over the past few years by Austrians who attack each other for various flaws in their Austrianism.

I am writing here a plea for peace. There is an opportunity cost to every decision. The main opportunity foregone in this case is improving our theories, our evidence and criticizing more effectively Keynesians and other interventionists.

The various participants in the intra-Austrian squabbles are not likely to convince each other. These arguments have gone on too long without measurable progress.

I assume most of the argument is being engaged in for the “benefit” of the young and impressionable. But this is a delusion.

The best way to convince the uncommitted is by the positive strength of one’s argument using both theory and evidence. Here the spillover effect is to make intellectual progress. If, on the other hand, we seek to convince people by “stealing” from other camps of Austrians, the spillovers are negative for all of us. It becomes a race to the bottom or a kind of “mutually assured destruction.”

We do not have to agree on everything. For example, Joe Salerno and I do not agree on all aspects of Austrian economics. Yet Joe and I have seen each other weekly for nearly twenty years at the NYU Colloquium. We never engage in ad hominem attacks. We treat each other with decency and respect.

I do not expect to be buddies with all with whom I disagree strongly on issues. I don’t expect to be spending time with anyone who labels him or herself an “Austrian.” But I want much more to convince the rest of the world to appreciate the insights of F.A. Hayek and Ludwig von Mises than I want to make sure my fellow Austrians agree with The Economics of Time and Ignorance.

In the meanwhile the statists and Keynesians laugh. They make fools of us because we first make fools of ourselves.

Cringeworthy: Barbara Boxer Tries to Bully Black Chamber of Commerce

At lunch today one of my IER coworkers alluded to the fiasco when the head of the Black Chamber of Commerce (Harry Alford) stood up to Barbara Boxer. I didn’t know what he was talking about and he gleefully promised to send me the YouTube. The BCC had sponsored a study showing that the Waxman-Markey climate bill would be bad for small businesses, and so naturally Boxer wanted to discredit his testimony.

Man it is brutal. I had to stop it at 2:53. If you listen carefully, Boxer is wrong on everything from the moment this video begins, starting with her saying (paraphrase), “…he went a minute 30 over so I’m going to add that to my time,” and someone corrects her and says it was a minute 13.

Cute Tiger Cub

This has nothing to do with economics or libertarianism. I just wanted something else at the top of my blog.

Tyler Cowen Predicts Lew Rockwell Secession From the "Serious" "Reasonable" Libertarians

The video below is Tom Palmer’s book presentation, with comments from Tyler Cowen (starting around 26:00). I haven’t actually watched the video yet, but Robert Wenzel assures us it will be fun. The only thing more important than Climategate is a libertarian economist bashing Lew Rockwell!!