More Compelling Global Warming Criticism

23Oct07

It had been a few days since anyone columnist/online writer of prominence had really pissed me off. I was starting to get worried when in steps Steven E. Landsburg. Writing in Slate he joins discussion about Al Gore winning the Nobel Prize. Landsburg like all other members of the press is convinced that he is way smarter then Al Gore.
He writes:

At his most pugnacious, Gore has depicted the fundamental trade-off as one between environmental responsibility and personal greed. Of course, as everyone over the age of 12 is perfectly aware, the real trade-off is between the quality of our own lives and the quality of our descendants’.

I know it’s hyperbole but inter-generational trades off aren’t a common topic conversation among 13 year-olds or adults or even graduate students studying social policy. Let’s examine the trade off Gore supposedly espouses.
“Personal Greed Vs. Environmental Responsibility”
Who’s personal greed? The ‘not a quote’ Landsburg references doesn’t say, so we’ll guess: People living today that oppose global warming legislation.
What, for example, would be a consequence of not being environmentally responsible? Again the ‘not a quote’ is silent so I’ll guess: Undermining the quality of life of future generations

Lansburg’s doesn’t seem to have even constructed a real straw man, but rather a just omitted the “who’s” and “what’s” in the statement.

Most of article is a mess, but I think this passage is also telling:

1. How much does human activity affect the climate?
This is actually a whole menu of questions: What can we expect given the current level of carbon emissions? What if we cut those emissions by half? By two-thirds? And so on. These are questions for physical scientists, not economists or politicians.

It’s not so much that he’s wrong here; it’s just highly confusing how he could write something like this without considering that politicians would actually be the people instituting any policy on global warming. Climate experts might be the people to ask how much we should reduce carbon emissions, but politicians are the people that would actually take action to reduce carbon emissions. Therefore it’s highly appropriate for politicians or ex-politicians like Gore to comment on and advocate for certain carbon emission reduction targets, etc.

This would be one of the differences between the real world process wherein people advocate for actual policies and the idiotic thought experiment that Landsburg is conducting about how to solve global warming.

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Tags: Al Gore, Global Warming, Slate, Steven E. Landsburg