Some Chicago Boyz know each other from student days at the University of Chicago. Others are Chicago boys in spirit. The blog name is also intended as a good-humored gesture of admiration for distinguished Chicago School economists and fellow travelers.
James R. Rummel I have just read the most astonishing op-ed from the Miami Herald. What is so astonishing about it? Mainly how the author, Frida Ghitis, acts as if the perfectly obvious is suddenly revealed wisdom.
Ms. Ghitis solemnly informs her readers that various sections of the world still hate the United States, even though President Obama is in the White House. How can this possibly be? Because, she says, other countries may have goals that conflict with ours!
I hail from Columbus, Ohio. It is more than 1,000 miles (1,600 kilometers) from the US-Mexico border.
Things are pretty hairy down ol’ Mexico way. The government declared war on the drug cartels three years ago. So far there isn’t much progress, even though any gains by law enforcement usually sets off a turf war between the gangs as they try to seize lucrative smuggling routes from suddenly weakened rivals. If the big boys ever get organized instead of simply looking to grab what they can, then I really don’t think the Mexican government has a prayer of winning. Or even surviving.
I haven’t been paying much attention to the whole Copenhagen climate summit debacle because my doctor told me that I should watch my blood pressure. Good advice, as even the few details that have leaked through my self-erected Wall of Silence threatens to blow the top of my head off.
A few weeks ago, back on Dec. 11, it was announced that the European Union was going to pony up $10.5 billion for aid to developing countries so they would be able to fix power-wasting infrastructure, and invest in cleaner technology.
But that cash wasn’t going to be passed out all at once. It was going to be doled out over three years. If my grade school math skills haven’t degraded away to nothing, then it seems to me that the EU will spend $3.5 billion per year.
It may be simple enough in concept, but it certainly isn’t enough in reality. The figure needed to actually make a dent in the increasing amount of pollution produced by the developing world will start at around $100 billion a year. And that money will have to be raised and passed around every year for pretty much forever!
Where is that kind of scratch going to come from?
Megan McArdle, an AGW true believer, seems to think that most of the problems highlighted by Climategate are due to confirmation bias. That is where the experts tend to accept data that is in line with what they expect, while assuming that anything which goes against the prevailing theory must just be faulty in some way.
I’d agree with her except for the way the people involved in the scandal went against the law to delete emails, hatched plans to punish other scientists whose work showed different results, and even worked to discredit scientific journals which dared to publish contrary research.
That sort of willing participation in unethical and illegal behavior doesn’t fit any definition of “confirmation bias” I’ve ever come across. Crooks, liars, cheats and con artists act like that, not respectable scientists who simply put a bit more weight on one side of the scale.
It is certainly true that the history of science is rife with examples of confirmation bias. But, while debate and disagreement might become heated, it is rare to come across a case where one side of the issue actively schemes to silence their opponents through purposely causing them some form of harm.
In this instance, I suppose the AGW dissenters should be grateful that only their careers were damaged.
UPDATE
The Belmont Club has a post that is worth your time.
A few weeks before the Climategate scandal started to bounce around the blogs, I wrote an essay here about how the global warmists were acting just like every other doom-shrieking huckster from the past five decades. Since all of the others were wrong, terribly and horribly wrong, I said that I wasn’t too worried about any toasty catastrophe.
That is why I haven’t been paying too much attention to the collapse of the latest doom-of-the-week. After all, it isn’t like I haven’t seen this tired process play itself out over and over again.
But it is tough to avoid it altogether if you rely on blogs for your news. And there is a recurring theme that gives me pause.
Most climate scientists that appear on news programs, or who write op-eds for the various news outlets, all say the same thing. This scandal might cast more than a decade of work done by the Climate Research Unit at the University of East Anglia into doubt, but it doesn’t invalidate research done by other scientists which support the idea that this planet is warming due to human action.
Well, gee, why in the world doesn’t it invalidate their work as well?
Didn’t the CRU boast the largest and most comprehensive collection of climate data in the entire world? Didn’t this massive collection of data inspire, if not directly influence, just about every other climate scientist’s work? Aren’t the people who authored the Emails which prove dirty tricks, data manipulation, and collusion to hide problems with their research the most prestigious and influential climate scientists in the world?
So why in the world should anyone take any climate scientist’s word for their integrity, and soundness of their work? Isn’t the onus on them to prove that they aren’t crooks and liars, like the big guys were?
This seems perfectly reasonable to me, but I may be missing something.