On the narrow issue of whether or not the earth is getting warmer, I generally agree that the "mainstream" climate scientists have been putting up arguments that are at least plausible and testable. From what I've seen so far, I'm more convinced of the warming than of the anthropogenic part. But the scientific debate is definitely something that warrants more respect than, say, creationism or most social "science."

The problem that I see with the theory of anthropogenic global warming (AGW), as it is currently conceived, is that it wraps up what may be legitimate science with a truckload of hidden normative views that have been brought in apart from the science. Then, the mainstream scientists say, "since the data support climate prediction X, then the only logical choice is policy prescription Y," where Y is a new set of regulations that happen to coincide nicely with what has been the left-liberal conventional wisdom for decades.

And that's the better case. Several times each week I read another doom du jour article in the general media along the lines of, "Global warming is killing all of the babies and puppy dogs and will shortly cause Cthulhu to rise from the deep! We must repent to the Earth Mother and change our lifestyles back 200 years!"

In other words, the *publicly debated* theory of AGW is being presented as plain science. Yet, unlike other scientific theories, it is supposed to have a pipeline to political conclusions that we are exhorted to act upon Before It's Too Late.

Perhaps the philosophically-oriented goal for Objectivists should be to challenge scientists to separate their scientific judgments on AGW from their moral/political views, and also to encourage them to distance themselves from the sloppy arguments and lunacy that comes from the activists. I suspect that the former will be difficult due to the legacy of pragmatism; many people sincerely think that their evaluations are not influenced by moral theories, when in fact that influence is always implicit if not explicit.

The latter goal will be difficult because, unfortunately, some climate scientists believe that the political side of their conclusions is so important that a few sloppy and sensational claims from the activists here and there are needed to wake up the public.

The big problem with the APG (anthropogenic global warming) argument is that it is used by those who hate capitalism to attack capitalism. Whether it is true or not, the argument has been seized upon by those who want to throttle industrial activity by restricting the most fundamental underpinning of our standard of living: the combustion of fossil fuels.

The combustion of fossil fuels provides most of our electricity, heats our homes, and powers our planes, trains and automobiles. Restricting the burning of fossil fuels (by whatever mechanism, such as a "carbon tax") means that all of these activities will be more costly, and will happen less. Our standard of living will fall. That is undeniable.

Now, whether it is moral to sacrifice our standard of living to prevent APG is not a scientific issue to be addressed by atmospheric scientists or geophysicists or any other "hard" scientists. It is a philosophical, economic and legal issue. That is where Objectivism comes in.

If we assume that APG is a reality (and a serious one, at that), I contend that it is not a governmental matter. However, "we" should absolutely do something about it. This means that each of us, if we live in a coastal region, should absolutely gradually build up seawalls and embankments to handle the projected 2 foot increase in sea levels that will occur over the next century. It means that "we" should make sure our air conditioners are in working order to handle the couple degree increase in temperatures we will gradually experience over the next 100 years. It means that those of us who are investors and farmers should consider, sometime over the next century, buying valueless land in Canada and Siberia that could become arable over the next 100 years.

It means that we should continue using our free time -- a consequence of our high standard of living, which itself is a consequence in part of having cheap energy that comes from burning fossil fuels -- to research cheaper and better ways to make electricity, air condition our homes, grow crops, develop new medicines and forms of entertainment. In other words, each of us -- using cheap energy and the high standard of living it makes possible -- should use our minds to enjoy our lives, and in so doing, create new technologies that propel our standard of living ever higher.

This ascent of man is itself in part a function of cheap energy. That ascent is hamstrung by restrictions on that energy that make it more expensive, in order to prevent our atmosphere getting hotter by a couple of degrees and our sea levels from rising by a couple of feet over many decades.

This is the context of the APG argument, and why those who hate capitalism have gravitated so enthusiastically to it. They see the APG argument not so much as an "environmental" issue, but rather as a way of attacking man and industrial civilization.

They are right. The APG argument *is* being used to attack man and industrial civilization. This is not to say that scientifically understanding whether APG is true, and how severe it is, is not important. Getting a handle on the concretes is important, and does bear on what we should do about it. However, it is unlikely that any scientific understanding of the problem will show that it is of such a magnitude that it merits *governmental* intervention, and the concomitant reduction in our freedom and standard of living.

Andrew:

I agree with you entirely about how AGW wraps up legitimate science with normative views. Though I should observe that in the recent IPCC report, the body preparing it did take care to publish their predictions separately from their policy prescriptions. I remember the scientists who offered the first saying before Congress on CSPAN that they weren't there to author policy, just to predict the future. Still, I know what you're talking about and it is still a common interpretation in the public mind. This is one of the reasons it is so important to separate science from philosophy, as I mention in my newest post on environmentalism as a religion.

And yes, you're also right about the "doom du jour" articles. I think this is definitely a result of bad journalistic practices, and think a lot of scientists would probably resent it, too. It's probably a consequence of the first point you make: people accept the mesh of science and philosophy uncritically, and so become on the lookout for the slightest warning sign that could be used to motivate action, the sensationalistic strategy you mention later.

NS

Galileo blogs:

I'm pretty reluctant to agree to any statement of the form that there's a problem with accepting a view whether it's true or not. If it's true, then objectivity demands that we accept it. If it is a true claim that is misused, then objectivity demands accepting it as true and showing how it is misused.

You're right that the use of fossil fuels is currently an important source of our standard of living, and that reducing that use will hurt our standard of living. But there is also a question of short-range vs. long-range here. If some claims about AGW are true, then while the use of fossil fuels will help our standard of living in the short-term, continued use will harm it in the long-term (because of its effects on agriculture, on cities near the coasts, etc.)

My guess is that even if there is AGW, the alleged long-term effects are not as disastrous as many have claimed. The Stern report about the economic effects was probably based on some completely unjustified assumptions (involving the "social discount rate" or what not). Even still, if any form of the theory is true, it would still predict *some* kind of harm that would need to be taken account of.

For example, it is obviously true that eating carbohydrates is an essential part of my diet. But eating too much of them is bad, too, because it makes me fat. A theory predicting that it makes me fat is something I have to take account of when deciding what to eat, whether or not the most ridiculous versions of the theory that say I will die from eating too many of them in 10 years.

You're right that there is a philosophical question to be addressed about what the proper response to AGW would be. That's Andrew's point above. But that doesn't dispute that there is still a scientific issue that could lead us to adopt new policies if we are rational. And the rational policy to adopt may indeed involve the government, if the scope of the problem is large enough. After all, the government is responsible for deciding litigation about torts, and AGW may involve a tort if the science is right.

NS

NS,
To be clear, I did not say what you assert in your first sentence. What I said was, "Whether it is true or not, the [AGW] argument has been seized upon by those who want to throttle industrial activity by restricting the most fundamental underpinning of our standard of living: the combustion of fossil fuels."

Whether it is true or not is a factual matter. The truth of it must be accepted, of course. My point is that the AGW hypothesis is being used by those who hate man, and they are using it to attack man, regardless of whether the theory is true or not. (I don't think they care so much about the truth of the theory, but they do relish the power it gives them in their anti-industrial crusade.)

As for the effects of AGW, assuming it's true, the carbohydrate analogy is not a good one. Global warming would have clear benefits, as well as harms. Frigid land becomes arable. Crop production increases due to that fact and possibly because of more carbon dioxide in the air, etc. Also, having a free economy, unencumbered by anti-global warming rules, means having all of the benefits of technological advances, a rising standard of living, and the cornucopia of plenty that capitalism is.

Restricting carbon dioxide production would save us from the harms of global warming, such as a gradual rise in sea levels and a gradual rise in temperatures that some people wouldn't like (although others would welcome it). But it does so by expanding government controls, and thwarting economic activity. That is clearly harmful.

So, the AGW argument is not analogous to eating too much carbohydrates, which is unambiguosly bad for one's health. Global warming, to the extent it occurs, would be both good and bad for people on earth.

A better analogy to AGW is any unanticipated consequence from a technological change. For example, the mass-production of automobiles hurt horsebreeders and buggy manufacturers, severely. There is no doubt about that. The widespread introduction of computers hurt typewriter manufacturers, etc.

These technological changes did hurt some people, but the overwhelming effect of them was a rising standard of living for everyone.

Cheap energy and the capitalist system it is a part of is overwhelmingly beneficial, in the same manner that technological advance is overwhelmingly beneficial. That it could harm some future people through the gradual effect of global warming is not an argument for restricting the production of that energy, any more than the argument that horse and buggy manufacturers would be hurt is an argument for putting restrictions, such as a special "automobile mitigation tax" on automobiles.

This gets to the issue of torts. I am not a lawyer, so I cannot cite proper legal principles. However, it is clear to me that a tort should refer to a specific action that harms a specific person in a specific, identifiable manner. A diffuse, gradual harm that occurs to one's descendants in an infinitesimally small magnitude that is attributable to me can hardly be called a tort. If it is, class action lawsuits are going to reach a lucrative new level. Every person on earth becomes a committer of torts against his descendants, none of whom are even born yet.

Galileo blogs:

Thanks for the correction about your view on truth. I see that you're not saying we shouldn't accept it just because of how it's being used. Even so, while it may be the case that some environmentalists who use this theory do so maliciously, if the theory is true, then they may be inadvertently doing us a public service by popularizing it. But that's only if it's true--so we should find out.

You're right that GW may have benefits as well as harms. But the big question is whether the benefits outweigh the harms. That's not a utilitarian consideration, any more than judging whether or not technological advance on balance improves human quality of life, even if buggy makers are put out of work.

You say that restricting carbon dioxide would have the possible draw back of expanding governmental controls, and thereby thwarting economic activity. I probably agree with you, but still this is a question of what kind of restrictions are enacted and on what principle. If they're enacting central-planning style using collectivist principles, you're probably right.

But if it's enacted using the tort system, or some other system that redefines the terms of fair business contracts, then whatever growth it stops would be justified, in the same way that it's justified to stop the growth of a business that's making money by dumping stuff on my lawn. And probably in the long-run, stopping lawn-dumping businesses is good for everybody's prosperity.

You wonder whether a tort based on diffuse gradual harm, pushed forward by infinitesimally small magnitudes is legitimate. I don't know how it would work myself. That's part of the question I'm asking. But here's the thing: just in case the AGW predictions are *true*, and this diffuse, gradual harm really does have the potential to cause really bad things, then something will need to be done to combat it, and this may require governmental action. Our rights are defined by reference to what is conducive to survival, and if it turns out that aggregate effects of certain behaviors threaten our health or survival, then it can't be claimed that there is a right to those behaviors or that government control of them is an unjustified intrusion.

Please, I don't want to come across as saying that we really do need new legislation to deal with AGW. I don't know. It depends on the science. So what I'm urging is an objective survey of the science. Maybe it's no good, but since I'm not a scientist, I really can't say.

NS

There should be an objective survey of the science behind global warming. The objective harm of global warming, to the degree it is occurring and is man-made, should be established. If the magnitude of the harm is great enough and immediate enough, some action should be taken, if indeed it is within our control to affect the outcome.

However, I doubt that the conclusion of such a research effort would be any worse than what the AGW advocates are now saying: sea levels will rise several feet in 50 or 100 years, and temperatures will rise several degrees.

If that is the case, I cannot see any justification for taking any action against it. First, the harms of taking action to forestall global warming clearly outweigh the benefits. Serious harm to our economy and technological progress must ensue from restricting the production of carbon dioxide. Remember, it is that same technological advancement that enables man to deal with future problems. Because we are wealthy and technologically sophisticated, we can deal with hurricanes and floods and disease. Our ability to deal with modestly elevated sea levels and temperatures is already robust in wealthy, free, technologically advanced societies. Those advances, and therefore our ability to deal with natural problems, such as sea levels, temperatures, hurricanes, and swarms of locusts, depend on economic freedom, which is undercut by the measures needed to counteract AGW. (The only countries that are truly vulnerable to global warming are the poor, non-capitalistic countries such as Bangladesh or some of the Pacific islands. Observe that wealthy Holland would be superbly able to deal with modestly higher sea levels, as it has done so already.)

In sum, by attempting to deal with AGW today, we undercut our ability to deal with all natural problems in the future. So, we should do nothing unless the science suggests a much greater and imminent threat. By imminent, I mean a threat that will materialize within a few years, not a century or more.

Second, the principle of tort here is important. There are many activities undertaken today that, stripped of context, can impair the lives of future generations. Here are some examples:

* strip mining where the scarred and ugly earth remains after the minerals are extracted

* denuding virgin forests of all trees

* chopping down esthetically beautiful and essentially irreplaceable old growth forests

* stripping the ocean of fish in drag-nets

* killing off entire species, such as whales, which can offer esthetic and scientific value

* driving cars that emit carbon dioxide

* manufacturing all sorts of goods in processes that burn carbon dioxide

* heating houses in winter, creating carbon dioxide

Of course, the last three examples are directly relevant to the AGW debate.

All of these examples involve benefits today and, when viewed in a certain context, harm to future generations. The context that is emitted is that each of these activities involves the production of values, and that no physical force is being committed against current or even at least a couple generations of descendants.

If I were a future resident of Wyoming, and looked out at a scarred landscape of used-up strip mines, I may not like what I see. What I should do about it is clean it up.

Analogously, I would hope that residents in New York City or South Florida (or even Bangladesh one day), a future, science-fiction like society, wealthy beyond our wildest dreams, will proudly walk the banks of their dike, or even proudly pat the frame of their force-field machine, that keeps the ocean at bay.

Capitalism, and complete economic freedom, is the source of progress, and of our ability to withstand the complementary "harms" from that progress, to the extent they occur.

Tort law is for dealing with problems in the present and near future, and where there are direct links between actions and harms. The futuristic global warming fantasy is not an area applicable to such law, even if it is not a fantasy.

NS,

I made a couple writing errors, a result of writing in haste:

(1) In one of the bullets, I mention "processes that burn carbon dioxide." It should read "processes that emit carbon dioxide."

(2) In the fifth paragraph from the bottom, second sentence, I said, "The context that is emitted..." It should read, "The context that is omitted..."

If you care to, feel free to correct my post.

Thanks.

GB

Galileo blogs:

You write:

"However, I doubt that the conclusion of such a research effort would be any worse than what the AGW advocates are now saying: sea levels will rise several feet in 50 or 100 years, and temperatures will rise several degrees.

If that is the case, I cannot see any justification for taking any action against it....So, we should do nothing unless the science suggests a much greater and imminent threat. By imminent, I mean a threat that will materialize within a few years, not a century or more."

I think I agree with this. So it's important for us to figure if your doubts are correct. If they are, then I agree that we shouldn't take any action. Perhaps I think that our sights should be more long-range than just a few years, but yes, in principle I agree. So we should examine the science.

One last thing. You write:

"Tort law is for dealing with problems in the present and near future, and where there are direct links between actions and harms. The futuristic global warming fantasy is not an area applicable to such law, even if it is not a fantasy."

I think you're right again. My question is really more about what happens in the future if the harms obtain. Would there be a basis for the application of tort law *then*, when and if it is obvious that the continued use of fossil fuels has the aggregate effect of contributing to a global problem?

Perhaps the thing to do is look at the science now, so that we'll know what to do when and if anything happens in the future. And then the tort system can take over if it does.

NS

In regard to the epistemic status of the global warming claim, I agree that it is not arbitrary, it is put forth on the basis of evidence. Whether the evidence really supports the conclusion, and whether the reasoning is objective is another question. I agree with Noumenal Self that answering it requires both study and expertise.

To evaluate the claim, those of us who lack the required expertise have to rely largely on expert testimony. This means heeding not just the testimony of isolated scientists on one side of the debate or another, but the consensus of the scientific community as a whole, and indeed we need to rely on experts even to establish what this consensus is. What's easily accessible is only a generalized impression of scientific opinion on the matter, but, in the case of the global warming issue, I think this is sufficient for most purposes.

In deciding how much credence to give a claim based on expert testimony, one has to consider the full context of what one knows about the experts and the state of the field in which their expertise lies. In the case of the global warming issue, doing so significantly discounts the status conferred on the claim by the consensus that seems to exist amongst climate scientists.

First this is a new science with no real success record, and it emerged in a period when scientific methodology was becoming particularly corrupt. Moreover, the theory hails from an intellectual culture that is profoundly bigoted at every level against industry, which it casts as the cause of an ensuing catastrophe. The whole science was born of a anti-industry ideological movement and many of its current practitioners are products of a school system that for decades has tied any interest in science to this bigotry, while simultaneously failing to teach the essentials of objectivity.

Taking all these facts into account, the status the claim should have in the mind of a layman can be illustrated by describing a closely analogous hypothetical case: Suppose that a group of methodologically dubious scientists in the Jim Crow South, educated by the Klu Klux Klan, put forward the view, based on complex statistical evidence, that blacks are genetically intellectually inferior to whites. Further suppose that the state of the culture was such that there was no established scientific community independent of these bigots to evaluate their claims. The possibility of genetic differences in intellect tied to race cannot be ruledo out on philosophial grounds, so if the biggots supported their claim not with racial slurs but by offering arguments with a logical structure based on empirical evidence, one wouldn’t be in a position to dismiss the claim, unless one could refute the arguments. But one nonetheless ought to regard the hypothesis with suspicion. And, of course, one could know that, even if the claim were true, it would not justify the Jim Crow laws.

How should one proceed in such a situation or in the present one? It depends on what one’s values. If one is deeply interested in the field, one ought to study the data and form one’s own conclusions. What if one does not want to become an expert? As it stands all the public policy measures being advocated on the basis of the supposed threat are evil, and could not be justified by any science, and the condition of the culture is such that the right sort of legal remedies cannot now take root. So if one’s values are such that one does not want to become a climatologist, one should simply regard global warming as a more or less probable hypothesis and fight against the anti-industry measures, which are despicable regardless of what the truth re global warming turns out to be. The state of the culture is such that it is neither possible to reach certainty on facts without years of study nor to effect the proper political action in light of the facts if one knew them. It may be that, as a result, there is no way to avoid one sort of calamity or another. But if so, this would just be one of the many bad consequences of the philosophical deterioration of the West. It is this philosophical deterioration that everyone ought to be concerned to fight, and that is the real lesson that laypeople ought to draw from the environmentalists and their claims.

I do agree with Noumenal Self that philosophy should have something to say about problems of the sort that global warming purports to represent, but I don’t think it is difficult to answer this question in principle. I agree with GB that the solution isn’t a simple extension of tort law. And, more importantly, I think it is a mistake to think of this as a “collective action” problem; that suggests that what’s required is for the collective to regulate its actions, but there are no collectives and “regulation” in the relevant sense is vicious. To paraphrase Ayn Rand in a related context (speaking about the broadcast spectrum), what’s needed is *legality*, not *controls*. What would be required to deal with any such situation is simply to legally recognize the usage rights that various parties have with respect to the atmosphere. If putting a chemical into the atmosphere at more than a certain rate can be proven to endanger people’s lives, then no one can have a right to do that, but if some people have created value out of the atmosphere by using it as a means to dispose of that same chemical at a slower rate, they have thereby acquired a right to do so. If it turns out that there’s a limit on the total amount that can rightfully be released in a certain period, then the various rights to release certain amounts have to be recognized in a form that enables them to function as commodities. This is, I believe, how such things as hunting rights and water usage rights are handled, and there’s no difference in principle with rights to use the atmosphere to dispose of chemicals. Nor is the situation of having to coordinate between different countries unique. That was true with hunting rights to territories in the new world, there must be cases involving water usage rights for rivers that flow between countries, and there is the case of intellectual property.

I agree with just about everything that GS says. I would only add two points.

First, GS gives lots of good reasons to doubt environmental claims on the basis of what we know about the sources. I agree with that, though I also think that the number of scientists is big enough that some of them must have hit on some important facts. Peer review of some of their more outlandish claims has caused them to be revised, e.g. the recent "hockey stick" controversy. You'll notice that the recent IPCC report has measurably more modest predictions about temperature rise than previous reports, again in response to external criticism of the earlier reports. This suggests that peer review does have the promised effect of discouraging fabrication, if not making it impossible.

A related point is that just as we should be skeptical of environmentalist scientists for the reasons GS mentions, we should also be skeptical of enviro-critics. Many enviro-critics are in effect paid lobbyists for industry. Industry certainly has the right to employ hired guns, but the monetary motivation of many of these critics cannot be discounted. Furthermore, it is essential to recall that conservative critics will dismiss environmental science in the same breath as they dismiss evolutionary theory, so they can hardly be trusted as champions of natural science. One pet peeve of mine in particular is the conservative journalist Steven Milloy, whose web site junkscience.com is often celebrated by Objectivists, but which refuses to weigh into the intelligent design debate (probably so as not to defend his conservative fans). But talk about junk science!
http://www.junkscience.com/sep05.htm.

It's also worth keeping in mind that Milloy and many of his enviro-critic colleagues are former employees of the tobacco industry, which was famous for hiring non-objective scientists as hired guns.

One has to be wary of bias on any side of an issue when considering an individual expert, which is part of the reason why one needs to take into account to consensus view in complex fields, and I certainly agree with respect to individual pop-science web sites like junkscience.com. However, when considering the state of climate science as a field one does not need to worry about pro-business bias from people paid by industry any more than one would worry about pro-Jewish bias in Nazi science. Our whole educational system and intellectual culture is a propaganda machine against industry. Compared to this, the influence of any pro-business propaganda there might be is negligible.

I want to make clear though again that I don’t think the point that such bias exists is reason to dismiss the claim that there is global warming. It has to be assessed based on the evidence offered. Those of us not in a position to do that first hand need to know how seriously we should take it, given that it is the currently dominant scientific theory on the matter. It is only in answering that question that issues of the biases in the scientific community come up. My answer is that the scientific consensus makes it at least possible and certainly not certain. (By contrast the consensus of theologians that God is good does not make it even possible, and the consensus of classicists that Plato wrote the Phaedo makes it certain, given knowledge accessible to laypeople about the states of those two fields and about the sorts of reasoning required to establish those two conclusions.)

Wow, I totally didn't see that this debate was here. (and what are the odds of both me and Andrew mentioning Cthulhu?)

I agree with what GS has to say. Expanding on one of his points, if you're going to suspect people on the basis of funding, then you'll have to suspect pretty much the ENTIRE pro-GW side, since their funding is from environmentalists and the government (the latter being funded by the environmentalists and with the added wrinkle that the funding will go away if there is proven to be no threat).

Furthermore, I'd like to second this:

"Taking all these facts into account, the status the claim should have in the mind of a layman can be illustrated by describing a closely analogous hypothetical case: Suppose that a group of methodologically dubious scientists in the Jim Crow South, educated by the Klu Klux Klan, put forward the view, based on complex statistical evidence, that blacks are genetically intellectually inferior to whites."

This is, in a nutshell, the status of the scientific community right now. There are only a handful of scientists who are not directly motivated by environmentalism, and they are being badly persecuted, with such gems as death threats and major publications refusing to publish *any* anti-GW material, regardless of the science.

I know that to an uninformed layman, the sheer number of apparantly pro-GW scientists points to *something*, but it is not so simple. In fact, such an outcome can be easily accounted for by the underhanded shenanigans of the greens.

So, as I said in your other post, if you must make a claim - claim only ignorance. Don't give the *lying filth* even an inch of ground that they don't deserve.

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