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Comment on Why conservatives should love a carbon tax by Pooh, Dixie

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The word used by the government is “obligation”, just like other debt instruments.


Comment on Climate Risk by Chief Hydrologist

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It is nothing short of morally reprehensible to link this tragedy to your political cause before even communities have ceased grieving. Just leave it alone – express your sympathy – pray for families and communities – but don’t use it for making political points. This is not the time.

The deaths are all over the media here – all over Australia our hearts go out to the families. Our firefighters especially have a special bond – American and US firefighters will be running across the US in September. I am sure they will thinking as well of these new heroes.

Comment on Why conservatives should love a carbon tax by GaryM

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Ed Dolan,

Hayek is great on economics/politics, as far as articulating why a free market is so vastly superior to the alternatives. But his paper on why he is not a “conservative” uses the liberal/progressive definition of the term. And by his definition, I am not a conservative either.

“As has often been acknowledged by conservative writers, one of the fundamental traits of the conservative attitude is a fear of change, a timid distrust of the new as such,[5] while the liberal position is based on courage and confidence, on a preparedness to let change run its course even if we cannot predict where it will lead.”

Frankly, I don’t know a single conservative writer (even in about 1960 when he wrote this) who admitted fear of change and timid distrust of the new. What Hayek was referring to was social issues, not economic ones. But he, as most libertarians, mis-characterizes conservative thought on those issues as well.

“In the last resort, the conservative position rests on the belief that in any society there are recognizably superior persons whose inherited standards and values and position ought to be protected and who should have a greater influence on public affairs than others.”

Sheer and utter nonsense. But definitely the liberaltarian mindset. Like their fellow progressives on social issues, they really do not understand the beliefs, let alone the arguments of conservatives. But that’s OK, Hayek was an economist, not a theologian or moral philosopher.

What a conservative recognizes is that there are certain objective principles, regardless of what society you are in, that should govern human conduct. Superior principles, not superior people. Elitism is progressive/libertarian mind set.

So for free explaining why the free market works, Hayek is the guy. On economics, Friedman is better. And on social issues, Hayek leaves a lot to be desired.

Comment on Why conservatives should love a carbon tax by GaryM

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BartR,

I never said McKIttrick is not a conservative, though I am not familiar with his stance on non-climate issues. But I read what he wrote when he proposed a carbon based tax (a concept that you have been mutilating beyond recognition ever since).

And he did not “favor” a carbon tax. What I recall is that he figured that IF we are going to be stuck with one any way, then it should at least be tied in some way to the risk of AGW being C. So he said such a tax should be tied to the rise (or lack thereof) in temperature of the troposphere. (Note that he did not limit it to surface temps alone.) His point was that the tax could well be zero of the troposphere continued not to warm according to model forecasts.

Comment on Climate Risk by GaryM

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Reprehensible is too nice a word. Trying to score political points, even anonymously on a blog, off the fact that 19 people burned to death is disgusting. One could even say it is immoral.

Comment on Why conservatives should love a carbon tax by GaryM

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Social security and medicare are not trust funds. They are simple taxes that are spent as soon as they are collected (OK, they are actually spend before they are collected like all federal taxes, but why quibble?). The “trust finds” are a con game.

The proof? The benefits are not guaranteed. They can be changed by Congress at any time. And will be.

Comment on How should we interpret an ensemble of models? Part II: Climate models by Diag

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Speaking of entrails, or tea leaves, or palm lines, water-witching or whatever… they are the gimmick whose only purpose is to distract the gullible from catching on that the person “reading” the fortune is making it up himself … and you would not believe hm without that gimmick.
The skeptic will suspect that climate models fall into this same category. Steven seems to believe that all (?) the climate models are serious science. I expect there is a bit of each. Until I see climate scientists critiquing each other’s models and data sets in the spirit of SM, I can’t give blind trust to the modellers. A model may be the best we have, or even the best we can do, and still be imperfect enough to be mostly useless. For example, no model will ever predict a series of random coin tosses or throws of dice. Can we prove that climate is deterministic? How are we doing on earthquake prediction? Sometimes the more you know, the harder the problem seems.

Comment on Climate Risk by Chief Hydrologist

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No one is criticizing anything but wishful thinking subsidies to uneconomic technologies. If people want to pay for these – and someone can make a profit. That’s how it is meant to work. We want dozens of new energy technologies – because that’s how the world get’s accessible, cheap and abundant energy this century. Not by subsidizing Justin Bieber’s $100,000 sports car.

And no one thinks you are capable of advancing clog dancing let alone science.


Comment on Climate Risk by Bart R

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Chief Hydrologist | July 3, 2013 at 1:49 am |
GaryM | July 3, 2013 at 2:16 am |

Political what now? Points you say? So, you’re saying you don’t care at all about the acrobat? About tens of thousands of homeless families in Canada? All that matters is that someone “scored a point” off firefighters?

Except your thesis runs hollow. Extreme events, Risks, and succumbing to them, have been predicted for a quarter century by quants, not politicians. There’s no joy or satisfaction in being right about increased Risk — the math of that is so simple and straightforward, it’s like being right about two plus two, only with misery and death on the balance sheet. There’s no victory in being able to do figures and seeing Probability shifting and the foreseeable outcome in human life.

This isn’t a political point.

This is just math.

The politics?

The politics is when people on any side take to their ‘side’ some part in a discourse better served without politics at all, to make it about this opportunity to Collectivize or that Red Scare Bogeyman. Right Wingnuts and Leftwing Nuts — a pox on both houses. A quarter century has been lost to inaction because McCarthyist peepants and socialist fellow-travelers both engage in politicking a technical issue.

Monckton’s so afraid of socialists under his bed he’d gladly see the world burn, so long as aristocrats got to rule the ashes. Hippies sing kumbayas about Shamballa built on hemp products and Malthusianistically returning the population to the level it was in 1800.

Those political points are what increase the Risk needlessly by preventing realistic, practical action right now. It takes no politics to understand the mechanics of Forcing.

I don’t have a political point. I have math. The math says your books-bad-burning-good philosophy imposes Risk on others without their consent, and without compensation. Your fossil subsidies are immoral, and inevitably bear bitter fruit.

A good conservative knows a man ought pay for what benefit he sucks out of the world. A good capitalist knows scarce resources are most efficiently allocated by Market forces, and privatizes accordingly. Your politics are neither conservative nor capitalist.

Comment on Climate Risk by Chief Hydrologist

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You have nothing but politics, rhetoric, verbose babble and pull it out of your arse anti-science.

Comment on Climate Risk by Chief Hydrologist

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I am not about respond to your typical long winded madness about acrobats, floods and especially firefighters. It is just not the time.

Comment on Climate Risk by Beth Cooper

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See it in Euripides’ Medea. Final scene.
Chorus:
‘Many are the fates which Zeus in Olympus dispenses;
Many matters the gods bring to surprising ends.
The things we thought would happen do not happen;
The unexpected God makes possible;
And such is the conclusion of this story.’
Bts

Comment on Why conservatives should love a carbon tax by Bart R

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GaryM | July 3, 2013 at 2:12 am |

You very much don’t know what you’re talking about.

Firstly, Ross McKitrick didn’t originate a single idea in his PhD thesis. It was a survey of prior and current thought about carbon tax from numerous other mainly conservative economics thinkers. McKitrick barely grasped most of their work, but mashed enough together to scrape a thesis defense.

So I haven’t been mutilating his ideas. He can’t claim the ideas to be his. The ideas he’s had about carbon taxes since his thesis are ludicrous in the extreme. Wagering on climate outcomes in any year to determine the level of the carbon tax? With lags and natural variability, that roulette scheme would be punitively arbitrary, pointless and insanely destabilizing. I’ve mutilated the ideas of others before him, better thinkers well worth reading.

They’re listed in the bibliography of his paper. It’s well worth digging them up to trace the provenance of double dividend thought.

Secondly, Ross McKitrick’s well known in his native country among a small group of policy wonks, as a pro-Christian conservative lobbyist with the government and industry’s ear on matters ranging widely, from defunding health care to defunding science to defunding education — in a books-bad-burning-good sense, he’s so conservative the ground turns blue where his feet touch it. The Fraser Institute’s a good starting point for reading up on some views loosely aligned with McKitrick’s, as he’s one of their distinguished directors.

It’s hard to forget the time McKitrick wrote a letter to the editor of his local newspaper, complaining about all the regulations against smog, claiming he had scientific proof smog was harmless. No, he was being serious. Really. How can you get more ‘conservative’ than that?

Third, McKitrick clearly favors a carbon tax, and not merely out of resignation that such a thing is inevitable. His belief a carbon tax is less distortionate than the truly awful taxes it should replace is correct. McKitrick began in the 1990′s not believing CO2 even existed, apparently. He came around to accept that air was real, CO2 happened when coal, oil or books were burned, and eventually he even acknowledged that CO2 leads to global warming, if his later writings are to be believed. He merely doesn’t think there’s anything that can be done about it, and it’s probably the Lord’s Will anyway.

So while I can understand you not entirely following McKitrick’s logic, I must ask you desist from mocking his religious beliefs.

Comment on Climate Risk by Faustino

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David S, excellent summary.

Comment on Climate Risk by Chief Hydrologist

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Such a wonderfully apt quote.


Comment on Why conservatives should love a carbon tax by Edim

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Conservative/progressive is a false dichotomy and a distraction.

Comment on Climate Risk by Peter Davies

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Well done Beth +1 and Chief, you have been very active on recent threads, so thanks for your input to Judith’s place, which IMO has been of great value +1 for you as well. Been away up north in WA for 5 weeks, looking at great scenery and drinking copious amounts of good red wine.

Comment on Climate Risk by Bart R

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manacker | July 3, 2013 at 2:16 pm |

What, you think this is your CAGW?

No, no. This is just the exposure of the vulnerable to increased Risk.

And you claim to have read AR4?

Get your chapters straight.

Comment on Climate Risk by Chief Hydrologist

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Hayek is quoted because of his eloquence and wisdom – your empty protestations notwithstanding.

You are scientifically illiterate with a smattering of gobsmackingly tendentious twaddle.

You specialize in pretentious but incoherent nonsense. … a demonstrated nonpartisan monarchist???

You repeat your manifesto with almost the same words every time you comment. We are heartily sick of it and I have asked you before to shut up, stop filibustering and put it to a vote. We are no longer interested. The world has moved on. You just need to get past your monomania.

It is a world based on respect for freedom, the rule of law and democracy as the primary values of western civilization. Why don’t you try it sometime?

Comment on Climate Risk by Beth Cooper

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Yes Max,
Precipitous action based
on what precisely?

The Greek tragedians
understood but
Plato fergot …
there’s a
dangerous gap
between what
yer know and
what yer think
yer know.
Nassim Taleb
said it in
his book:
‘Human
bein’s
are jest
no good
at
pre-
dicting.’
“Beware
the
fore-
caster.”

(A tale of human frailty.)

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