Trust, But Verify

The key lesson to take away from the CRU email scandal is: trust, but verify. It’s an old expression, but it’s the key to why the “deniers” are looking prescient while the true believers look like dupes. Expert opinions are valuable for assessing many aspects of the world we live in. However, when the methods and data sources used to bolster these opinions are shrouded in secrecy this should be taken as a warning sign that something is amiss.

Peer review cuts both ways: it is a valuable tool for weeding out inappropriately formed opinions, but in the wrong hands it can just as easily be used to keep a poorly constructed “concensus” insulated from the kind of rigorous intellectual debate that a subject of this importance deserves.

With any topic of public debate, we should never trust without question opinions formed in a black box, no matter how much we otherwise trust and admire the source.

(Thanks to Instapundit, Ace of Spades, Mark Steyn and The Volokh Conspiracy)

The Madness of Copenhagen

If you can, read this — probably the single most concise display of comprehensive environmental illness:

«Le Canada devrait s’engager à proposer: une diminution de 25% en cible absolue des émissions de gaz à effet de serre des pays industrialisés par rapport à 1990 d’ici 2020; la nécessité de limiter la hausse des températures de la planète en deçà de 2 °C par rapport aux niveaux de l’ère préindustrielle; un appui aux pays en développement dans leurs efforts de réduction de gaz à effet de serre et d’adaptation aux changements climatiques», dit la motion.

To demand that a government reduces the temperature of the planet alone is enough to warrant commital to an insane asylum for the sake of not only the health of the person demanding it but also for the safety of the rest of the citizens who will be forced to suffer at the consequences of whatever absurd policy will be used to target the impossible.

Anybody who has the power — CORRECTION: Anybody who is so deluded that he thinks he has the power to reduce the planet’s temperature and the moral prerogative to act with said power is dangerous to himself and other people. Only God has the power to reduce the Earth’s temperature. Sheesh.

If Quebeckers and Federal Socialists want to reduce their dependence on oil, they can cut their oil use themselves. There is no excuse for such climate change hysteria. Canadians should ignore the Copenhagen conference on climate change and tell the environmentally ill to fly a kite — in a lightening storm.

Climate Change and Copenhagen – The World is, Apparently, Ending.

In Politico‘s The Arena, they ask:

Climate: How big a deal is it that there will be no big deal at Copenhagen? Are you pleased or displeased about it?

Well, they didn’t ask me, but in all humility I thought it best that I supply an answer:  Not much.

“The Environment” is an important, though often undefined, issue – much like “women’s issues”, “social justice” and “family values”.  Nonetheless, these types of grand international summits never seem to be of much use.  Politicians use them to grandstand and to pick on old grudges.  They agree on action that they never intend to enact (or know will burden their successors) or initiatives that they were already planning to introduce – though now they can do so with an heir of self-righteousness.

Honest debates about “climate”, though possible, are rare.  Dishonesty and ulterior motives abound, and few are willing to engage their adversaries in a constructive and collaborative endeavour.  Are humans damaging the environment?  Undeniably.  Does that mean we must dismantle all tools of wealth creation, no matter how much it increases human suffering?  Hardly.  The trick lies somewhere in between.  At what point do we optimize our well being?  What is the balance between wealth creation (along with freedom) and environmental protection?  I don’t claim to have an answer, but I’m willing to acknowledge the question.

Politico did ask our friend, Richard Albert.  Richard has a different and less cynical, though not truly incompatible, take than I have:

As a Christian, President Obama has accepted the responsibility to orient himself toward four pillars of conduct: defend the weak, heal the sick, stare down evil, and care for our planet. So far, President Obama is batting three for four. Now he owes it to himself, to his faith, to his fellow Americans and to the citizens of the world to fight for Earth. Copenhagen will not be the answer. But the President can—and indeed must—use the occasion as a catalyst for a new round of negotiations next year.

So, the question now is, where do we start?  I’m prepared for a number of comments to this post crying out against the infiltration of Marxist thought via the Climate Change agenda, as well as a number of prophets warning of the impending doom as the polar ice caps turn to boiling tar in three weeks if we don’t do something.  As you can guess, I’m not particularly open to the arguments of the extremists on either end of this debate.

So, dear readers of ThePolitic, where do we start?

(By the way, for a reasoned debate about climate change, check out Jim Manzi and David W. Orr.)

Fraser River salmon collapse, Justice Bruce Cohen inquiry

With a final report expected to be released in nearly two years, let me guess what this exercise in futility will yield:
1) a huge tax bill
2) useless recommendations
3) blaming climate change
4) hysterical demands to combat climate change
5) nebulous strategies to combat climate change which either make fanatical environmentalists happy or greedy parasitic money-grubbing opportunists happy or both
6) in passing, maybe a brief mention that over-fishing is the problem

The reason for the decline remains a mystery, although poor marine survival rates among juvenile salmon migrating into the ocean for the first time appear to be the principal culprit.

No! the decline is not a mystery. The decline is an inevitable result of the public management of resources and the lack of defined property rights. There simply is no incentive for anybody raping the land to preserve it for the future. What a shame.

A judicial inquiry! How silly.

The Faulty Economics of Ethanol and Carbon Capture

The Gazette does a great job of outlining the ridiculous notion that ethanol fuel is going to do anything positive for the environment:

In fact, we believe the whole push for ethanol – produced mainly from corn in Canada – will bring no actual reductions in total greenhouse gas emissions, but will cost taxpayers $2.2 billion in federal subsidies, plus more from provinces, especially Ontario.

[...]

Even E10 is shaping up as a waste: Last year a detailed study for the C.D. Howe Institute found that ethanol support is “misguided” government policy; that the cost per tonne of GHG reduction through ethanol is about seven times higher than the cost of practical alternative emission-reduction policies, and that in fact there is no “conclusive evidence” that ethanol does any good against GHG, once the whole production cycle is considered.

Billions of taxpayer dollars are being pored into an obvious “sinkhole” and then next big sinkhole slowing opening in front of our eyes – carbon capture:

If capturing and storing industrial carbon emissions is to succeed as a climate change strategy, Alberta and the federal government will have to provide as much as $3 billion a year for an undetermined length of time, says a provincial report released today.

Personally, I would like to know what their measure of success would be?  3 Billion a year investment on a unproven technology to fight a unproven problem – boondoggle here we come…

Global Warming / Climate Change alarmists observe glaciers

The hysterical global warming / climate change / environmental change alarmists look at melting glaciers and offer a fantastic leap of logic:

For example, Washington’s South Cascade glacier has lost half its volume since 1960 and is predicted to lose half its current volume in 100 years.

And, if the canary analogy proves true, the ice retreat is likely occurring all over the world, too, he said.

Glacier melt will likely continue and, as it does, sea levels around the world are expected to continue rising. And that could affect people in low-lying coastal communities, forcing them from their homes and further inland, experts say.

Gee, I guess if something is happening in two American states, that must mean it is happening all over the world. OK. Let us assume that is true. Maybe they can offer a reason why living further inland is a bad thing.

Observing ice melt must be fun.

Cash For Clunkers = stupid waste of money

What do you get when you combine a naive environmentalist, a crooked crony capitalist banker, the American auto market and the power of the state? Answer: government subsidization of waste. Its current incarnation is the Cash For Clunkers joke.

Watching Americans rally around the perceived success of the Cash For Clunkers is better than what any situational comedy could ever be produced on American television. It is just astounding how stupid people can be. Some Canadians are duped about this too apparently.

If poor people need cars but can not afford the cars, the solution is simply to give them money and let them do as they will. There is no need to make things more complicated. Better yet, things can be even simpler: let consumers keep more of their own money by cutting their taxes.

The absurdity of Cash For Clunkers is beyond belief. The scheme is as intelligent as a caveman barter system yet less efficient. There is no need to take money away from people just to give it back to them again — unless, of course, the scheme is to foster somebody skimming off the top.

If you wish to think that fuel efficiency is the target of this nonsense, I suggest you learn something about the magic of markets: the fuel efficiency savings — assuming it actually exists — is already incorporated in the price of the new car. In other words, consumers of fuel efficient cars will be saving on future fuel costs anyway. The Cash For Clunkers is great for stupid people who can not use a calculator.

Malinvestment

Here is the sad part of the story: such nonsense government schemes provide a false market signal to entrepreneurs:

“It’s also brought in a lot of other traffic, sort of like a signal that it’s safe to come back into the marketplace.”

AutoNation, the largest new-vehicle retailer in the U.S., has done “just under” 3,000 cash-for-clunkers sales, Jackson said.

“Any doubt that the CARS program would jump-start auto sales is completely erased,” said Greg Martin, a GM spokesman. Detroit-based GM left a U.S.-backed bankruptcy on July 10, 39 days after predecessor General Motors Corp. filed for Chapter 11.

How is it safe to come into the market place again? This consumer activity exists ONLY as long as the government is doling out money — something that can stop suddenly any instant.

Gullible environmentalists

Here is the laughable part of the story: naive socialists can not see how they are being used to line the pockets of crony capitalists.

UPDATE: (Friday, August 7th, 2009)
Reuters offers an analysis that belongs in the garbage heap — qualifying the program as “successful” but then says that sales are down So, Mr. Reuters, what qualifies as a success? Is the number of carbon atoms floating in the air? or the amount of money spent? maybe a sudden financial bubble? what?

UPDATE #2

Hundreds of auto dealers in the New York area have withdrawn from the government’s Cash for Clunkers program, citing delays in getting reimbursed by the government, a dealership group said Wednesday.

NY dealers pull out of clunkers program

Australians reject their own carbon caps

More people are rejecting man-made global warming as a basis for cap-and-trade policy:

As the U.S. House of Representatives prepares to pass a climate-change bill, the Australian Parliament is preparing to kill its own country’s carbon-emissions scheme. Why? A growing number of Australian politicians, scientists and citizens once again doubt the science of human-caused global warming.

— SNIP —

In April, the Polish Academy of Sciences published a document challenging man-made global warming. In the Czech Republic, where President Vaclav Klaus remains a leading skeptic, today only 11% of the population believes humans play a role. In France, President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to tap Claude Allegre to lead the country’s new ministry of industry and innovation. Twenty years ago Mr. Allegre was among the first to trill about man-made global warming, but the geochemist has since recanted. New Zealand last year elected a new government, which immediately suspended the country’s weeks-old cap-and-trade program.

The number of skeptics, far from shrinking, is swelling.

The bullying tactics of Al Gore and the environmental socialists are failing.

G8 Leaders are Delusional

And, yes, that includes Prime Minister Stephen Harper. An alternative headline would be, “Stephen Harper and the CPC are drunk on anthropogenic global warming kool-aid.”

Leaders of the world’s eight foremost industrialized economies have established an aggressive new marker in the battle against climate change: holding the global temperature to a two-degree-Celsius increase.

Good luck with that.

Jean Charest speaks environmental sense and aboriginal respect

While visiting Paris, Jean Charest publicly responded to snobby French criticism of the Hydro-Quebec’s future plans to develop la riviere Romaine. The basis of the criticism is two-fold:

• building a dam will flood the terrain and damage the environment
• the aboriginal population is being bought off and by implication exploited

This French critic also has to demonstrate his economic ignorance and naive socialist bias by making a jab at the Americans:

La compagnie Hydro-Québec est une multinationale caractéristique du grand capitalisme, avec des intérêts à la fois au Québec et aux Etats-Unis. Son projet consiste, à partir de 2009, dans la construction de quatre barrages en vue de la production d’électricité qui sera vendue directement aux Etats-Unis, grand consommateur d’énergie (fossile ou naturelle).

Toc! Toc! M. Clezio?!? La nationalite des consommateurs d’electricite ne fait aucune difference ni a l’environnement ni aux autochtones, voyons-donc.

I think that high-falutin French Nobel Prize winner is just jealous of Quebeckers. I am jealous of Quebeckers. The poorest Quebecker or aboriginal has the opportunity to freely enjoy a huge amount of prestine and uninhabited land that no European will ever see without crossing the ocean. This proposed hydro-electric project is going to make a tiny difference to the environment in the long run. Most importantly, the value of the environmental damage should only be judged by the humans who occupy the land in question. Esoteric hypotheses of how future generations of mankind will be effected are boring irrelevent nonsense that belong in poetry circles.

Jean Charest’s response is very clever and to the point. He basically admits what no environmentalist will admit: humans can not live without making a foot-print on the environment. With respect to the native populations being bought out, Charest says they deserve the respect to make such decisions on their own. If the natives accept money in return for land, that is their right.

I think Jean Charest has just made a great stride for the environmental movement by responding in such basic terms. The first thing that matters in discussing environmental issues is property rights.

If you ask me, the only thing that is wrong with this project is that the Quebec government is buying off the natives with money they do not rightfully own: taxes.

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