My argumentation against legislating the problem of global warming has rightly left some with the impression that I’m willing to disregard global warming’s existence primarily as a means to prevent legislation attempting to regulate it.
If I had to fully articulate the argument it would go something like this:
Satellite measurements of temperate increase on the globe is almost certainly true.
Its likely but much less convincing that this increase is attributable to mankind.
Computer models that predict extremely modest outcomes within the next two decades might be convincing. It depends on the motive of the investigator.
Computer models that predict further than two decades are not convincing no matter who makes the argument.
Computer models that ‘predict’ catastrophic events by mid century are laughably unconvincing.
The problem is that most of the rhetoric used to drum up political support uses points 4 and 5 (An inconvenient truth). Now I know that you all will have an aneurysm when I say this, but if we define global warming as more about points 4 and 5 then I have good reason to deny its existence. Since much of my talk about global warming comes up in the context of politics it seems acceptable to criticize global warming on points 4 and 5.
Furthermore, like it or not, this issue has been adopted by a group of people that have a noble tradition of denying the gains of capitalism because of their perceived injustice towards the environment. Their world view favors more strongly the idea that one should ‘live in harmony’ with the environment while I favor more strongly the capitalist perspective that the environment should be exploited.
These people’s wacky value system does not find mass appeal primarily because it would result in reduced standard of living for all. To get around this problem they have adopted global warming. Global warming makes their perspective more palatable because it gives credence to the idea that ‘living in harmony’ with nature is the only way mankind can survive. We must reduce our standard of living to avoid doing irreparable harm to the environment.
Capturing more political will with global warming these people aim to implement legislation more interested in punishing highly developed capitalism than actually affecting global warming. Kyoto protocol was a de facto attack on America’s economic dominance. Its impact on carbon output was negligible, but inimical to US industry. Furthermore, the treaty was not binding on two of the largest carbon produces and strong US economic rivals: China and India. You might disagree about Kyoto protocol but the democrats didn’t. It’s first failure for ratification came under Clinton’s term.
When this group of people, which to be fair consists mostly of non-scientists, uses the term global warming they mean it a sense that I would happily deny. But you see this is where the term ‘consensus’ comes into play. There are scientists who want it both ways. They want to be the arbiters of truth and also force their sentiment of environmental harmony on others. They happily sign off on dubious environmental catastrophe to drum up the political support needed to reign in ‘destructive industry’ and return the earth to a more ‘natural state’.
These scientists are problematic for science in general because they are marrying the reputation of science as a fair broker of truth to a hyper partisan group that has unhealthy view of mans relationship to the world. The only way this relationship works out is if environmental catastrophe obtains. In the almost certain outcome that environmental catastrophe or nothing even close to it occurs, these scientists will harm science’s reputation as an arbiter of truth. This will be particularly true when science uses ‘consensus’ to make other dubious claims with an obvious political agenda.
Liberal or Conservative Hypocrisy to Get Around the Libertarian Argument
One final note, I find it hypocritical for liberals to use dubious environmental catastrophe to drum up political support while they criticize conservatives for using dubious Islamic terrorism to drum up political support. A cooked earth in which millions die to flooding and starvation is just as likely as an earth where millions perished by an Al Qaeda backed caliphate. Both scenarios are used by their respective parties to gag the libertarian argument.
The liberal supports constraining free markets to protect the environment. The conservative supports constraining citizen right to protect the country. Both of them cook up preposterous future outcomes to censor the basic libertarian argument that one person should not be able to tell another person how to live their life. The liberal tells the citizen he must pay for costly reforms in production to reduce CO2 emissions. The conservative tells the citizen that he must allow the state to listen into a certain subset of phone calls to catch potential Al Qaeda machinations. Failure to obey will lead to catastrophe.
This all seems vaguely familiar to me. Where have I heard this before? Oh I remember now. As a boy sitting in church the priest would tell me how to live my life or suffer a catastrophic future. This future consisted of both extremely hot temperatures and evil entities forcing me do their will. Not only does the priest’s catastrophic future include both global warming and an Islamic caliphate he promised it will last for all of eternity! In the market place of catastrophic futures, the priest proves the most capable merchant by offering the best wares. The prudent shopper would follow Catholic commandants over liberal or conservative commandments.
Fortunately our forefathers had the presence of mind to separate the church from the state. I only wish the scientist had the presence of mind to separate science from politics before he consent.
