Bishop Hill Libertarians do carbon taxes
Jun 3, 2012 Climate: other Economics Libertarianism Tax There are two interesting posts advocating carbon taxes doing the rounds at the moment. These have been getting quite a lot of attention because they have been written by libertarians rather than the millenarian hippies and the retired Socialist Worker salesmen who usually promote the idea. I shall hazard a comment on these economic issues, issuing my customary caveat that economics is not really my thing.
First up is Jonathan Adler, who normally blogs at US law blog, the Volokh Conspiracy, but has chosen to set out his ideas at Megan McArdle's blog:
It is a well established principle in the Anglo-American legal tradition that one does not have the right to use one's own property in a manner that causes harm to one's neighbor. There are common law cases going back 400 years establishing this principle and international law has long embraced a similar norm. As I argued at length in this paper, if we accept this principle, even non-catastrophic warming should be a serious concern, as even non-catastrophic warming will produce the sorts of consequences that have long been recognized as property rights violations, such as the flooding of the land of others.
The other is by Tim Worstall, here at the Telegraph blog:
So this is what we know about climate change. We know there will be some effect from emissions, and we also are uncertain about what that effect will be. The uncertainty itself means that we should do something. But what?
I've already explained this here. Don't listen to the ignorant hippies to our Left, or to those shouting that there's nothing to it from the Right. The answer is, quite simply, a revenue-neutral carbon tax.
The idea of a revenue-neutral carbon tax, with the proceeds distributed on a per-capita basis is enticing, to the extent that it is less obviously corrupt than all the other measures that are currently in place. And as Tim Worstall points out, the cost of all these other measures is in the UK is already in excess of what a carbon tax based on a sensible estimate of the cost of carbon is. The introduction of the tax would therefore presumably not only lead to the demise of the renewables obligations and subsidies to windfarms and the like (pull the other one, I hear you say) but would also bring about a rise in other taxes to make up the shortfall.
The real cost of carbon or the cost that is good for us?
The carbon tax as envisaged by most of its proponents would involve taxing carbon as it was extracted from the ground as oil or gas, and returning the proceeds on a per-capita basis. In essence we have a exercise in redistribution from heavy carbon users (the rich) to light carbon users (the poor). The amount of this redistribution is therefore a direct function of the cost of carbon; redistribution from rich to poor becomes not a question of morals but of climate science.
Which would be pretty strange.
Although Timmy suggests that the figures involved are relatively small ($80/t CO2 on Stern's estimate), readers here know that estimates for the cost of carbon range as high as the $1000/t or more put forward by Ackerman. At that level, American redistribution via the carbon tax would be $18000 per capita per annum. We could call it carbon communism.
But wait a minute, I hear you say, Ackerman's figure is insane - and indeed it is. However, we have seen the figure touted by establishment figures in the UK, and Ackerman is a co-author on James Hansen's upcoming paper. What you or I might think of as mad and without any basis in reality is accepted as sound by any number of people in positions of influence. Stern's figure seems dubious to many people too. It is well known that his estimate involved all sorts of jiggery-pokery, with discount rates picked to give the answer that he felt was "moral".
How then can members of the public be sure that the figure arrived at is an estimate of the true cost of carbon rather than a reflection of what a bunch of millenarian greens in the academic firmament feel is good for us? The answer is, we can't. Right along the chain from climate model to carbon cost estimate society would rely on academics who have shown themselves to be utterly unscientific and devoid of any integrity and a process that is so corrupted by political activism as to make it meaningless for policy purposes. We cannot hand over control of part of the taxation system to people like this without means to enforce professional behaviour and to ensure the process is unbiased.
The problem is that the corruption of science now runs so deep that I fear it is beyond repair. In climatology, where materials and methods are routinely kept secret, where journal gatekeeping goes unremarked, and where the funding streams are directed by environmentalists and millenarians, there is little hope of ever actually achieving an estimate of the cost of carbon that is not distorted to the point of meaninglessness.
Who am I hurting?
Here's another issue. The economists' estimates try to put a cost on carbon emissions that captures all the costs and benefits forever (discounting future costs and benefits in some way). However, economists also agree that the effects of global warming are likely to be positive for warming of up to 2°C above current levels.
;)
As the chart shows, there are two estimates for the effect of relatively small warming - one positive and one negative, but Tol, from whom the graph is sourced, tweeted the other day that the author of the study predicting negative consequences has since changed his mind, so it appears that there is now a consensus (of sorts) that small warming will have beneficial effects for mankind (but see all the caveats above about whether we should believe any estimate based on climate science).
Think about the implications of this. If we are to believe the IPCC's central estimate of future warming of 2°C/century, then for the next hundred years - which is to say at least for the rest of my lifetime - I am on average increasing the value of my neighbour's property, not damaging it. I'm not sure I can accept being punished with a carbon tax for doing this.
So what am I saying?
A revenue neutral carbon tax is, on the face of it, a better policy instrument than anything tried so far. The problem is that it will almost certainly not be revenue neutral and it will probably reflect an millenarian view of the cost of carbon. It is therefore hard to say for certain if it will be any sort of an improvement on the shambles we have now.
Reader Comments (101)
Tim Worstall: "The uncertainty itself means that we should do something. But what?"
This is big city groupthink talk. The big-end-of-towners, with their large salaries and very comfortable lifestyles, don't care if living expenses rise a little, when they are convinced of their own righteousness and value to society. Try explaining that to an age pensioner, for whom a "modest" rise in heating costs might mean the difference between surviving or succumbing to a harsh winter.
Judith Curry, a lukewarmer climate scientist who is in a much better position to evaluate the potential effects of global warming than T Worstall and his ilk, is an advocate of adaptation to climate change, not mitigation of CO2 emissions. Mr Worstall, you assume far too much!
Has anyone here apart from me actually read Tim's book? There's a hell of a lot of strawmen about on this thread.
I reject the tax. If implemented, 'they' would be bound to cheat to get the income. And then they could never let that income go. Even if there were no carbon, the sin tax will continue. The way they tax tobacco and alcohol. The taxers become the pimp for the product, they can't afford to lose the money. Any libertarian would know this. There is no such thing as 'well they are taxing us anyway, might as well bew on this'.
Secondly, a tax on carbon is a direct tax on economic activity. It can't move a lot of that onto dodgy wind and solar in a not-very-sunny country. It would make more sense the way the western economy is today to remove all tax and subsides on fuel. Let the market sort it out. Let us compete with everybody else. Cheap energy is the way out of the recession. Carbon tax is the way to lock it in forever. Any libertarian economist would know this.
Ah, but the climate! Well, no effects so far, no data from anyone outside the team to show anything actually going on. It's June 4th and I'm freezing my arse off. Take your silly stories elsewhere.
The best taxes are those that tax only those who are involved in an activity that must be paid for out of the public till, with the taxes dedicated to paying for the costs of that activity. In America, road taxes are, or are supposed to be, one such activity. If you drive, you pay for the roads via motor fuel taxes. A similar, though less-tightly-coupled, example is taxes on real property that pay for police and fire protection.
The problem is that just as a pot of honey attracts ants, a pot of money will attract leeches (the human kind). At the federal level, a significant share of the motor fuel tax revenue (dedicated to building and maintaining roads, remember?) is used instead for subway systems, light rail, and the like. (Such systems may be cost-effective in Europe, but there are only two or three cities, at most, in America for which that is true.) In most parts of the country, the automobile is by far and away the most efficient form of transportation. But the leeches have their hands on the money pot, so the roads deteriorate as more and more grandiose transit systems that pass through one low-density area after another are built with highway system funds. Once built, they're subsidized with highway funds, too, because no one would ride the system if they had to pay the actual cost of a ride.
In some American states (including Oregon), the voters passed constitutional amendments that prevent the state government from funding anything other than roads from motor fuel taxes. So Oregon has roads in fairly good repair, but very few state police officers, who are responsible for policing on the highway system. They used to be paid for from the road taxes, but the constitutional amendment blocks that funding. The state legislature appropriates the bare minimum necessary for ensuring safety on the state highway system. This time, the pot of money is the general fund, and supporters of the constitutional mandate on motor fuel revenues want policing paid for out of the general fund, which is, in their view, a nice pot of money they want to get their hands on.
The examples above are object lessons proving that tax systems don't work the way they're intended to. There is exactly zero chance that a carbon tax will be collected or redistributed efficiently, and a less-than-zero chance that the leeches can be kept away from the enormous wash of money that will surge in and out of the system, like the tides in the Bay of Fundy. You may think you've seen corruption caused by the $80 billion or so spent on climate science in the past few years, but just wait until a carbon tax is instituted and trillions are collected (a "trillion" = 1000 billion). You ain't seen nothin' yet!
No matter what rationale is offered for such a tax, in the end it will only serve to empower the ruling class and impoverish everyone else. In 1819, attorney Daniel Webster and Supreme Court Chief Justice John Marshall agreed that "the power to tax is the power to destroy." One-hundred-ninety-three years have passed, but that hasn't changed.
And you have missed a major point I'm making. We are all already paying these taxes. Just not in hte right places to have the desired effect. If they're going to take the money anyway wouldn't it actually be sensible to make sure they did something at the same time?
Jun 4, 2012 at 9:33 AM | Tim Worstall>>>>>
The original 'city' comment was a general complaint about being ripped off and, as a commodities dealer not involved with wind generators, you don't represent the 'carbon traders' and their ilk. So I'll apologize for those sort of pointless ad-homs. Point of interest, if you're not an economist how do you get to be a fellow of the Adam Smith Institute?
As for UK taxes, it's not just a one off done deal. When you add in all the tariffs and subsidies - we ain't seen nuthin' yet!
By 2015 it is claimed that 70% of UK householders will be in energy poverty [Uswitch quoting research] - God alone knows how industry will cope. Never mind, we'll pay the taxes etc. and let the Chinese, Indians and Brazilians and Russians get richer using fossil fuels to provide power for their homes and factories, while we cripple our economy with green 'gesture politics'
You quote from discredited IPCC propaganda quite uncritically, without even adding the caveat that this is a purely political body which, as it's name implies, is dedicated to PROVING climate change and it's causes [by hook or by crook as many would say].
The temperature rises you claim are widely disputed and ridiculed and no reasonable person should suggest 'remedies' based on them. Perhaps you might spend a little time reading up on those lines of serious research into climate science not related to CO2.
And don't forget, even by the highly tweeked temperature graphs on the Met Office Blog site, for the past 15 years, ignoring the El Nino blip in 1998, global temperature has remained statistically flat whilst CO2 levels have risen by above 11%.
How does that feed into your risk assessment?
"Point of interest, if you're not an economist how do you get to be a fellow of the Adam Smith Institute?"
Good question, one to which I don't know the answer. Anointed perhaps?
"As for UK taxes, it's not just a one off done deal. When you add in all the tariffs and subsidies - we ain't seen nuthin' yet!"
But that's the point. The carbon tax is in place of everything else. It's one, simple, single, action which closes the book on the entire story for ever. Get that $80 carbon tax in place and we're done.
Tim's approach is a useful one to illustrate the dislocation between what the science is claiming and what politicians are doing in the name of that science. They have supported the IPCC reports. That knowledge informed the Stern report which they also backed. They are not following what Stern suggested.
But that's the point. The carbon tax is in place of everything else. It's one, simple, single, action which closes the book on the entire story for ever. Get that $80 carbon tax in place and we're done.
Jun 4, 2012 at 10:20 AM | Tim Worstall>>>>>
Get that $80 carbon tax in place and we're done. - Yeah, and the rest. I'm already paying an extra £200 a year on my domestic fuel bills alone to subsidise windmills on rich peoples land, and solar arrays giving some home owners a nice little earner till the subsidies end.
Then of course there's green tax on motor fuel, and double the cost for statutory condensing boilers, aviation levies, Immensely expensive [£180 billion minimum] 'smart' electricity grids to cope with wildly intermittent Wind power [backed up by the most inefficient form of intermittent gas powered generators].
So who's going to give me all that money back if I just pay them the equivalent of your $80?
Have you been paying attention to what's happening out here in the real world lately?
Tim, you are being both gullible and naive. We would all be better off with cheap energy.
Very good post Bish. I like it.
I guess you now have the unenviable task of policing the line (facilitating consensus?) between those skeptics that accept that CO2 has warming properties above a threshold that requires a policy or tax to be prescribed to mitigate, and those that don't. I'm with the irreverant latter, and looking at the evidence there's no other place to be for a true libertarian.
I'm glad we have the Australian fiasco as evidence of what a carbon tax means, and I'm heaterned by those commenters that not only point that out, but also by those who eschew revenue neutral carbon taxation as the oxymoron it is.
Tim
In order to accept you idea about a carbon tax, it is necessary to accept the precautionary principle as a valid component of a worldview.
You must be aware that such a worldview can be questioned as a useless, impractical and unreflective mode of thought, independent of one's view on climate science, right? That, to not hold such a worldview is not 'unscientific'?
But what if adopting the precautionary principle was likely to increase our risk? According to the principle, what next?
It's not a principle at all, merely a rhetorical device to be used in substitution of proper arguments when those are absent.
This is an interesting discussion. Lefty enthusiams are always suspect because of their selectivity. AGW is a problem, evidently, which requires the precautionary principle to be applied, which seems to mean someone paying more tax - how it will be revenue neutral to owners of oil or coal companies escapes me, buts thats a detail. Why is the erosion of the East Anglian coast not a topic that merits precautionary principle enthusiam? That not something that 'might' or 'probably' will happen, its something that really is happening, and will get worse without action. Why aren't Leftists dreaming up interesting taxes for those who live between a 1000 and 200 yards from the current coastline, to pay for sea defences (aside from the fact that such works used to come out of general taxation)?
Revenue neutral carbon tax. The French Government tried to introduce one and it was struck down by the Constitutional Court which determined it could not be applied in such a manner to treat all citizens fairly because it would fall heaviest on those who relied on fossil fuels more such as those in the coutryside (and could not elect to reduce their consumption), and those on lower incomes, than those who were better off and could elect to reduce use, such as urban dwellers.
It further ruled that in order to try and address this imbalance, and not damage the economy, the Government proposed various limitations and exemptions to the extent the carbon tax could never achieve its supposed aim of reducing CO2 emissions.
The French Government's response was that this left a 4 billion euro hole in the budget - so much for revenue neutral.
The assumption that a revenue neutral carbon tax is possible is flawed, just by virtue of the complexity if its administration.
The idea it will change behaviour is also flawed unless it is set at a level linked to inflation which made it punitive. Doing so would be political suicide for any Government.
In any case since the "neutrality" involves restoring the tax to the "poor" after it has been taken, it will in the first instance stop them from buying as they will not have the ready cash up front.
If a carbon tax lowers consumption all along the wealth scale, this in itself will cause price inflation and unemployment - the poor again the hardest hit.
If global warming is such a fatal problem then the simplest solution is rationing. Power stations switched of for say 8 hours per day, on rotation, businesses on 3 day week, petrol coupons.
Rationing will not favour the rich, but of course a Black Market will thrive, the poor might get higher allowances.
It will of course destroy modern life - which is the aim of the environmental movement.
In the absence of taking the action that would have an immediate effect, we may safely assume none (well perhaps some) of the idiots in charge really do believe in the nonsense but see it as a super way of control and tax.
"The idea of a revenue-neutral carbon tax, with the proceeds distributed on a per-capita basis is enticing, to the extent that it is less obviously corrupt than all the other measures that are currently in place."
To see the Bish write the above has been a huge shock to me. In addition I have seen other regular contributors taking the idea seriously, how can this be happening?
This has been a great blog, made even better by allowing all and any opinions to be expressed provided it was done politely.
However seeing the Bishop write the above seems to "unsay" so many things that were central to the reason for the blog's existence.
"The Hockey Stick Illusion" played a big part in destroying the idea that current warming is in some way unusual and reinforced the proof that the Medieval Warm Period was warmer than today.
Interestingly this also proved that temperature can be warmer with lower CO2!
The interglacial before this one was alot warmer but CO2 was no higher than 280ppm, now it is 400ppm but still cooler!
Yes CO2 will always have "a warming effect" but so will a candle in a blizzard.
There is evidence from a huge range of sources showng that CO2 is NOT a major player in warming the planet.
Tim's proposal can be interpreted as follows:
You are all paying unjustified carbon taxes already but its a bit here and a bit there and it is expensive for us to get this money from you.
We want you to pay a simpler unjustified carbon tax that will cost us less to collect.
Whooopy dooo!
Part of Worstall's attempt to appeal is to position himself as a fiscal conservative/libertarian who's ok with the idea of a 'carbon' 'tax'. Where is the need to go down with Worstall because he's nailed his shirt to the CAGW ship's mast?
In 2007, it looked attractive to somewhat uncritically put one's head on that block.
Knowing what we know today, we could base our decisions on what we know, including the fundamental untrustworthiness of the IPCC, rather than its doom-laden prognostications and the appeal to ignorance.
More importantly, with respect to Worstall's characterization of 'uncertainty' as "we know something bad may happen, we only don't know how bad":
[1] Firstly thanks. this basic meaning of 'uncertainty' as understood in climate circles had completely eluded sceptics and awaited, sorely, clarification as provided by him /sarc
[2] Secondly, and I think this is an important distinction several climateers fail to grasp. In scientific parlance, you 'know' something *only* if you know 'how much' and only through the 'how much.' There is no 'knowing' otherwise!
'Uncertainty' is allowed to affect estimates of the quantity, numerically, but there is no 'knowing' without quantification. All other forms of knowledge, true as their predictions may sometimes turn out to be, are not knowledge. Modeling predictions, snazzy as they may seem, belong in this class of inferior form of understanding.
Peddlers of such forms of knowledge no doubt appeal to our sense of danger and mortality to bridge over the chasm to more surefooted forms of knowledge, but "imperfect understanding+lots of danger" oes not equal to "greater knowledge".
Siilly question? If carbon dioxide is rising and the temperature is going down, what is the point of any tax at all intended to lower the apparently dangerous rise in temperature. which apparently isn't happening?
Siilly question? If carbon dioxide is rising and the temperature is going down, what is the point of any tax at all intended to lower the apparently dangerous rise in temperature. which apparently isn't happening?
Jun 4, >>>The most dangerous words used at BH by a certain group of 'elitist' fifth columnists is "We know CO2 affects warming but we're not sure by how much'
You will never overthrow the IPCC hypothesis with weasel words like this, and I am sure that is the reason for this persistent brainwashing on blogs like this.
BH is being slowly infiltrated by an insidious, disingenuous group hopg to use the blog for political influence. That being that however insignificant the effect of CO2 may be, immediate steps must be taken [by their chums in government - who else] to mitigate the 'possible' outcomes of this virtually zero problem.
Like some sort of wide eyed groupie, Richar Drake trots aut a list of names he considers makes BH a better [more influential?] place, as though the rest of us were mere cannon fodder>>>>>-
And why is that a problem? Does Tallbloke's blog attract the contributions of Tim Worstall, Richard Tol, Jonathan Jones, Simon Anthony and Jeremy Harvey as much as this blog does? Horses for courses. I'd prefer a blog where every thread isn't interrupted by those who question the basics of the greenhouse story. That unfortunately may not this one, by the look of it - but this one has some other strengths. Freedom requires distinct alternatives. Thanks for sharing that BH and Tallbloke are providing that in this area.
Jun 4, 2012 at 12:48 PM | Richard Drake>>>>>
I'm sure a lot of other contributors may have their own opinions on where the blog should be heading.
Cross posted at Climate Etc:
If we're going to tax (supposedly) negative externalities such as carbon, "clean energy" can't get off free. We are offshoring pollution -- think neodymium for wind turbines mined in Mongolia, solar cells in China, etc. And don't forget, manufacturing these clean energy components produces carbon, which would get off scot-free overseas.
A better idea is to eliminate all energy subsidies and let economics do it's job. Case in point, natural gas which is reducing our carbon intensity on a large scale with clean, reliable, and dispatchable power.
Arghhh, just noticed the "it's" thanks to iPad text correction.
The principle of Pigovian taxation is well established as a free market based mechanism to correct for externalities. The tax isn't there to compensate the people that are affected by the negative externalities but to 'level the playing field' as a market mechanism so that (in this example) the price of fossil fuels includes the cost of the anticipated damage that they cause, this, for example, would have the effect of making Nuclear Power more competitive.
And no it doesn't rely on the science being settled - you just need some sort of estimate of the damage that will be caused in different scenarios and your best guess at the likelihood of each scenario
Wow.
Worstall pops up saying he takes the scientists at their word and therefore the UK is paying too much tax, and this blog practically melts down!
RKS takes eight posts to show us that he didn't read the article, leaps to unsupportable conclusions and considers there to be a plot to
fluoridate our waterinfiltrate Bishop Hill with greenies.RKS, CO2 warms the atmosphere in theory and in the laboratory. It's not the thoughts of a madman to accept it has some warming affect on climate - at least before feedbacks.
Shub, You are woken by the sounds of burglars in your house. You call the police. They ask, "How many intruders are there?"
"I don't know, two at least", you reply.
"I'm sorry, if you can't accurately quantify the level of intrusion, then we can't respond to your call."
Andrew, you use Tol's graph to indicate that we can carry on raising the temperature another 2 degrees without net negative effect. However, Tol has already warned that when you get to that point we can't just turn off the effects, the temperature would continue for decades after you hit some magical off-switch. With that in mind, I think you need to be more careful about saying that 100 years of CO2 is 100 years of no damage.
All Worstall is saying is that if you take the science as it is currently proposed, fossil fuels damage the environment and a tax that is smaller than the current one should be applied. If you think that CO2 does less damage, then the tax should be even smaller. I have serious doubts about the quality of science that contributes to the IPCC report, but I accept that is the official description of AGW and that people who have not looked into the science should fall back to it as a default. The alternative is that I try to force people to join my tribe, "because I'm right."
Even McIntyre admits that if he was a politician he would feel bound to act as advised by the science as it is currently described. That seems to be a reasonable position, to me at least. We should be pushing to improve the quality of the science, not condemning those who accept it at face value.
@MrPotarto
( I say potato btw) I doubt RKS has failed to read the post as you suggest but even if he had failed, that would be better than your post which contains factual errors as well as a ridiculous analogy.
"CO2 warms the atmosphere in theory and in the laboratory."
CO2 does NOT warm the atmosphere, it has a warming effect so that even though CO2 just passed 400ppm at a northern station this week; the world has not warmed for 14 years. CO2 does NOT warm the atmosphere in a laboratory because you can not fit it in there ^.^ .
"Shub, You are woken by the sounds of burglars in your house. You call the police. They ask, "How many intruders are there?"
"I don't know, two at least", you reply.
"I'm sorry, if you can't accurately quantify the level of intrusion, then we can't respond to your call.""
Utterly ridiculous analogy and factually incorrect. If my alarm goes off and I dont reset it, the police arrive within 10 minutes, they dont ring me to find out how many intruders there are. Sheeesh!
"Andrew, you use Tol's graph to indicate that we can carry on raising the temperature another 2 degrees without net negative effect. However, Tol has already warned that when you get to that point we can't just turn off the effects, the temperature would continue for decades after you hit some magical off-switch."
Could you share with me the scientific basis for temperature rising AFTER we reduce CO2 levels? I am not saying it would not happen but I would like you to prove it, or are you saying warming is independent of CO2?
In the early hours RKS wrote this:
RKS then goes on to quote something I wrote in response to him on the later (second) thread on carbon taxes. This afternoon MrPotarto comments:
Dung then weighs in in defence of RKS. But MrPotarto is surely right in his central point that the intense involvement of RKS on this thread is detrimental to the reputation of Bishop Hill. I first came across this moniker (that I can remember) in his intemperate support for mydogsgotnonose just over a month ago. I am surprised that he is now trying to propose a slow infiltration of Bishop Hill as if he's been reading BH for many years. But perhaps he has. The simplistic old category of troll probably doesn't do justice to this one. But not exactly helpful - I agree with MrPotarto on that.
Dung,
Thank you for your kind words.
Shub wrote, "In scientific parlance, you 'know' something *only* if you know 'how much' and only through the 'how much.' There is no 'knowing' otherwise!"
My analogy was an attempt to satirise that. I'm very happy to know your alarm calls the police for you, but in my analogy Shub was awoken by noises and called the police himself. You even quote me saying, "You call the police" and then follow you it up with, "they dont ring me". So we are agreed.
You are right that you cannot fit the atmosphere into a laboratory. I was hoping my meaning was clear without a tortuous sentence, but as you wish:
"The theory of infra-red absorption by CO2 asserts that it causes an increased warming above that which would occur without CO2. This absorption has been observed in laboratory conditions."
I'm not saying this means we will all fry, I'm saying that it's plausible that the first order effect of rising CO2 will be some level of rising temperature. Most serious sceptics accept this.
You asked, "Could you share with me the scientific basis for temperature rising AFTER we reduce CO2 levels? I am not saying it would not happen but I would like you to prove it, or are you saying warming is independent of CO2?"
I take this from Richard Tol's first comment on this thread: A blast at Nordhaus. He wrote:
"However, totals do not matter. The incremental impact turns negative around 1.2K. If we were able to control climate, we would warm the planet by 1.2K and stop there. However, the momentum of the climate system and the energy system is such that, if you accept the mainstream view of the workings of the climate, we cannot avoid 1.2K warming, or 2.0K warming for that matter.
The initial benefit is thus a sunk benefit: We will enjoy it regardless of what we do."
He is saying that we will receive the 1.2K benefits as reward for what we've already done. If we push temperatures up to 1.2K then we will receive subsequent costs. Possibly he's not saying (as I did) that temperature will continue to rise after CO2 stops increasing, possibly he's just saying there is no such thing as a magic off switch. But his use of the the phrase, "the momentum of the climate system and the energy system" suggests to me that he does indeed mean temperature whould continue to rise for a period after CO2 levels are stabilised.
Richard Drake,
You probably won't find my name on this site until recently, but I have been reading it for years. It's possible (assuming you are right) that RKS has been reading it from the beginning and has only been moved to post because he is frustrated by the damage people like you and me are wreaking.
My concern is that we get a writer who says, "I accept the IPCC science at face value, and because of this we should lower green taxes" and RKS ignores the interesting "low tax" argument and focuses on, "he doesn't agree with me". His approach would make every thread an argument about the properties of CO2 (or back radiation).
It's also a bit bizarre that he's asking for the blog's policy on the properties of CO2. I didn't even know the blog had policies. Andrew, what's the blog's policy on policies?
MrP - please can you provide a reference for this?:
"Even McIntyre admits that if he was a politician he would feel bound to act as advised by the science as it is currently described."
Thanks
not banned yet,
Here he is:
To Browsing Undergraduates
Peter Brown and Mann et al 2008
Ammann at AGU #2
BBC Radio: Overselling Climate Change
John Hunter on Sea Levels
MrPotarto: please take this the right way but that's the most sensible and refreshing response I've had from a pseudonymous poster in the last few weeks - and it feels more like years :)
I wish I'd said that. That was the key warning sign right at the start of this thread. Well done.
not banned yet: MrP's wording is probably not perfect by I've heard Steve say this on his trip to London in 2010 (at the Guardian debate, for example) and I've seen him write it many times. He almost always prefaces this with an acknowledgement that policy makers, like business leaders, are often making decisions in the face of considerable uncertainty. A notable addendum is that when I asked Doug Keenan if he agreed with Steve's statement on this, in the wine bar after the Guardian event, he indicated he agreed 100% on this. It's not a secret that Doug and Steve haven't agreed on everything so I was particularly impressed by that. There's a respect there for the 'official channels' and official science that not everyone on Bishop Hill exhibits, let's put it that way.
This of course makes Steve's (and Doug's) criticisms of UEA and the rest all the more telling.
not banned yet,
I've found several examples, but my message is held up in moderation. Stand by.
MrP - thanks, quotes and context links appreciated.
I had a recollection that SteveMc had said something along those lines, though not in the context of an admission and also with a qualification of the difference between organisational opinion and the actual substance of the "science as described". I also expected his comment re: a need for policy on full and timely data archiving. Perhaps it was just my reading of your wording which made it sound as if you felt this was in some way a surprising view for Steve to hold.
Wow, no wonder that was held in moderation - that could have be multiple adverts for viagra. Great job MrSpud - and very relevant to Worstall's and Montford's original theme to boot. Which brings me to the meta-problem you put so well:
That's the problem. And in one sense it's legit - in that if mydog or any other critic of greenhouse theory turns out to be right the game is over.
But what are the chances of one of these critics being right on the science? Or this particular one? Surely it's reasonable to assume that it's very very small indeed. In the mean time Tim Worstall and many others are quite legitimately looking at the policy options and Andrew Montford is very legitimately questioning Tim's logic. And the advocates of mydog's particular critique of greenhouse theory should wait at least least his first paper is published before even mentioning it on a thread like this.
But it's hard to know how to police such matters. Bless that blog host Lord.
mr potato
If you wake up in the night and heard noises in the kitchen it could be two burglars or three cats.
When we have modelled temperature curves going up, we know it is going 'up' only because the graph went from 'a' to 'b' where 'a' and 'b' are known quantities and b>a.
not banned yet,
It was probably me expressing myself badly. I think it should be possible for people with a wide range of views about the attribution and seriousness of climate change to get together and discuss a single issue within the bounds of that issue. I was trying to show that even Stephen McIntyre, the arch-sceptic and gadfly of the Hockey Team recognizes that it's not unreasonable to take a stance that accepts the views of the professional experts.
Richard Drake,
I know nothing about back radiation. MyDog could be a genius and I have no reason to think he isn't.
But while we're waiting for his view to roll over the establishment like a steam-roller of reason, it makes sense to continue to talk about other areas of climate change against the backdrop of the status quo. And this is something MyDog recognizes as he does not hijack every thread with his argument.
What I like about Tim Worstall's approach is that he takes the IPCC at face value and agrees with everything they have to say about the environment. Then he shows that the appropriate economic response to that is to cut taxes and burn fossil fuel. I would have thought using the IPCC's arguments against the greens would have been more appreciated here.
MrPotarto: agreed on most. I think you do have a reason to think MyDog isn't a genius and that's that geniuses are rare. But the heart of what I was saying was that "advocates of mydog's particular critique of greenhouse theory should wait at least [till] his first paper is published before even mentioning it on a thread like this." It's been notable for me this holiday weekend, after a fairly lengthy gap, how RKS has stepped up his advocacy on behalf of mydog since (I take it from what you say) mydog stopped interrupting threads here. Thus RKS has given moderators the same problem on the two Worstall threads, just under a different name. I've not been checking every thread in the last month by any means so I'm open to learn on what's been happening during that time.
I wish like you that we could have debated Worstall on his own terms - on the IPCC's terms, as you say. It's extremely important that pragmatic alliances can be built to improve the diabolically bad climate policies we suffer at the moment. If, for example, we were to go into the next election with one party saying they'd replace the current ragbag of policies with a flat carbon tax and the others offering more of the same elitist rubbish I don't have much doubt I'd vote for that party on the strength of that issue alone. In that sense I'm very sold on what Tim's saying. It would be cool to have a culture at Bishop Hill that encouraged such 'compromises' - or common sense, as I'd prefer to call it, having lived under a democratic system, with all its faults, all my life, and gratefully so.
RKS's very weird conspiracy theory in the early hours about the infiltration of Bishop Hill suggests to me some desperation. But I am I admit assuming there some bad intentions. I don't want to push that further here. Thanks for your intervention, without which I wouldn't have spotted the infiltration post, with its yanking of my words from another thread, out of context, at all.
"What I like about Tim Worstall's approach is that he takes the IPCC at face value and agrees with everything they have to say about the environment. Then he shows that the appropriate economic response to that is to cut taxes and burn fossil fuel. I would have thought using the IPCC's arguments against the greens would have been more appreciated here."
Worstall takes the IPCC at face value because he is likely incapable of doing anything else.
Worstall does not advocate burning fossil fuels.
You cannot use the IPCC's arguments against the greens (not in the long run anyway) because the IPCC is wrong and the you cannot use *anything* against the greens.
McIntyre may agree with the professionals. So what? The professionals in this case are saying that "most of the warming in the 2nd half of 20th century is due to CO2". The professionals are wrong.
I agree with MrPotarto on that.
Jun 5, 2012 at 5:02 PM | Richard Drake>>>>
You'll have to calm down and appear statesmanlike if you want to influence everybody with your political viewpoints and chosen newspaper hacks.
Fancy spending all that vitriol on what you, in your ivory tower, regard as a nameless nonentity.
And of course, I love you too - though perhaps not as much as you love yourself.
Waste more time on me if you like but remember how petty it makes you look.
But it's hard to know how to police such matters. Bless that blog host Lord.
Jun 5, 2012 at 8:24 PM | Richard Drake>>>>>
Why not start your own blog.
Think of the power of censorship at your fingertips!
McIntyre may agree with the professionals. So what? The professionals in this case are saying that "most of the warming in the 2nd half of 20th century is due to CO2". The professionals are wrong.
Jun 5, 2012 at 11:15 PM | shub>>>>>
Careful, there are those who'd like to have such opinions censored as it doesn't suit their political agenda.
Shub,
"Worstall takes the IPCC at face value because he is likely incapable of doing anything else."
Well, yes, I'm sure you're right. We can't all be polymaths. My point is that we can still discuss his economic argument even if we disagree with his science stance. What's your point?
"Worstall does not advocate burning fossil fuels."
Doesn't he? Oh. My mistake. It's funny because I was sure I read in the Telegraph ... yes, here it is:
How to save ourselves from the new Middle Ages: stop building bird-choppers and start fracking
Then there was that article at the ASI:
http://www.adamsmith.org/blog/tax-and-economy/a-political-battle-that-we-must-win
And of course, this one with some industrial language from his own blog:
http://timworstall.com/2011/11/23/sorry-theyre-still-barking-mad/
Shub,
"Worstall takes the IPCC at face value because he is likely incapable of doing anything else."
Well, yes, I'm sure you're right. We can't all be polymaths. My point is that we can still discuss his economic argument even if we disagree with his science stance. What's your point?
Jun 6, 2012 at 6:13 AM | MrPotarto>>>>>
Surely if there's no valid scientific case, there can be NO costly economic case either.
Or do we all jump into a sea of poverty because someone with vested interests shouts "Wolf"
RKS, thanks for the advice to calm down, though I don't think I've ever felt calmer. Were you by the way perfectly calm when you wrote this around 30 hours ago:
It didn't come across to me as the
ravingsI mean writings of someone who was totally calm. But you've made clear on a number of occasions my mental deficiencies and I'm sure when you've posted another ten times here it will be seen that this is just another example where I have failed to grasp the greatness of your own intellectual, social and psychological insights.And now I need to trot aut and do some real work. Thanks again to Andrew and Tim for some excellent food for thought and all the work that goes into Bishop Hill as a whole.
And now I need to trot aut and do some real work. Thanks again to Andrew and Tim for some excellent food for thought and all the work that goes into Bishop Hill as a whole.
Jun 6, 2012 at 7:08 AM | Richard Drake>>>>
Cool as a cucumber.
Oddly enough it used to be the troll ZDB who tried to mock the typos inside the little text box.
Most adults here don't bother with such antics as it happens to all of us from time to time.
And I'll share your thanks to Andrew and Tim for an interesting thread. Tim of course, being a working journalist, has a duty to fill up column inches and invoke a lively response from his readers. Whether I agree with his message or not, he deserves a first class for results.
Mr potato
RKS makes the point better than I could. If there is no harm from carbon dioxide, how would a Pigovian tax on carbon work?
Do we implement real 'solutions' to imaginary problems?
And thanks for the links to the articles by Worstall. Gave me an opportunity to read yet more of his stuff. Worstall's advocating fracking over windmills ... because ... gas emits less 'carbon' compared to coal.
I would call it the chicken stance of fossil fuel advocacy.
"Surely if there's no valid scientific case, there can be NO costly economic case either."
RKS,
I realise this is complicated for you, but don't worry, I will stay here as long as it takes for you to understand.
Currently, we have a set of governments that take the official science at face value and are spending our money. We've been unable to change their minds on that, as yet. I have hope, but up until now it's not worked.
So we have two options.
1) Stamp our feet and say, "It's not fair! The science is crap! You're all mean!"
2) Accept that the science battle will not be won this year and see if there are other areas of weakness in the whole AGW edifice.
Worstall doesn't bother looking at the science - I don't think it interests him. He likes economics. He appears to enjoy reading long dry economic reports and summarising them with regard to whether they will save or cost us money. That makes his thoughts on the matter interesting to me, and others.
What he has discovered by reading the economic sections of the IPCC reports, and the Stern review, and Nordhaus is, (The really good bit is coming up now, so I'll write it in capitals to make it easier to read.)
TAKING THE SCIENCE FROM THE SCIENTISTS, AND THE ECONOMICS FROM THE ECONOMISTS - WE SHOULD CUT OUR GREEN TAXES TO SOLVE THE PURPORTED AGW ISSUE!
OK. Let me know how much of that you understood, then we'll go over it again.
"RKS makes the point better than I could. If there is no harm from carbon dioxide, how would a Pigovian tax on carbon work?
"Do we implement real 'solutions' to imaginary problems?"
Shub,
The solution has already been implemented. Worstall wants to dismantle most of it. Look, I understand you've studied the science and been appalled at the shonkiness of it all. You have no faith in it. So your argument is, "This is crap, stop spending our money on it."
This is a fine argument. It has simplicity and truth in its favour. But the fact is, it hasn't worked. And until the current plateau in warning extends far enough to shame the scientists, it will not work. If the next move of the climate is upwards, then it may never work.
So, as an alternative, I offer you the, 'beat them at their own game' argument. Accept that CO2 has some measurable negative impact on the environment, get a few economists to measure it and then set taxes at that level. A level which is significantly below the current tax level. Stop building windmills.
I can see two problems with this approach:
1) It means accepting some carbon taxes.
Yes, but we've had fuel duties and fuel escalators even before we had AGW taxes - you're never going to get all the tax off oil.
2) Some crazies like Ackerman and Stanton push the cost of CO2 to astronomic levels.
This is possible, but they are very much the fringe. More respected, less loo-loo economists have already set a range, so it is hard to push it much higher. Anyway, the economics is sounder than the climate science. Measuring the predicted damage is relatively easy and uses standard costs that have been laid down in the past. Displacing this many people at a cost of this per person... etcetera.
I can understand you not wanting to follow this path, can you understand me wanting to?
"Worstall's advocating fracking over windmills ... because ... gas emits less 'carbon' compared to coal."
So he does advocate fossil fuels and you accept you were wrong. Triffic.
@MrPotarto
I still say potato!
You seem to have a problem understanding the direct effect of CO2 as agreed by both sides of the CAGW argument. Your lab experiment helps to show that "all other things being equal" CO2 will have a warming effect, we all agree on that. You say it will warm the planet and that is totally different!
In winter it gets colder even though we blast out even more CO2 when it gets cold. It gets colder because there are other factors in play that we all understand.
People focus on CO2 because the IPCC focusses on CO2 and claims that CO2 and the feedbacks that it causes are alone responsible for recent warming (not current please note).
The IPCC ignores all the ways in which the sun can affect climate, it ignores cosmic rays and it fails to recognise that there will be factors that nobody yet knows anything about.
Steve McIntyre is not an arch sceptic or at least he did not start out that way, in fact he is widely misunderstood. The reason he got involved was that the Canadian government put a pamphlet through his door showing the Hockey Stick graph of Mann Bradley & Hughes infamy and was told that 1998 was the warmest year for a thousand years. Steve is no fool and also does not suffer fools gladly, he wanted to find out how they knew that and so he began his investigation of MBH and their work.
The other thing about Steve is that he is a perfect gentleman and the quote you correctly attribute to him was made in the early days of his attempts to get at the truth. Steve began with total respect for MBH and was always polite in his dealings with them, his expertise was in statistical analysis.
More recently after a brief illness McIntyre almost gave up his involvement because of the attitude and behaviour of the people (including governments) he has found himself obstruted by in his search for the
truth. I think it is at least a possibility that he might have changed his opinion about carbon taxes.
On the issue of carbon tax the question seems to be about why some of us do not want to accept a lower but simpler carbon tax instead of multiple and messy carbon taxes? For me the answer is simple; I do not accept any tax that is based on a lie, my aim is to destroy the whole corrupt and dishonest idea that man is warming the planet through emissions of CO2.
OK. Let me know how much of that you understood, then we'll go over it again.
Jun 6, 2012 at 3:56 PM | MrPotarto>>>>
Take a look at Dung's post of 4:22 pm and then see if your rather myopic comprehension abilities can understand that argument.
I really don't give a toss what you think - you are of no importance to me whatsoever.
I am sceptical of the 'settled science' - you obviously accept it like a wide eyed school child.
If CO2 is not as I, and others at BH believe, a major climate driver - then a tax to account for it is totally irrelevant.
I know it's hard for a quasi religious climate zealot like you to comprehend, but climate science is as yet in it's infancy and NOTHING is yet known beyond the realms of mere hypothesis, let alone proven fact.
I wonder how many of your elderly relatives you're happy to sacrifice to a miserable life of energy poverty to satisfy your 'faith' in the empirically unproven CO2 hypothesis?
On the issue of carbon tax the question seems to be about why some of us do not want to accept a lower but simpler carbon tax instead of multiple and messy carbon taxes? For me the answer is simple; I do not accept any tax that is based on a lie, my aim is to destroy the whole corrupt and dishonest idea that man is warming the planet through emissions of CO2.
Jun 6, 2012 at 4:22 PM | Dung>>>>
Hi Dung.
Obviously you'll have noticed I'm in complete agreement with you on the above statement.
Don't you just love the rough and tumble of civilized debate?
@RKS
The Bish will not mind if you argue your case as hard as you can but he does mind when people get personal, so "wide eyed school child", "myopic" and "quasi religious climate zealot" may well bring the power of the church down upon your head hehe.