As a follow up to my earlier post I suggest going to see Jonathan Adler’s own follow up.
First he discusses the Washington Posts coverage. He notes one more interesting point, Schroeder explicitly denies he turned the AEI down because he believed they would have “skewed his results”:
Schroeder, who has worked with Green in the past and has questioned some aspects of traditional climate modeling, said in an interview that he did not think AEI would have skewed his results. But he added that he worried his contribution might have been published alongside “off-the-wall ideas” questioning the existence of global warming.
“We worried our work could be misused even if we produced a reasonable report,” Schroeder said. “While any human endeavor can be criticized, the IPCC system greatly exceeds the cooperation, openness and scientific rigorousness of the process applied to any other problem area that has significant effects on society.”
He also points out something which many of the critics of AEI have ignored (emphasis mine):
The Greenpeace complaint ultimately amounts to nothing more than opposition to critical perspectives on the need for the sort of climate policies Greenpeace supports. Whether or not one likes AEI’s work on climate change — some of which has endorsed carbon taxes and other serious measures — this is hardly a substantive argument that AEI did anything unseemly.
He follows the post up with another one discussing the types of ad hominem attacks, and their justification, that Mattthew Yglesias was using which I discussed in my first post. I think he makes some useful distinctions that I suggest you read in full.
Technorati Tags: Global warming, Climate, American Enterprise Institute
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About Lance
I want to thank everybody who has encouraged me over the past few years to do this. I doubt it will hold but a few people's interest, but that is okay with me. Special thanks go to Peter over at http://www.liberalcapitalist.com.
I value my privacy a great deal, so I will guess you will have to get to know me over time to find out much. I am in the financial services, wealth management, investing or whatever you want to call it business. I have children, my oldest is entering college.
I have no great or imposing academic background, my grades varied from high enough to get invited to an honors program at my university to frustrating enough to cause my father great grief. My major was history, with a minor in ethics. My main interest towards the end was in the history of economic ideas before life took a turn and I ended up never going on to graduate school. However, I have a fair knowledge of history, economics, investing and would probably be considered well read. My tastes are eclectic and I pretty much find the entire world interesting.
I have an enduring interest in how people learn about and analyze the world; my posts here will examine this topic in detail over time. I make no claims to be above the very biases and errors I see in others, in fact it is my belief that we are incapable of escaping them, only moderating their control over us.
I am a member of no political party, but I would broadly consider myself a man of the right. I am inclined to free market economics, limited government and a fairly narrow view of the role of the state. A small L libertarian if you will. However, if you are looking for broad based "the left believes..." or "wingers are so...." types of attacks on liberals, conservatives, neo-cons or whatever enemy you want to slam, look elsewhere.
Lance
This climate change modeling is anything but open.
Modelers do not publish their models.
BTW Where should the thermostat be set?
Solar processes (internal to the sun) are not well modeled.
We have no idea if water vapor give positive (greenhouse) feedback, negative feedback(clouds) or is neutral.
So of course time to raise taxes. Isn’t it always?
Good to hear from you Matt.
Actually the question of what temperature to set the world at (if we have that power) or what is desirable is an oft ignored aspect of the debate. Since the world climate is ever changing, and man is going to affect it (as all species do) what state should policy aim at?
This is an inconvenient question for many because they are operating on the basis of some imagined “natural” state, which doesn’t exist, so the question is what to do to lessen man’s impact, not what state is preferred. That question is just ignored as irrelevant.
I am less skeptical (though still skeptical in what I consider a healthy manner) about the science than you are, but I am very skeptical about what it actually means and how people think about it. Then throw in policy implications and the debate is incredibly disconnected from what we as citizens need to seriously consider when it comes to evaluating our governments actions.
I’ll be addressing that more later, but good question.
Agreed, Lance. The question that those serious about climate change should be asking is, “How can we adapt to climate change,” not, “Why don’t those nasty old right-wingers think global warming is happening?” They spend far too much time, effort, and rhetoric shredding AEI, the Bush Administration, non-Democrat Congresspeople, etc. and not enough clearly stating exactly what state they believe the climate should be in and clear, concise plans on how to achieve said state. Great post!
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Hmmm. I like this new logic. I wonder how Exxon’s contributions to AEI compare to their contributions to, say, the Democratic Party?
That is a good point Peter. I suggest you research that and I’ll put up a post. A chance for some really good satire.
The DNC gets a couple of hundred thousand from Exxon every election cycle. The RNC gets about a million. But it doesn’t matter. A witch is a witch.