Guest post by Indur M. Goklany
In a piece in the Atlantic titled, “A Conservative’s Approach to Combating Climate Change,” Jonathan Adler, a law professor at Case Western Reserve University and, more importantly, an old friend, argues for, among other things, reductions in greenhouse gases, preferably via a carbon tax, supplemented by adaptation.
While I have many issues with Jonathan’s piece, I will focus here on the logical disconnect between his purported rationale for mitigating greenhouse gas emissions and his policy proposals.
He states that, “Were I a utilitarian, and if I placed substantial faith in such cost-benefit studies, I might find [convincing arguments that global warming is not a serious problem because the net short-to-medium term effects of global warming may well be positive] but I’m not and I don’t.” In his discussion, he identifies poorer nations as more victimized by global warming than the wealthier nations because the former are less able to adapt. He argues that harm from global warming is tantamount to a violation of one’s property for which the victim ought to be redressed. He then argues that if we believe in property rights then there is no room for utilitarian calculus, and if someone’s property has been damaged then that person is owed redress by the party or parties responsible for that damage.
As remedies, he advocates four sets of policies and measures. First, the federal government should offer prizes to induce the development of low-carbon technologies. Second, it ought to identify and reduce barriers to the development and deployment of alternative technologies. Third, the US should adopt a revenue-neutral carbon tax rebated to taxpayers—presumably, American taxpayers—on a per capita basis. As rationale, he offers a set of technical reasons, but for “a broader theoretical justification,” he argues, “if the global atmosphere is a global commons owned by us all, why should not those who use this commons to dispose of their carbon emissions pay a user fee to compensate those who are affected.” Finally, he would supplement the above policies with adaptation measures, e.g., greater reliance on water markets.
But none of these measures, including a carbon tax on American consumers, would make whole the party or parties supposedly harmed by global warming. This is obviously true if the tax is rebated to the American taxpayer. It is also true if it is rebated to the global taxpayer—or, for that matter, the Bangladeshi taxpayer—on a per capita basis (because not everyone would be equally harmed by global warming).
So I must ask Jonathan: how would your proposals remedy the alleged property rights violation and provide redress to the harmed party? Yes it punishes the American consumer, but how does it make whole the inhabitants of countries that may have been harmed. Also, how would you set a carbon tax, if not via a utilitarian calculus? Essentially, all estimates of the carbon tax, whether by Nordhaus, Tol, Stern or whoever, use cost-benefit analysis, that is, utilitarian calculus. [Don’t get me wrong, I probably have even less faith in these efforts than Jonathan does (1)].
1. Goklany, IM. 2009. Trapped Between the Falling Sky and the Rising Seas: The Imagined Terrors of the Impacts of Climate Change.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
You can’t even discuss ideas to compensate people for global warming damage until you establish that “global warming” is (a) happening and substantially caused by human activities, and (b) causing actual harm. So far, all the harm and most of the warming is only evidenced in computer models.
Further, if you’re going to hold the industrial societies liable for harm caused by their CO2 emissions, equity demands you also hold non-industrial societies liable for harm they cause by cutting down forests, slash & burn argriculture, soil erosion, etc. And you have to give credit to developed societies which maintain greenspace and other carbon-fixing features. Recent sattelite studies have suggested that the US is a net carbon sink. Who’s going to send us a check, China?
Bottom line: nobody has established that warming we have actually experienced is harmful to anyone. Nobody has established the additional warming we can reasonably anticipate will be harmful to anyone. And the causitive link between human activities (CO2 emission) and actual warming is far more tenuous than the AGW crowd claim. Since no actual harm has been proven and no likely harm is pending, it is premature to discuss compensation remedies.
All the claims of looming “tipping points” are just attempts to induce panic and thereby evade a reasonable burden of proof.
In the language of the courts, the issue is not “ripe” for adjudication.
Quote: “Were I a utilitarian, and if I placed substantial faith in such cost-benefit studies, I might find [convincing arguments that global warming is not a serious problem because the net short-to-medium term effects of global warming may well be positive] but I’m not and I don’t.”
You aren’t and you don’t, but you do acknowledge that it is a reasonable position.
Further, you are saying “global warming is not a serious problem”, making the common mistake that most of us here abhor: equating “global warming” and whatever impacts it may/will have with “global warming caused by man’s CO2 emissions” – a concept that many do not place substantial faith in nor do we consider it a problem needing any sort of cost-benefit analysis.
“…Jonathan Adler, a law professor…”
Well, there’s your problem.
To the extent that the “ideal” policy, based on the studies which overestimate the negative impacts of climate change, is one of a low rate carbon tax, it’s not wrong to say that in a perfect world one might undertake such a measure. The problem is the assumption that, once handed a source of revenue, the government would keep the rate at the “ideal” position rather than raise it beyond that which is justifiable and therefore do more harm than good.
However, such a policy is utilitarian in focus anyway, contrary to what the advocate in question seems to believe. If we frame this as a situation in which one’s individual property rights are violated by actions taken by others, the only appropriate area in which one might seek redress for one’s claimed grievances is in the court system, through litigation.
PeteB says: “The principle of Pigovian taxation is well established as a free market based mechanism to correct for externalities.”
You are kidding right? You may argue perhaps that such a policy makes sense, but that it is a free market mechanism? Surely you mean a market mechanism, as there is nothing free market about a policy of government intervention.
An important point often missed is that all the man made CO2 we generated over the last 200 years provided U.S. consumers with the income to buy foreign made goods. South Korea and many other countries went from subsistence level to wealthy because the U.S. consumer purchased their export goods. WHY DO WE NEVER GET CREDIT FOR THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUCED POSITIVE IMPACT WE HAVE HAD ON THE WORLD WIDE STANDARD OF LIVING OVER THE LAST 200 YEARS?
Entire societies have been lifted from the stone age to prosperity on the back of U.S. consumers and our cheap fossil fuel.
Rather than handing out transfer payments from U.S. consumers to poor countries, we should focus n education and property rights. Dictatorships rarely lead to a prosperous middle class.
@PeteB. I don’t know or care how “well-established” it is; in this case, it wouldn’t be so much leveling the playing field as it would be stacking the deck against fossil fuels. As for “anticipated damage”, that is a nebulous concept, based on pretty much nothing, subject to the whims of bureaucrats, politicians, and those out for their own monetary gain.
There is an experiment that proves that the Greenhouse gas effect does not exist. This experiment which has been peer reviewed by Ph.D physicists . Ph.D. Chemical engineers and others. The experiment is found on the web-site http:// http://www.slayingtheskydragon.com click on the blog tab. It is titled “The Experiment that failed which can save the world trillion-Proving the greenhouse gas effect does not exist”
j says:
June 5, 2012 at 2:18 am
How does ‘mankind’ gain?
========
Those that make their livings skimming the top off the taxes benefit greatly. They are ever eager to promote anyone that furthers their cause. Ultimately this is about population control, not CO2. A global tax is irresistible in this respect.
I reject the premiss, so the rest is nonsense.
Hoser says:
June 5, 2012 at 3:38 am
“How is redistribution of wealth in any way conservative?”
Adler is NOT a conservative – he is, in fact, a run-of-the-mill progressive.
Remember that the climate industry is all about taking YOUR money and giving it to greedy climate scientists and eco-advocates (via “redistribution”). And note that these people always seem to receive their salary increases, generous benefits and bloated project/travel budgets while the rest of the economy suffers.
PeteB says:
June 5, 2012 at 5:00 am
this, for example, would have the effect of making Nuclear Power more competitive.
=============
But you would need to tax all nuclear produced power to include the damage to future generations from potential escape of waste products.
Similarly, there should be a global tax on cell phones, due to the possible (likely) damage and increased medical costs due to RF and magnetic damage to human brains. Science knows full well that it is a bad idea to place RF and magnetic fields near living tissue.
In fact, there should be a global tax on all power generation, and on the estate of Edison, due to the damage caused by the un-natural magnetic fields induced by AC power. This would allow us to shift rapidly from AC power generation to DC power generation, removing the hazards of induced magnetic fields.
Applying the rule of property rights to property that does not yet exist and owners not yet born is simply nonsense. I suppose if the initial premise of catastrophic climate change is nonsense than only nonsense can flow from it.
Generally in Law damages are paid to restore an injured party to the position the party was in before being harmed, On what legal basis can damages be awarded to compensate for a loss that has not been incurred and thus cannot be calculated or paid?
There is no such concept as preventative damages in Law. As for speculative damages, not yet incurred but anticipated, these are only payable if the damaged party can prove they are reasonably likely to occur.
In Law then, if you have been damaged by me, or think you will be, sue me – but do be sure to bring along plenty of evidence.
What Adler is proposing is like saying that an individual must pay his neighbours damages because he is intending to get a dog which might at some future date bite the neighbours’ children which are as yet not conceived.
The damages then being used to cover medical costs and/or prevent the individual from buying a large or fierce dog, or buying a dog at all..
And as if that was not enough evidence of a remoteness from reality…
Anyone promoting the notion that a carbon tax can be used to transfer wealth from richer nations to poorer nations for the overall benefit of the poorer ones, with no intended harm to the richer ones, clearly has not been following events in Europe and the Eurozone, where the transfer of wealth from richer Member States to poorer ones has been going on awhile, and the net result of which is the current economic meltdown of the recipients and the imperilled economies of the donors.
Howard says:
June 5, 2012 at 3:49 am
Are skeptics promoting anti-Semitism?
===========
CO2 taxation is global taxation. Population control under another name. Practiced by the same people that believe the problem is that there are too many people on the planet.
Their solution was called eugenics. Very popular in the US and Europe a century ago, the nation state of Israel was created as a direct result.
This looks like a perfect example of assumerism in action- assuming that it has already been proven that CO2 determines climate and that, therefore, all one needs to do is propose (yet another) way to reduce our emissions of CO2. Nearly always these schemes are proposed by lawyers, sociologists, and other people with an equally poor knowledge and understanding of science.
IanM
Redistribution is conservative, just not politically. Give what you can, so to speak. Taxpayer protection without tort reform is nearly at arms length. No written law is worth the paper of a given claim without process of wrong doing.
Hutterite colonies, at least some, seem to have found the working proposition of communal ownership – and shared benefits. But of course they as a colony group have a written law that can not be violated without grievous penalty. They share a common application of their constitutional biblical Law. This group has the necessary tort capability to muster compliance to their law inside of the colony.
Caleb says:
June 5, 2012 at 1:36 am
I understand it is snowing in Stockholm, Sweden, at the start of June? If I pay a politician extra taxes, will the Swedes warm up?…
___________________________
It is a cold 66F (19 C) in the middle of North Carolina at 10:30 am. The normal is 83F(28C) and the record is 99F (37C). The forecast is 75F (24F) to 85F (29F) for the next five days. ~ Now where is that Global Warming everyone is yelling about?
It was quite heartening to see that at least one(michaelwfisk) person other than myself believes that it is possible that the net effect of CO2 emissions is positive. The beneficial effects of CO2 on average are clearly substantial (we get to eat) B.A. Kimball’s work indicates that it may also be substantial at the margin. We may need to replace Cap and Trade with a Burn and Earn program. We could supplement this with a program patterned loosely after “Cash for Clunkers” called “Crash for Cash” that would pay a reward for anyone who accidentally takes out a high mileage car such as a Prius in a wreck.
We could pay for this with a Pigovian tax on the people who eat food, who have been free-riding on the motorist for too long.
I have a great many friends in the US, and have spent time visiting their homes and observing the US. When I first visited it seemed like consumer heaven, with three or four catalogues delivered to homes where you could just about buy anything. I salivated over the good quality tools at reasonable prices all made in the USA, and marvelled at the can do attitude and the great feeling of public spirit and pride at the great personal care of others, well kept cemeteries, and pride in looking after heritage and history.
On my last visit I spent some time, concerned at the deterioration and destruction of many old icons like the big red barns, cleared for their lumber and to save on town taxes, what a loss, but even worse was to find that manufacturing of many of the tools had moved offshore. Investors had moved capital to India and China because it was said, that increasing regulation made investment unsure and as a result of capital shifting to investment in other countries, shoddy goods made it impossible to compete with cheap imports.
We spent some time in North Carolina with wonderful friends and found that fine wood furniture was no longer manufactured there, the factories had shut. there was an air of neglect and poverty and this was bought home to me when I spoke with the owner of a shop stocked with fine leather shoes.
He told me that he kept his business open and shelves stocked with quality goods, to give hope to his town, without hope of profits, as what he did sell or give away returned him nothing, but “the people should have good quality shoes available and appreciate them. He had been in business in the same town for near on 70 years and it was his way of trying to give back some pride to a town full of empty disused factories and long closed shops.
That was pretty sad for me to see and understand, as at that time the general feeling among younger people in Australia was that the United States was some sort of golden goose to be mocked and ridiculed. Their own teachers were preaching a brand of socialism, that whatever the US did was bad, and Americans were riding on the backs of the poor of the world..
I returned home and took every opportunity to point out that average Americans were doing it just as tough as we were in a changing world, then saw, the same things happenning here, the economic genius types sold off our railways, water corporations, any and all infrastrucure they could flog, Manufacturing moved offshore, then different governments tried to steady the flood, it was open doors to cheap imports and tool and component manufacturing became non existent, even in the face of campaigns to buy Australian made goods.
That has long gone now, the last remnants of manufacturing industry is on the way overseas, just as is the coal that we cannot burn anymore to provide our own cheap electricity power, it has been like a cancer from within, as green movements and activists attack the very industries and energy sources that underpinned our economy.
We are left with power and energy in the hands of overseas investors and ever rising prices and “service” charges (there is no service) and taxes on taxes, and the growing influence of governments as they become the major employer, typically with two people doing the job, that one could do and an army of over educated public servants to shuffle paper and invent new ingenious regulations to fulfill agenda even when government inevitably changes.
The final straw is the Carbon Tax that Julia says “we must have to save the world”, when we know it is just another tax on a hive of taxes to keep big wasteful government, using our wealth to bring this great country to its knees.
Where does it end? Who will come to the aid of other countries when famine strikes or nature flexes its power to destroy whole communities. We don’t even have the heavy industry any more to help build wealth so we can help in time of need, America is perhaps worse off that us in this regard!
My sad thought is that the world and its social engineers and economists will only understand when that capacity is lost, and the new socialists turn their back on those in need.
Howard says:
June 5, 2012 at 3:49 am
Are skeptics promoting anti-Semitism?! Warmists’ new claim: ‘Is global
warming a major Jewish issue? It should be’ — ‘Israel will be no more
if we do not stop global warming in its tracks now’. see Climate Depot on this. Developing….
_____________________________
They are really stretching it with that one.
Actually according to one study ‘Israel will BENEFIT from “Globbull Warning” by moving the “desert belt” into southern Europe.
Rivers in the sand; the ancient Sahara may have harbored waterways and prehistoric humans
Saharan desert rivers, satellite image
I regret that Jonathan Adler has taken some leave of his senses in the matter of a carbon tax. He should read WUWT more. As Dr. Goklany says, the so-called “harm” is far too unidentifiable, too diffuse, for it to be remedied fairly by a carbon tax. It only gives governments an excuse to raise taxes on a populace (at least in this country) that can ill-afford to pay more taxes these days.
PeteB says:
June 5, 2012 at 5:00 am
The principle of Pigovian taxation is well established as a free market based mechanism to correct for externalities. The tax isn’t there to compensate the people that are affected by the negative externalities but to ‘level the playing field’ as a market mechanism so that (in this example) the price of fossil fuels includes the cost of the anticipated damage that they cause, this, for example, would have the effect of making Nuclear Power more competitive.
________________________________
Nuclear IS competitive. It is the Government bureaucrats and the Greenie ASTRO TURF that made it much more expensive. ( Job ad: $10/hr to protest Seabrook in Boston Globe – 1977 on)
Even so the cost of nuclear is about equivalent to coal see CHART
Economics of Nuclear Power
And that is CONVENTIONAL Nuclear. SEE:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EbucAwOT2Sc
Uh, how exactly does this guy claim to be conservative?
“First, the federal government should offer prizes to induce the development of low-carbon technologies.”
– Subsidies … aren’t we already doing this, and this is not a free market principle which is what conservatives believe in. When low-carbon technologies are competitive, they will be widely used.
“Second, it ought to identify and reduce barriers to the development and deployment of alternative technologies.”
– Corporatism … aren’t we already also doing this, and this is not a free market principle which is what conservatives believe in. By skewing the rules to favor some over others you aren’t allowing market forces to play out and you are increasing the need for lobbyists and furthering the truth that Washington is nothing more than a “good ole boys network” rather than responsive to We the People.
“Third, the US should adopt a revenue-neutral carbon tax rebated to taxpayers—presumably, American taxpayers—on a per capita basis. As rationale, he offers a set of technical reasons, but for “a broader theoretical justification,” he argues, “if the global atmosphere is a global commons owned by us all, why should not those who use this commons to dispose of their carbon emissions pay a user fee to compensate those who are affected.””
– Ah, collectivism … conservatives are all about indiviualism. And find me the joker who actually created a truly “revenue neutral” tax measure. They don’t exist. Never have and never will. I think they’ll find that this is another chimeara that shifts its shape as soon as it gets implemented.
Tom in indy says:
June 5, 2012 at 6:16 am
An important point often missed is that all the man made CO2 we generated over the last 200 years provided U.S. consumers with the income to buy foreign made goods. South Korea and many other countries went from subsistence level to wealthy because the U.S. consumer purchased their export goods. WHY DO WE NEVER GET CREDIT FOR THE FOSSIL FUEL INDUCED POSITIVE IMPACT WE HAVE HAD ON THE WORLD WIDE STANDARD OF LIVING OVER THE LAST 200 YEARS?….
_____________________________________
You forgot one Tom.
Carbon based fuel/fertilizer/herbicides/pesticides (as well as the rise in CO2 levels) now allows US farmers to produce 100 bushels of wheat on THREE acres of land instead of FIVE. SEE: link
Everyone always forgets the US farmer that feeds not only the USA but a large portion of the rest of the world. Cargill, a private company was shipping wheat to the Soviet Union throughout the cold war and kept the USSR from major famine and collapse. During the Cold War, Cargill and others famously sold grain to the Soviet Union in the 1970s—sometimes when the U.S.’s own supplies were low—sparking congressional hearings. (page down a couple times to see article)
Now the rest of the world wants to bite the hand that feeds it./sarc
Gail,
While June in the PNW is usually rainy, this year it stands to be cool as well. Listened to a piece on cherry growers concern over predictions of a cooler, wetter June than normal.
In other words, I too would not mind a little global warming right now and it seems several thousand cherry growers may hold similar sentiments.
[snip . . not really advancing anything at all . . kbmod]