In a democracy we resolve our differences by trying to persuade each other and elections
17 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
An inconvenient chart
15 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming Tags: an inconvenient truth, global warming
HT: aei-ideas.org
Fighting the World’s Biggest Environmental Problem – With Fossil Fuels | Bjorn Lomborg
12 Jul 2014 2 Comments
in development economics, environmental economics Tags: Bjørn Lomborg, indoor pollution
The battle of the graphs
08 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
in environmentalism, global warming Tags: global cooling, global warming, Little ice age, Medieval warming period
The second IPCC report, in 1996, showed a 1,000-year graph demonstrating that temperature in the Middle Ages was warmer than today.
The 2001 report contained a new graph showing no medieval warm period. The technique they overweighed was one which the UN’s 1996 report had said was unsafe: measurement of tree-rings from bristlecone pines.
Scores of scientific papers show that the medieval warm period was real, global and up to 3C warmer than now.
The value of a statistical life through time in the USA
06 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, environmental economics, health economics, technological progress, Thomas Schelling, transport economics Tags: Thomas Schelling, value of life
Thomas Schelling’s crucial contribution in 1968 at RAND was the notion of statistical lives—mortality risks—in contrast to valuing the lives of specific, identified individuals. His insight was that economists could evade the moral thicket of valuing life and instead focus on people’s willingness to trade-off money for small reductions in the risks they face.
Good old days alert: The Great London Smog | Stuff You Missed in History Class
04 Jul 2014 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, technological progress Tags: London smog, The Great Escape
A London bus conductor is forced to walk ahead of his vehicle to guide it through the smog, 9th December 1952.
In 1952, a choking cloud enveloped much of London and the Home Counties which killed thousands. Barbara Fewster walked 16-mile home – in heels – guiding her fiancé’s car.
the fog persisted until the 1960s when people stop using coal to heat their houses.
the London fogs which were regular from about the 1830s until the early 1960s were part of the good old days before the environment even got worse, if our friends in the environmental movement are to be believed.
via Missed In History: The Great London Smog | Stuff You Missed in History Class.
There are major differences between a carbon tax and emissions trading.
29 Jun 2014 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, global warming Tags: cap and trade, carbon tax, emissions trading, global warming, rent seeking
- The history of cap-and-trade systems suggests that the carbon emission allowances are given away to carbon emitters, which they can use or sell at market prices. The prices of energy products would rise, but governments would collect no revenue to reduce other taxes and compensate consumers.
- Agreement on a global cap-and-trade system is hard to imagine. A global carbon tax is easier to negotiate. All nations use a carbon tax to raise revenue and use the proceeds to compensate consumers with tax relief. No money needs to change hands across national borders.
- A carbon tax is now being championed by groups and political parties that previously would deny to their graves that taxes have significant incentive effects, and that taxes do not affect the supply of labour or the rate and direction of investment to any important degree. It is suspicious that groups and parties that deny tax cuts increase economic growth take time out from these foundational beliefs to support a tax because of the incentives it gives to reduce carbon consumption. They want it both ways.
The disappearance of IPCC 1990 report figure 7c, the Medieval warm period, and River Thames frost fairs
25 Jun 2014 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming Tags: global warming, Little ice age, Medieval warm period, River Thames frost fairs
This painting, dated 1684, by Abraham Hondius depicts one of many frost fairs on the River Thames during the Little Ice Age. River Thames frost fairs were held on its tideway in some winters between the 17th century and early 19th century.
The global warming hiatus? Climate models all wrongly predicted warming, so let’s call it a discrepancy
22 Jun 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of climate change, environmental economics, global warming Tags: climate change, hiatus in global warming, IPCC
Ross McKitrick noted this week that the IPCC still uses the word unequivocal to describe the evidence, but has let a new word slip into its lexicon : hiatus – the global warming hiatus since 1998.
How times have changed. Up until now, to mention this hiatus was to be a climate denier – pure wickedness: to be anti-science and a paid lackey or wannabe paid lackey of Big Oil.
Has the IPCC become a climate denier? Trends change. Differentiating a break in trend from fluctuations around a trend is never easy.
I have not seen a statement of when this hiatus becomes a break in trend. Nor have I seen an estimate of when a return of warming, in what year in the 2020s or 2030s or whenever, will a return in warming make recent trends in global temperatures statistically significant evidence of global warming.
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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