Yes, I would recommend exactly that (or more precisely, that no more attention be paid by governments to externalities as an excuse for imposing regulations than they historically did). Why? Because there’s no realistic way to be confident that even “knowing what we know now” anyone, even one as hugely smart as “modern Chicago Boyz” (or even as smart as the thousand smartest people with regulatory-lust – check the Harvard faculty), would have as much as a 50-50 chance of reaching a better outcome, for any reasonable definition of “better”.

Correction: make that “as much as a thousand to one chance.”

Isn’t it odd that people could be so perverse as to live about twice as long when everything the doomsayers argue says it should be just the opposite.

It’s a shame when reality spoils a good ideological moment.

David – Possibly I misread, but I didn’t take your post to be a criticism of Mrs. Clinton’s knowledge on the subject (specifically the last two paragraphs). No need to belabor the point, though.

Jonathan – I am against economic regulation in almost every form, but …

Bill – Agreed.

The tariff on Indian goods coming into the United States is 2-4% for most things. The tariff on American goods going into India is 35% give or take. This weasel whining about the threat of cabon tariff’s is pathetic. Hillary ‘defusing the situation’ with assurances that India will be allowed to continue behind the results of its dismal political and economic leadership is even more pathetic.

“In fact, the Indian Environment Minister, Jairam Ramesh, broke away from the saccharine tone of most of Clinton’s meetings with the country’s leaders by bluntly reiterating India’s position that it would not accept binding emissions cuts. “There is simply no case for the pressure that we, who have been among the lowest emitters per capita, face to actually reduce emissions,” Ramesh said to Clinton at a conference on climate change in Gurgaon, near New Delhi, on July 19. “And as if this pressure was not enough, we also face the threat of carbon tariffs on our exports to countries such as yours.” Clinton defused the situation by asserting that the U.S. would not take any step to limit India’s economic growth.”

http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1911878,00.html

Making friends everywhere……

It’s all Kabuki, a theater, a non-starter. IMO (and in their words), the Indians will do what they think is best in terms of promoting economic growth.

That’s not what the Indians are arguing. They are pointing out that, at their relatively low level of development, industrial anti-carbon emissions measures would certainly do much more harm by keeping Indians poor than they could ever help by affecting global climate (and that’s even if the AGW climate-change theories are correct, which is not established).

When you say “there are plenty of alternatives to the means that they choose to produce”…the leaders of these countries have to be concerned with scalability and cost, not only with technologies that might be theoretically feasible. They are aware that if they sign on to what Clinton is selling, they will be creating hundreds of millions of person-years of unnecessary poverty among their populations.

That is in no way the same situation that India (and China, etc.,) are facing – there are plenty of alternatives to the means that they choose to produce.

That is really not true. They can’t afford the massive redundancy needed for wind and solar, they don’t have the geography for much more hydroelectric power, natural gas can’t be shipped overseas and they don’t have the manufacturing infrastructure to build enough nukes short term meet their power needs.

The biggest and most destructive myth of energy policy debates is that there are “environmentally friendly” choices that everyone could make that would be almost painless if only more people where more moral. Well, that idea is crap. If India and China need power in the short term, their only feasible source of power is coal.

If we want to stop them from using coal we should subsidize their nuclear industry. Otherwise, we should shut the hell up and leave them alone.

From David Brooks in The Seattle Times: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/opinion/2009510579_brooks22.html

“It’s not that interesting to watch the Democrats lose touch with America. That’s because the plotline is exactly the same. The party is led by insular liberals from big cities and the coasts, who neither understand nor sympathize with moderates. They have their own cherry-picking pollsters, their own media and activist cocoon, their own plans to lavishly spend borrowed money to buy votes.

This ideological overreach won’t be any more successful than the last one. A Washington Post-ABC News poll released Monday confirms what other polls have found. Most Americans love Barack Obama personally, but support for Democratic policies is already sliding fast.”

As out of touch the Republicans are with Main Street, Obama and his crowd are much, much worse. Their policies are leaving the average American scratching his head wondering, “What the …” and the polls indicate that they are roaring down the road to oblivion at a breathless pace. Jimmy Carter is going to look like a brilliant economist and statesman by the time these guys are finished. In fact it has been my belief all along that Obama was elected because it has been 30 years since Carter worked his wonders on America and the world, and most voters are not old enough to remember jus how bad things are under liberal leadership. Look for another wild-eyed liberal to be elected in 2040.

I will not argue that Mrs. Clinton’s statement was accurate – it would be impossible for industrial revolutionists to understand pollution as it didn’t exist in it’s current form until after years of industrial production. I was commenting on your leveraging of her preposterous idea to make a point about the conflict between demographic and point of view.

I have not seen the interview, so I cannot comment on it. I would assume that this comment was in response to the China/India argument about pollution that says “America got to pollute, why can’t we”?

Mrs. Clinton might not have made the best argument, but using her words with an obvious and transparent political end in mind seems out of place on a blog that associates itself with one of the greatest economic universities in the world.

Although I agree that Clinton has wealth and connections, this seems a convoluted way to get to that final statement.