The smart, green economy, not – electric cars version
20 Feb 2015 Leave a comment
in energy economics, environmental economics, global warming, rentseeking Tags: Big Green, Bjørn Lomborg, electric cars, green rent seeking
Bjorn Lomborg: Climate Change Is Real, But We Have Time
21 Jan 2015 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, global warming Tags: Bjørn Lomborg
Yet our climate conversation has been dominated by end-of-the-world thinking that bears no relation to the measured language of the IPCC.
While panic is a great way to raise awareness and win votes, it is a terrible starting point for making smart policies.
The best known scare story is Al Gore’s film An Inconvenient Truth, which was all the rage seven years ago.
Remember where he showed us how a sea-level rise of almost seven metres would inundate Holland, Bangladesh and Florida? Yes, it was terrifying. Yes, it had a huge impact. No, it had no basis in reality.
HT: Bjorn Lomborg: Climate Change Is Real, But We Have Time | The Global Warming Policy Forum (GWPF) and Bjørn Lomborg on realism in the latest IPCC climate report. – Project Syndicate.
HT:
Bjørn Lomborg says that the UN climate panel’s latest report tells a story that politicians prefer to ignore
09 Nov 2014 Leave a comment
in climate change, energy economics, environmental economics, global warming Tags: Bjørn Lomborg, climate alarmism, global warming, green rent seeking, IPCC
The second IPCC installment showed that the temperature rise that we are expected to see sometime around 2055-2080 will create a net cost of 0.2-2% of GDP – the equivalent of less than one year of recession…
Again, not surprisingly, politicians tried to have this finding deleted. British officials found the peer-reviewed estimate “completely meaningless,” and, along with Belgium, Norway, Japan, and the US, wanted it rewritten or stricken. One academic speculated that governments possibly felt “a little embarrassed” that their previous exaggerated claims would be undercut by the UN.
The third installment of the IPCC report showed that strong climate policies would be more expensive than claimed as well – costing upwards of 4% of GDP in 2030, 6% in 2050, and 11% by 2100.
And the real cost will likely be much higher, because these numbers assume smart policies, instantly enacted, with key technologies magically available.
Who Is More Irrational – Consumers or Regulators?
08 Sep 2014 Leave a comment
in economics of regulation, energy economics, entrepreneurship, environmental economics, environmentalism, global warming Tags: Bjørn Lomborg, expressive voting, futile gestures, global warming, Kip Viscusi, nanny state, regulatory failure, The fatal conceit, The pretence to knowledge
A study by Ted Gayer and W. Kip Viscusi looked into this implied irrationality of consumers. They have found no empirical evidence to support the view that if consumers are so irrational that government agencies must prohibit certain energy consuming products for us to make the right choices:
Rather than accept the implications that consumers and firms are acting so starkly against their economic interest, a more plausible explanation is that there is something incorrect in the assumptions being made in the regulatory impact analyses.
Indeed, upon closer inspection it is apparent that there is no empirical evidence provided for the types of consumer failures alleged.
Even the EPA acknowledged this logical gap in its economic analysis of energy efficiency regulations:
it is a conundrum from an economic perspective that these large fuel savings have not been provided by automakers and purchased by consumers
Not surprisingly Kip Viscusi observed that
The regulatory impact analyses examined in this study contain virtually no empirical evidence to support the irrationality proposition.
• This proposition ignores the fact that consumers and firms purchase products based on a number of factors—only one of which is energy efficiency.
• Government agencies exhibit a parochial bias by ignoring all product attributes other than energy efficiency.
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 share market speaks on renewable energy
19 Jun 2014 Leave a comment
in applied price theory, energy economics, financial economics Tags: Bjørn Lomborg, event studies, renewable energy
Let the science be settled!
16 Jun 2014 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, global warming Tags: Bjørn Lomborg, global warming
HT: Cool It
The 1972 Limits To Growth book predicted that industrialization would increase air pollution until civilization collapsed and a few other things
12 Jun 2014 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, environmentalism, health economics Tags: Bjørn Lomborg, pollution, The Club of Rome, The Great Escape, The Great Fact, The Limits of Growth
The costs of global warming and other government statistics – Updated
11 Jun 2014 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, global warming Tags: Bjørn Lomborg, global warming, Richard Tol, Yes Prime Minister
Figure 1. The 14 estimates of the global economic impact of climate change, expressed as the welfare-equivalent income loss, as a functions of the increase in global mean temperature relative to today
Source: Richard Tol
The recent IPCC report found that the temperature rise that we are expected to see sometime around 2055-2080 will create a net cost of 0.2-2% of GDP. The UK, Japan, and the US wanted this rewritten or stricken.
The IPCC report showed that strong climate policies would be more expensive than claimed as well – costing upwards of 4% of GDP in 2030, 6% in 2050, and 11% by 2100.
Politicians tried to delete or change references to these high costs. British officials said they wanted such cost estimates cut because they “would give a boost to those who doubt action is needed.”
Sir Humphrey: No, no… Blurring issues is one of the basic Ministerial skills.
Jim: Oh, what are the others?
Sir Humphrey: Delaying decisions, dodging questions, juggling figures, bending facts and concealing errors.
and more from Yes Minister:
Seven ways of explaining away the fact that North-West region has saved £32 million while your department overspent:
a. They have changed their accounting system in the North-West.
b. Redrawn the boundaries, so that this year’s figures are not comparable.
c. The money was compensation for special extra expenditure of £16 million a year over the last two years, which has now stopped.
d. It is only a paper bag saving, so it will have to be spent next year.
e. A major expenditure is late in completion and therefore the region will be correspondingly over budget next year. (Known technically as phasing – Ed)
f. There has been an unforeseen but important shift in personnel and industries to other regions whose expenditure rose accordingly.
g. Some large projects were cancelled for reasons of economy early in the accounting period with the result that the expenditure was not incurred but the budget had already been allocated.
HT: Bjørn Lomborg and wattsupwiththat
Addendum
http://www.reddit.com/user/pnewell was good enough on the climate sceptics subreddit to point out that there is an updated version of the graph I posted at the top that includes corrections for gremlins in Richard Tol’s original paper.
His response reminds me of another passage from Yes Minister where prime ministerial candidate Jim Hacker is arguing with a European commission official about butter mountains.
Hacker said in one room a European commission official was subsidising people to produce milk, while in the next room another official is subsidising people to destroy it.
The response of this European union official was to say that was not true. Hacker asked how it was not true. He was told that the two officials were not on the same floor, the other official paying people to take the milk away is on the next floor.
The main body of my post is:
- about propaganda tactics to discredit criticism and suppress inconvenient facts, and
- the IPCC report facts that even if global warming is a problem, doing anything about it makes us even worse-off.
Paul Ehrlich in 1970 predicted a USA decimated by hunger in the year 2000: just 23 million inhabitants living on less calories than the average African gets today
10 Jun 2014 Leave a comment
in environmental economics, environmentalism Tags: Bjørn Lomborg, Paul Ehrlich, The Great Escape, The Great Fact
HT: Cool It
Utopia, you are standing in it! 
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