Posts by Neil Morrison
Last ←Newer Page 1 2 3 4 5 Older→ First
-
But the thing that bugs me is: where's his authority?
He's a statistician, which isn't totally irrelevant to the issue.
Take energy, for example. I don't think one can understand the concept of energy without an understanding of statistics. And energy is mostly what global warming issue is about.
But beyound statistical physics there's still that problematic region of political decision making - which is about making choices and ranking priorities.
-
cheers Terence, I read Quiggin's review. I'm still not sure what to think of his primary economic disagreement with Lomberg (which you quote in your first post).
-
Chris Anderson concludes his piece about Lomberg with
Where I differ with Lomborg is simply this: he thinks that the right path is to go light on a carbon tax (no more than $2/ton) and go heavy on government R&D subsidies for renewable technologies. I think we should have a somewhat higher carbon tax on the hopes that it creates sufficient incentives for the private sector itself to invest heavily in renewable technologies. Rather than spending the government tax money on federal research (which is best reserved for cases of market failure, which is clearly not the case in this greentech boom), use it to reduce taxes elsewhere. That is, of course, the Silicon Valley Way.
It's a reasonable sort of point to disagree on. The sort of thing we should be debating rather than believing that, having decided global warming is occuring, the solutions are written in stone. I can't really understand the hostilty to Lomberg. So some of his fans misrepresent what he says. So do some of his opponents.
-
I almost stopped reading Eban Goodstein's review when I got to his allegation that Lomborg believes "...all benefit-cost models show that serious limits on global warming emissions are too costly, and therefore we should pollute with virtual impunity."
That's a pretty miserable misrepresentation of Lomborg's views.
Goodstein also takes issue with Lomborg over the use of cost-benefit analysis claiming “At the end of the day, Lomborg believes in the morality of benefit-cost analysis..." (believes in the" morality"? what on earth is that supposed to mean).
Compare that with this exchange in the interview -
__Should global priorities really be set by a cost-benefit analysis?__
Oh, God, no. Not at all. We are saying the Copenhagen Consensus is the price list. Essentially we're providing the prices on the social menu of what you can choose to do. No, no, no. Economists don't set the agenda of the world. Hopefully democracies do.Lomberg may be wrong on a number of points but his message is that we need to make decisions about what to do about global warming. Goodstein comes across, like many environmentalists, as a bit of a zealot - it is not enough to believe global warming is happening, one must also have a very particular view on what to do about it. Everything else being heresy.
-
If Obama wins the nomination I'm not sure I like his chances of surviving the presidential campaign.
He's not going to get the nomination, the question is whether he'll be HRC's running mate.
-
I'm told that many, if not most, teenage boys and young men think / fantasize a lot about sex.
great irony.
I'm sort of with your Hobbesian argument over freewill. There's is a basic asymmetry - the sex industry is predominantly staffed by females. Yes, many women do choose, but why don't as many men "choose" the same career? (and that's "as many" - there are male strippers and gigolos but far fewer, and I don't believe that the numbers would even out if society were more "liberated".)
The "All men are rapists" is a very annoying unifem-type argument but there is again an asymmetry, most rapists are men (and again I don't think the numbers would even out if society were more "liberated".)
At this point I would probably say something about evolution but it's Sat night and there's things to do apparently.
-
I haven't seen the Dawkins programme but I have seen the photo of one of the faith healers, Elisis Livingstone, in the Telegraph
Made my day.
-
That being said, anyone who wants to pin the police repression tag on Chavez is going to have to do the same to Lula too. I've always had my doubts about Chavez and I've always been a huge fan of the PT (Lula's political party - heck, I liked them so much I wrote my masters thesis on them). But police repression is, in all probability, every bit as high in Brazil as it is in Venezuela. And there's not a whole heap that Lula has been able to do about it (in many Brazilian cities the police function more or less as a gang in their own right). I suspect the same is true in Chavez's case too.
Not that I know a great deal about Brazil, but I would assume that in the case of Venezuela police actions are more directly related to Chavez's politics whereas in Brazil the problems with the police are long standing ones that Lula would be attempting to deal with.
But it's another contrast that shows Chavez in a bad light. Not only is Lula doing better without all the oil money he's also having to this in the face of a far more violent society with a very high murder rate which is related to gangs and poverty. It really does show that it's Chavez's personality that is the problem not the inherent conditions of Venezuela.
-
The most succinct condemnation of Chavez is a simple comparison with him to President Lula of Brazil - a centre left politician who really is doing something for the less well off, without the benefit of all that oil money.
Conor Foley often has very good pieces on Brazil in The Guardian.
-
Rats, I'll be out of town for a friend's birthday. I haven't been to any of these and was thinking of going this year.