Trillions are taken from taxpayers for climate guesses, voters must have say in such large cash gambles of their money

7/14/12, "Another failing of the global warming alarmists: Scientists are not economists," Star-Ledger, Paul Mulshine

"As I noted in my prior post, the problem with global-warming alarmism is

• really a lot of problems.

First scientists need to sort out all the possible causes of climate change in a system with an almost endless number of variables.

Then they need to determine just what course of action would have what effect.

And then they need to apply a cost-benefit analysis to see if the proposed action produces benefits commensurate with its cost.

That's not science. That's economics.

Read as the son of the most famous graduate of Rutgers weighs in on the economics of global warming:

Should we, for instance, assume that Bangladesh will still be a poor country a century hence, or that it will by then have followed the path blazed by South Korea, Taiwan, Singapore and Hong Kong—and so be in a position to dike its coast, as Holland did several centuries ago, or move housing some miles further inland, at a cost that can be paid out of petty change? Should we assume that population increase makes agricultural land more valuable and the expansion of the area over which crops can be grown more important, or that improvements in crop yield make it less? While there may be people who believe that they know the answer to such questions, the numbers required to justify such belief are at best educated guesses, in most cases closer to pure invention. Someone who wants to prove that global warming is bad can make high estimates for the costs, low estimates for the benefits, and so prove his case to his own satisfaction. Someone with the opposite agenda can reverse the process and prove his case equally well.

If we cannot calculate in any detail what the actual consequences of global warming and associated costs and benefits will be, an alternative is to ask whether we have any reason to expect, a priori, that costs will be larger than benefits.

David Friedman's blog is always good reading precisely because he takes such a dispassionate view of topics that others tend to get too passionate about.

Here are some more insights guaranteed to tick off the alarmists:

The earth and its climate were not, after all, designed for our convenience, so there is no good reason to believe that their current state is optimal for us. It is true that our species evolved to survive under then existing climatic conditions but, over the period for which humans have existed, climate has varied by considerably more than the changes being predicted for global warming.

The big lie of the alarmists, one I see cropping up constantly in my comments section, is that carbon dioxide is a "pollutant" and that curbing it would help clean the air,

• therefore it would be beneficial
  

• even if it doesn't have an effect on climate.

This is nonsense, though not as nonsensical as the comment on my prior entry by an alarmist who opined that there is no natural greenhouse effect.

Such is the level of the public debate. The real debate is going on over the heads off 99 percent-plus of Americans. That debate should use the science as a starting point for an inquiry into the economics of curbing CO-2 emissions.

By the way, this is why I refuse to allow commenters on this topic to fall back on that tired talking point about there being a "consensus" among scientists that man-made global warming is a danger.

That consensus extends only as far as the idea that, all thing being equal, we'd be better off not altering the atmosphere in anyway.

Well all things are not equal. Every step toward curbing CO-2 emissions has economic costs. And the "consensus" on just what those costs should be is up to the voters, not the scientists.

There is no consensus at all on just what we can expect for the money we are going to pay. Friedman gives a good jumping-off point for understanding that key fact."

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1/17/11, "China-style dictatorship of climatologists," Washington Times, Patrick Michaels

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It's much easier in Communist China (no elections):

9/8/09, "Our One-Party Democracy ," Tom Friedman, NY Times.

"One-party autocracy certainly has its drawbacks. But when it is led by a reasonably enlightened group of people, as China is today, it can also have great advantages. That one party can just impose the politically difficult but critically important policies needed to move a society forward in the 21st century."...

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In the US, "compliance with (EPA) regulations costs the U.S. economy more than $1.75 trillion per year." And $55.4 billion more in policing and administration. EPA's prohibition on light bulbs will cost $10.9 billion a year.

Update: 8/23/11, "The Alarming Cost Of Climate Change Hysteria," Forbes, Larry Bell

"The U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO) can’t figure out what benefits taxpayers are getting from the many billions of dollars spent each year on policies that are purportedly aimed at addressing climate change."...

via Tom Nelson

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