[Ed. Note: This post, pays tribute to William Niskanen, a principled classical liberal born on this day ninety-one years ago. His view on climate change, in particular, refute the current views of the Niskanen Center, funded by foes of classical liberalism. (The peculiar, revengeful story of founder Jerry Taylor is told here and here.)

The longtime chairman of the Cato Institute, William N. Niskanen (1933–2011), was an academic at the University of California at Berkeley and UCLA; chief economist at Ford Motor Company; noted Public Choice economist; an influential member of President Reagan’s Council of Economic Advisors (1981–85), and chair of the Cato Institute (1985–2008).

Bill and I shared the podium a few times on energy issues, and I admired his Enron project at Cato that resulted in two books, Corporate Aftershock: Lessons from the Collapse of Enron and Other Major Corporations (2003) and After Enron: Lessons for Public Policy (2005).…

“To refine our estimates of climate sensitivity will require breakthroughs in climate physics and more high-quality measurements…. Both outcomes likely lie a couple decades hence….”

“Are Climate Model Projections too Hot?” Niskanen Center (downloaded January 19, 2020)

Climate activists, whether scientists or members of a nongovernmental organization (NGO), eschew direct debate. “The science is settled!” … “We must take action now!” … All to keep fossil fuels in the ground and let the consumers worry about energy affordability, reliability, and convenience.

But the holy grail of climate sensitivity to man-made emissions of greenhouse gases, the enhanced greenhouse effect, remains in stubborn dispute today as in the 1980s. The range of equilibrium climate sensitivity (ECS) is wide and not expected to come down soon.

The bottom end, as projected by models and accepted by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), is in net positive territory, according to leading climate economists.…

[Editor note: This recent post by Lea Giotto of Energy in Depth expounds on the controversial, sputtering involvement of the Niskanen Center and the Colorado climate lawsuit. Her title: “Contradictions Mount as Lawyer for Colorado Climate Lawsuits Struggles to Defend His Role.” For more on the policy shift of Niskanen founder Jerry Taylor from libertarian to climate/energy statism, see here.]

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When David Bookbinder signed up to help Colorado municipalities sue the energy industry for the impacts of global warming, he claimed his purpose was not about climate change. But when he recently attempted to defend his role with those climate lawsuits, the Niskanen Center attorney not only contradicted himself, but may have undermined the broader climate litigation campaign.

Bookbinder – who was previously a climate-focused attorney with the Sierra Club – took an unconventional approach in his latest defense of climate litigation: he penned a guest commentary for the Federalist Society, an organization that has provided a forum for many who express skepticism about the validity of these cases.…

“Some organizations and governments now appear likely to endorse an abatement strategy, largely for symbolic reasons, a strategy that will prove to be both costly and ineffective…. Until there is much better and broader understanding of this issue, a rush to judgement on the optimal response to the increase in global temperature is the greater danger.”

– William Niskanen, 2008

[Editor note: This completes a six-part series on the climate views of the late William Niskanen, taken from his Fall 1997 symposium essay, “Too Much, Too Soon: Is a Global Warming Treaty a Rush to Judgment?” as well as his 2008 postscript. Previous posts are:

1. Part I: Key Questions
2. Part II: Physical Science
3. Part III: Moderate Warming Scenario
4. Part IV: Why Regulate?
5. Part V: Mitigation Issues

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Conclusion (1997)

Scientists have been correct to alert political officials about the possibility that a continued increase in the atmospheric concentration of carbon dioxide may increase average global temperatures. …