One of the ugliest battles in the blogosphere climate wars has involved the newly released Superfreakonomics, sequel to the best-selling Freakonomics. In the new book’s final chapter (available here in pdf), economist Steven Levitt and journalist Stephen Dubner set out to challenge the view that massively restricting carbon emissions is the only hope for averting planetwide catastrophe.
In this post I will link to some of the major commentary on the book so far, and then focus on U.C. Berkeley economist Brad DeLong’s specific claims that Levitt and Dubner’s arguments in support of geoengineering are somehow “bad economics.” As we’ll see, Levitt and Dubner might be wrong, but if so they are wrong because of the numbers. DeLong is painting their views as self-evidently absurd, but that’s only because he himself is overlooking a basic economic point.…
Continue ReadingOn October 16, 2009, the Houston Chronicle ran an Outlook piece by Dr. Ronald Sass— a fellow in global climate change at the Baker Institute and Professor of Natural Sciences emeritus at Rice University–complaining that Texas governor Rick Perry was getting his ideas about climate change from unreliable sources. Apparently, that Governor Perry is not hopping on the climate alarmism/policy activism bandwagon has Dr. Sass a bit concerned. Make no mistake about a political agenda of the giver of this advice that goes far beyond natural science issues.
Dr. Sass argues that the latest findings of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) should be the end all and be all of the physical science debate. But he is behind the times. The IPCC report is several years old, and the latest theory and empirical data is pointing in more benign directions than at the height of the climate alarm in the late 1990s.…
Continue ReadingToday, the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee will hold the first of three hearings on S. 1733, the Clean Energy Jobs and American Power Act,” also known as Kerry-Boxer, after its co-sponsors Senators John Kerry (D-MA) and Barbara Boxer (D-CA). Kerry-Boxer is the Senate companion bill to H.R. 2454, the American Clean Energy and Security Act (ACESA), also known as Waxman-Markey, after its co-sponsors Reps. Henry Waxman (D-CA) and Ed Markey (D-MA).
For those worried about the economic impacts of these bills, I bring unwelcome news: their bite is worse than their bark. Escalator clauses common to both bills, ignored in most previous analyses, are the setup for dramatic increases in regulatory stringency well beyond the bills’ explicit emission reduction targets. Similarly, “findings” presenting the “scientific” rationale for cap-and-trade are not mere rhetorical fluff but precedents for litigation targeting emission sources considerably smaller than those explicitly identified as “covered entities.”…
Continue Reading