1. I think he had two main points, the first being that policymakers can’t decide what to do about climate change on the basis of climate science alone. This is an excellent point, but: No duh.
2. His second main point was that reducing carbon emissions (say by 20% by 2020) is going to be incredibly difficult. This is also an excellent point, and is somewhat less “no duh” than the first point. Also, Roger gets extra bonus points for having excellent specifics, e.g., that reducing emissions 20% by 2020 in the UK would require the equivalent of adding 40 nuclear power plants by 2020.
3. I was struck by how much of his talk (especially addressing the 2nd point) matched what someone from the Sierra Club would say. What Roger said was “reducing carbon emissions 20% by 2020 is going to be a huge challenge, and we’re not going to make it.” What a Sierra Club person would say is “reducing carbon emissions 20% by 2020 is going to be a huge challenge, so we need to start now.”
4. One other difference between what Roger said and what a Sierra Club person would say is that the Sierra Club person would have talked about the impacts of climate change under business as usual. In contrast, Roger said nothing about the impacts of climate change (under business as usual or anything other scenario).
5. As an economist, I found Roger’s lack of discussion of climate impacts to be extremely disturbing. If—totally hypothetically—the science said that hitting 450ppm would cause the planet to explode, I’m pretty sure Roger’s talk would have looked different. (At least I hope so!) The economic point here is that cost-benefit analysis has two halves—costs and benefits—and you can’t do it by just talking about one of the two halves. Why Roger failed to talk about both halves has me totally perplexed and leaves me questioning how much he actually knows about economics. (For the record, he’s not an economist, so I think this is a legitimate question, not an insulting one. He’s a political scientist, but his talk was not about the intersection of science and politics; his talk was fundamentally about economics.)
6. Also perplexing to me is that Roger didn’t even mention (positively or negatively) the IPCC or the scientific consensus about carbon emissions leading to higher global temperatures &etc. This was an important omissions because I would guess that a significant fraction of the audience he spoke to today probably doubts the IPCC conclusion about human activity affecting global temperatures, and if Roger does believe the IPCC (as his Wikipedia page suggests) then he should have come out and said it. He failed to do so even though it would have taken only 30 seconds, and in my opinion that failure is inexcusable for someone whose goal is to educate.
7. Roger spent a great deal of time focusing on carbon emissions per unit of GDP, a variable that economists don’t usually have much interest in. After listening to Roger’s talk I still don’t have much interest in that variable in terms of either economics or policy, but I do appreciate how it allows him to tell a story about hard it is to reduce emissions: “Here’s the fastest that anybody’s ever been able to reduce emissions per unit of GDP, and reducing total emissions 20% by 2020 will require us to reduce faster than that. Wow that’s going to be hard!”
8. The hypothetical above about the planet exploding if we hit 450ppm makes it clear by Roger’s story is incomplete from an economics perspective. An analogy will help explain other limitations of his approach: Let’s say we’re talking about global populations of tuna, and that scientists are telling us that tuna are being caught at an unsustainable rate and that we need to cut the number of tuna we catch by 20% by 2020 in order to maintain a stable tuna population. Then Roger comes over and tells us that what we really ought to be looking at is not the number of tuna being caught every year but the consumption of tuna per capita in different countries around the world. Then Roger shows us graphs about rising populations in the developing world and the rising consumption of tuna per capita all over the world and tells us how difficult it will be to reverse this trend: how many more chickens we’d need to raise, etc. Finally, Roger comes to the seemingly inescapable conclusion that the number of tuna being caught every year is going to keep on rising. Anybody with half a brain can see that there is something missing from this story: What happens if there are biological limits to how many tuna we can catch? Anybody with a full brain should see that this analogy casts doubts on the value of Roger’s approach to climate change: What happens if there are physical limits in terms of the quantity of fossil fuels we can consume? What happens if there are biogeochemical limits in terms of the quantity of fossil fuels we can consume before blowing up the planet? This is not the time to pass judgment on these questions—for myself, I worry about the second question but not the first one—but it is the time to be concerned about the fact that these kinds of questions don’t even come up in Roger’s analysis.
9. Roger’s proposal for dealing with climate change is to have a small carbon tax (on the order of $1 per barrel of oil, which amounts to about $2.50 per ton CO2 or $0.025 per gallon of gasoline) with the revenue going to clean energy R&D. One point worth making here is that this is not a new idea; it goes all the way back to Thomas Schelling’s presidential address to the American Economic Association (”Some economics of global warming“) in 1992. Of course, a point doesn’t have to be novel to be worthwhile (otherwise those of us promoting revenue-neutral carbon taxes would have shut up long ago!) but Roger could have done more to provide context and perhaps to explain why this idea has had such difficulty in gaining traction over the past twenty years. Again, introducing this important idea would have taken only 30 seconds.
10. A deeper point about Roger’s proposal (which is in line with the folks at Breakthrough Institute, where he was a senior fellow) is that it is deeply government-focused: We’re going to have a carbon tax to fund government programs in clean energy R&D, and those government programs are going to move us in the directions we need to go on climate. This is very different than the usual prescription from economists, who tend to focus on providing incentives for private companies to do R&D. I’m not saying Roger is wrong, but I do think that it’s a surprisingly big-government idea to advocate in front of a room full of folks devoted to “free-market solutions“. The fact that Roger didn’t get any push-back (at least not during the part of the Q&A that I could stick around for) indicates to me that at a fundamental level he was failing to connect to the audience.

You can see the computer age everywhere but in the productivity statistics.

The source is Robert Solow, “We’d better watch out”, New York Times Book Review, July 12 1987, page 36. The full article is linked here as a PDF because I was unable to find an electronic version. (I actually tracked down a hard copy from the UW library system!)

PS. Various sources online accurately source the quote to this article, but many others source it to The New York Review of Books (which didn’t have an edition on July 12 1987).

Congratulations to me for tracking down this citation! Next up (but I fear impossible): William McChesney Martin’s famous quote along the lines of how the Fed’s job is to take away the punch bowl just as the party’s getting started.

2. Right now most conservatives don’t much care about climate change, but some of them do care. These include local folks like Todd Myers and national folks like Greg Mankiw, David Frum, and many more.

3. The number of climate-conscious conservatives is likely to grow. Some conservatives are undoubtedly creationist-minded lost causes (just like some progressives are Marxist-minded lost causes :), but there are plenty who just have an extra-healthy dose of skepticism; if IPCC predictions continue to be validated by reality, that skepticism will wane over the course of this decade.

4. The environmental community should do everything in its power to boost the ranks of climate-conscious conservatives. This is because being a one-party issue is not a good way to make change happen (see gay rights, the religious right, etc.) and because conservatives are not going away (see #1 above). A year ago climate blogger Joseph Romm wrote that “the country can only contemplate serious environmental legislation when we have the unique constellation of a Democratic president and [large] Democratic majorities in both houses, an occurrence far rarer than a total eclipse of the sun.” Yesterday Romm wrote that “it’s clear we’re not going to get an economy-wide cap and trade bill.” Maintaining this state of affairs is bad bad bad, and although it may be a while until climate-conscious conservatives become a significant force it is entirely possible that serious climate legislation (like BC’s carbon tax) will have to wait until it does.

5. The best way to boost the ranks of climate-conscious conservatives is to take conservative concerns and preferences seriously. This includes the concerns and preferences of the relatively small group of already-green conservatives, but also those of potential converts.

6. Many of those concerns are about the growth of government, and many of those preferences are for revenue-neutral carbon taxes. In fact, some Republicans feel so strongly about public finance issues that they support revenue-neutral carbon taxes even though they don’t care about climate change. (George Will came to one of my classes this last year, and after explaining why he thought global warming was a hoax he told us that he hated the payroll tax and therefore he supported replacing the payroll tax with a carbon tax, or indeed with a “yogurt tax”; I asked him if he knew that Al Gore agreed with him and he said that an idea should not be held responsible for the people who believe in it :)

7. These conservative concerns and preferences are different from progressive concerns and preferences. In the unlikely event that you’d like proof, consider that Todd Myers of the free-market Washington Policy Center says that the Washington State Democrats refused to allow them to submit (and pay for!) this ad in their convention newsletter.

8. In order to take conservative concerns and preferences seriously, the environmental community needs to differentiate itself from the progressive community.

9. This is difficult because many environmentalists are also progressives. Concern about climate change is not just an excuse for expanding government, but there’s a good reason conservatives worry that it is.

10. The way forward is for the environmental community to reach out to conservatives. Yes there is mutual mistrust, but the onus is on the environmental community because enviros needs conservatives more than conservatives need enviros. Yes these efforts might not yield dividends for 5-10 years, but the time to start is now. Yes it is distressingly possible that revenue-neutral tax shifts will not poll well right now (among conservatives or among progressives!), but exploring those options is a way to demonstrate goodwill and to show that the environmental community is taking conservative concerns and preferences seriously.

The bottom line is that there is a huge difference between (1) trying to find common ground and failing, and (2) moving in other directions without even looking for common ground. Failing to look for common ground will simply lead to more mutual hostility and delay the growth of climate-conscious conservatism. In contrast, looking for common ground and failing will allow environmentalists to honestly and respectfully engage with conservatives (”we tried finding common ground, but the polling came back negative, and that’s why we’re pushing progressive ideas xyz that you don’t like”) and both groups will be better positioned to try again down the road. And of course there’s always a chance—somehow, someday… maybe even today!—that (3) trying to find common ground will succeed.

Start with the possible window of opportunity, which depends on the outcomes of three events:

1. The fate of federal climate legislation. The House has already passed a climate bill, but the Senate is stuck, and the conventional wisdom is that we’ll get an energy bill but not a climate bill. Different folks in the climate world have different opinions about federal action (my opinion is here), but everyone should be thinking about a Plan B in case federal action doesn’t happen. And in that context it’s especially important to consider…
2. The fate of the Congressional elections in November. Everyone seems to think the Republicans will pick up seats, with a decent probability of taking over the House and a smaller (but nonzero) probability of taking over the Senate too. Given the Republican tendency to oppose climate action in general and “cap-and-tax” in particular, the federal dynamics are likely to change significantly in 2011, with a strong likelihood of no action and an increasing interest in alternatives to cap-and-trade. Those alternatives may become even more important in light of…
3. The fate of the AB32 roll-back measure in California. In 2006 California passed the Global Warming Solutions Act (AB32), a measure that (among other things) requires the state to launch a carbon cap-and-trade system by 2012. This November, voters in California will be faced with a ballot measure—the California Jobs Initiative—seeking to suspend that effort indefinitely. I have not seen any strong polling about the odds of success for this measure, but if it does succeed in suspending AB32 then it will likely be the final nail in the coffin of the Western Climate Initiative, a regional cap-and-trade system that is already reckoned to be on life support.

In my view the odds are (1) that federal climate legislation will not pass this year, (2) that the Republicans will make significant gains in November, and —I’m going to waffle on this last one—(3) that the California ballot measure has a good chance of rolling back AB32. If I am right on all three, or even just on the first two, then it will be time for new directions in U.S. climate policy. Not a new direction, but new directions, because significant action on climate policy for at least two years is likely to happen not at the federal level but at the state level, in the much-touted “laboratories of democracy”.

In the event that U.S. climate policy moves in new directions, I am excited about the prospects for state-level carbon taxes. These can be implemented in any state, but I am especially keen about the chances for this policy on the West Coast.

One big reason is that we already have a neighborhood example: the province of British Columbia implemented a carbon tax in 2008, and in 2012 it will reach approximately $30 per ton of CO2. (That’s about $0.30 per gallon of gasoline or $0.03 per kWh of coal-fired power.) That’s living proof that carbon taxes can establish economic incentives to reduce emissions without destroying the local economy. It’s also living proof that politicians can push carbon taxes and still get (re)elected.

A second reason is that the West Coast has green-minded voters—there’s a reason Dave Reichert (R-WA) and Mary Bono Mack (R-CA) were 2 of only 8 Republicans in the House of Representatives to vote for the cap-and-trade bill that passed the House last summer—and innovative leaders in the business and non-profit communities who support well-designed carbon tax policies. These include the usual suspects in the environmental world (including Sightline Institute, with whom I worked on this memo on carbon pricing in Washington State), but also folks like Todd Myers, the environmental director of the free-market Washington Policy Center and the co-author of this 2009 op-ed calling for a revenue-neutral carbon tax of $30 or perhaps even $50 per ton CO2; and companies like Puget Sound Energy, whose 2008 WCI comments included a statement to “reaffirm [their] support for a carbon tax program,” a position recently repeated by CEO Steve Reynolds. (I have also been told privately by other major business leaders that they think a carbon tax is a good idea, and PS my examples above mostly come from Washington State but I’m confident that similar examples can be found in Oregon and California.)

A third reason is that we have ballot measures on the West Coast. In parallel with #1 above, state legislatures appear unwilling to tackle climate pricing—California is the exception here, but other states have repeatedly failed to lend legislative support to the Western Climate Initiative—and in parallel with #2 above, state legislatures are likely to see the same right-leaning dynamics that are projected at the federal level. An initiative campaign could go directly to the voters with a proposal to implement a BC-style carbon tax and use most if not all of the proceeds to reduce existing taxes.

And that brings us to the fourth and final reason for favoring the West Coast as a focal point for carbon tax action: State tax systems in the area are ripe for reform. A revenue-neutral carbon tax would appeal not only to green-minded voters but also to those who are fed up with the current tax system and want significant reductions in property taxes, income taxes, and business taxes. (Admittedly, this fourth reason applies to just about all states, and as noted before carbon taxes can be implemented in any state.)

My dream scenario would be a group of coordinated ballot measures in West Coast states in 2011 or 2012, leading to a regional carbon tax comparable to the RGGI cap-and-trade system on the East Coast. (These policies could then engage in a mostly friendly face-off if and when federal climate leadership returns.) As a first step towards this dream, how about making some progress in exploring new directions so we’ll be ready in case the window of opportunity opens?

So what I end up with is basically Martin Weitzman’s argument: it’s the nonnegligible probability of utter disaster that should dominate our policy analysis. And that argues for aggressive moves to curb emissions, soon.

At the heart of the economics of climate change are issues of uncertainty and discounting, and IMHO neither of them can be resolved. (Translation: Cost-benefit analysis is never going to give us a solid answer.) For example, Weitzman’s uncertainty issue is IMHO fundamentally related to the St Petersburg paradox: How much would you pay to play a game in which you flip a coin until it comes up heads and then (if this happens after n flips) you win $2^n ($2 for H, $4 for TH, $8 for TTH, $16 for TTTH, etc). It’s easy to show that the expected value here is infinite, meaning that there’s a logical argument to be made for paying $1 million—or even much, much more—to play this game. Similarly there’s an argument to be made for paying $1 million to avoid being on the opposite side of the game (i.e., having to pay $2 for H, $4 for TH, $8 for TTH, $16 for TTTH, etc). The problem is that this doesn’t seem terribly reasonable, so climate-related discussions based on similar low-probability/high-risk outcomes are IMHO not going to produce an intellectually satisfying resolution.

A carbon tariff would be a tax levied on imported goods proportional to the carbon emitted in the manufacture of those goods.

Wow, this is going to be really hard to calculate.

We’re not talking about a few more hot days in the summer and a bit less snow in the winter; we’re talking about massively disruptive events, like the transformation of the Southwestern United States into a permanent dust bowl over the next few decades.

I confess that I’m not aware of this research, and at times Krugman is a little too alarmist for my taste. (There’s a ton of uncertainty about how much temperatures will rise under business-as-usual and how bad this would be for human society.)

The simplest version of a Pigovian tax is an effluent fee: anyone who dumps pollutants into a river, or emits them into the air, must pay a sum proportional to the amount dumped…. Even today, Pigovian taxes as originally envisaged are relatively rare. The most successful example I’ve been able to find is a Dutch tax on discharges of water containing organic materials.

For some reason Krugman fails to mention the best idea in the world: revenue-neutral tax shifting, which involves increasing taxes on carbon and decreasing taxes on payroll, income, etc. (The basic economic idea—supported by economists of all political stripe, as evidenced by Greg Mankiw’s Pigou Club—is to have higher taxes on things we want less of and lower taxes on things we want more of.)

PS. There’s a successful implementation of a revenue-neutral carbon tax in British Columbia that deserves much more attention. (Part of what I do in my comedy life is tour the world and try to get folks interested in adopting similar policies; last night I was in Birmingham and presented the outlines of a proposal for Alabama.)

We first find Caplan arguing that my co-author Grady Klein and I “shouldn’t have run away from self-interest in chapter 1.” I don’t think we ran away from the important ideas here—a picture is worth a thousand words, and at the end of the chapter you find the devils-in-heaven graphic copied on the right: The true miracle of the invisible hand is that in certain situations the world will look heavenly even if it’s full of selfish jerks!—but Caplan is right that we start with the basic assumption of “individual optimization” and not “individual self-interest”. And the reason is—geez, Bryan, do we really have to rehash this tired old argument?—that (1) as a theoretical matter, “individual self-interest” is impossible to define or defend in a scientifically rigorous way, i.e., I can always say “The soldier threw herself on the hand grenade because she wanted to” or “Bill Gates is giving his money away because it makes him feel better about himself”, and (2) as a practical matter, you get into a terrible knot when you start thinking about spouses and children and friends &etc. [PS. My personal opinion is that individuals tend to be myopic (near-sighted), meaning that there's a bubble around them consisting of people that they care about, but they can't see much beyond the bubble. I don't think it's either wise or warranted to go any further than that.]

Caplan next complains that the book does or doesn’t include-this-or-that, in particular that it includes a chapter on auctions but doesn’t include anything on public choice or cost-benefit analysis or price controls. It’s essentially impossible to defend against this kind of hobbyhorsing—this is why principles textbooks turn into 600-page doorstops—but I’ll try to mount a defense anyway. The book has a chapter on auctions because auctions are super-cool—a unique blend of sex appeal, accessibility, and insight into higher-level results like the Revenue Equivalence Theorem—and because you encounter news stories about auctions just about every day. And the book doesn’t cover public choice or cost-benefit analysis or price controls because it focuses on the question of Under what circumstances does individual optimization lead to good outcomes for the group as a whole? As a result the book hardly talks about government at all. [PS. Bryan, you and your fellow libertarians should be happy about this, so stop complaining! PPS. Price controls? Maybe in the translation for the Venezuelan market, but in the USA I can think of no better way to signal to students that you're stuck in 1971.]

Next, Caplan argues that my book should emphasize the points he made in his book. (”I don’t see how any introduction to economics can tiptoe around the primordial fact that non-economists’ beliefs about economics are predictably wrong.”) It would be easy to dismiss this as sour grapes or one-track-mind, but I think there’s a more interesting point to be made: I am 100% opposed to what Caplan endorses, namely the current trend of trying to teach economics by showing students that their intuition is no good. It seems to me (based on what I admit is nothing more than my intuition) that efforts to do this are mostly doomed to fail, and that a smarter approach is to frame issues in a way that doesn’t create cognitive dissonance. For example, the main question in my book—Under what circumstances does individual optimization lead to good outcomes for the group as a whole?—is one that I find leads to a thoughtful discussion from Day 1, with students often (correctly) seeing both sides of the answer. [PS. Bryan, how do you mesh your view that economic intuition is all wrong with the view that all of economics is trivial?]

Despite all this complaining, at the top of his review Caplan gives the book a B+. Maybe there’s serious grade inflation at George Mason University, but I can’t help feeling like the victim of passive-aggression. If you like the book enough to give it a B+, you shouldn’t spend 90% of your review knocking it. At least say something nice about my co-author’s drawings! [PS. Midway through your review, Bryan, you claim that the book "ridicules" the work of Nobel laureates; as a comedian I'd like to point out that there's a big difference between ridiculing someone's work and lovingly making jokes about it. Comparing the Laffer Curve to a fad diet ("Eat more, weigh less!") is ridicule; comparing the Arrow-Debreu results to evangelical preaching ("We have seen the invisible hand! We have felt its mighty power!") is a sign of appreciation and affection.]

The abstract: A substantial body of research suggests that economists are less generous than other professionals and that economics students are less generous than other students. We address this question using administrative data on donations to social programs by students at the University of Washington. Our data set allows us to track student donations and economics training over time in order to distinguish selection effects from indoctrination effects. We find that economics majors are less likely to donate than other students and that there is an indoctrination effect for non-majors but not for majors. Women majors and non-majors are less likely to contribute than comparable men.

Comments are welcome!

The good

• The dangers of promising something for nothing. Many supporters of the current cap-and-trade legislation work hard to avoid the fundamental truth about cap-and-trade, namely that—like a carbon tax—it reduces pollution by making polluting expensive. As a result, it is not surprising that the current legislation is likely to do a bad job of making polluting expensive: over the next twenty years, according to simple calculations based on EPA estimates, the bill will raise the price of gasoline by about 28 cents per gallon (in today’s dollars) and the price of coal-fired power by about 2.8 cents per kilowatt-hour. This makes me very nervous, and when I hear supporters say that the bill will tackle climate change at a cost to the average household of only a postage stamp a day I worry that we’ll get what we pay for: not much. There are technicalities here, and it is indeed possible to have a well-designed policy that reduce emissions at low net cost—e.g., through a tax shift, or through a well-designed cap-and-trade program—but I don’t see how we’re going to seriously reduce emissions without a stronger carbon price. The bottom line here is that supporters of the current legislation are walking a mighty fine line, and the video does a good job of pointing out the potential risks of adopting a policy that may create “a false sense of progress”.
• The dangers of offsets. The video does a good job of describing how offsets are supposed to work and how they might be gamed. It should be noted that the specific examples described in the video might not be applicable to current legislation, but everybody worries about offsets, and for good reason.
• The potential uses of carbon pricing revenue. The video does a good job of describing how carbon pricing revenue—either from auctioning off permits or implementing carbon fees, a.k.a. a carbon tax—could be used to improve the environment and/or help households adjust to the higher fossil fuel prices that would result from carbon pricing.

The bad

• Overly broad generalizations. The video says that “cap-and-trade will never work for climate change” and that’s just wrong. The specific proposals on the table might not be good, but that doesn’t mean that cap-and-trade will never work. This is a mistake that James Hansen makes too, so it’s worth remembering the fundamental truth about cap-and-trade, namely that—like a carbon tax—it reduces pollution by making polluting expensive. It makes no sense to simultaneously condemn one of these policies and embrace the other.
• Anti-market hysterics. The video claims that “you can’t solve a problem with the thinking that created it”, but I for one happen to be a big fan of using market forces to correct market failure.
• Anti-trading hysterics. This is closely related to the anti-market hysterics, as when the video makes a big villain out of the whole concept of trading, e.g., all those images of Wall Street types making out like bandits. And the cheer of “Go EPA go! Cap that carbon!” comes dangerously close to endorsing the movement for cap without trade. This movement makes no sense. Yes there’s a case to be made for eliminating offsets, and yes there’s a case to be made for auctioning off permits, but there’s no good case for preventing emissions trading.

He spent the first part of his working life as a professor, rising to chairman of the economics department at North Texas State University. “I’m an economist and, I don’t mind telling you, a damn good one,” he told me over breakfast. He added, “President Obama is a talented person who showed up at exactly the right time, but I don’t believe the man has ever been exposed to a serious economic idea, and I’m not sure anyone around him ever has, either.”

I pointed out that Obama’s circle of advisers includes some decorated economists, including Larry Summers, the former president of Harvard — a controversial figure but not one generally regarded as an intellectual slacker. “I don’t consider Larry Summers a serious economist,” Armey said. “You can get a Ph.D. from Harvard without ever having seriously considered the subject.”

Ruffin and Gregory’s text on global warming

From Ruffin, Roy J. and Paul R. Gregory, Principles of Microeconomics, 7th Edition (Boston: Addison Wesley, 2001), p. 380.

Example 5: Global Warming—The Great Debate

The debate over global warming shows that no matter how much contrary evidence is presented, it does not matter. The popular sentiment by politicians, the press, and educators makes three disputable claims: (1) global warming is occurring, (2) global warming is caused by our consumption of fossil fuels, and (3) global warming is bad for our future. But every single one of these claims is disputed by reputable scientists. For example, the earth has gotten warmer over the past 300 years, but it is still on a cooling trend over the past several thousand years. A warm 1999-2000 winter is hardly conclusive scientific proof. Indeed, when a “scientific consensus” for global warming is presented in the press, that consensus is based on a group consisting largely of social scientists and educators who have no direct knowledge of climate science. There are in fact very few climatologists in the United States, and the majority of them are skeptical of global warming.

Most of the evidence for global warming is really based not so much on measurements but on models of global warming that predict it will occur. These predictions, however, have been systematically biased upward; each year the models have to be revised downward. When a model makes a false prediction, it should be rejected rather than used as a basis for policy. Actual measurements of atmospheric temperatures show no alarming trend.

It has been argued by some economists that even if global warming takes place, it may prove to be beneficial to society. Agricultural production may be stimulated, it will cost less to heat our homes, and we may spend more time fishing, swimming, and golfing.

But the biggest risk of doing something about global warming is that the costs of cutting carbon emissions will fall on the poorest members of our planet—the developing countries. Since economic development is energy intensive, raising the cost of using carbon resources will cut the economic growth rates of countries such as India and Mexico more than that of more advanced countries.

Source: http://www.cato.org/speeches/sp-jt011698.html.

My email exchange with Ruffin and Gregory

From: Yoram Bauman
To: Ruffin and Gregory, with a cc: to Mr Shea (someone at their AWL, their publisher)
Subject: Textbook
Date: Tue, 28 Nov 2000 16:13:11 -0800 (PST)

Professors, Mr. Shea: I have received a desk copy of the 7th edition of your Principles of Microeconomics textbook, and I must say that I am astounded by your coverage of global warming. To say that “the debate over global warming shows that no matter how much contrary evidence is presented, it does not matter” is completely unprofessional, bringing to mind conspiracy theories and black helicopters rather than reasoned analysis worthy of an academic text. It also happens to be wrong, at least according to voices you should find respectable (see for example the November 16th edition of The Economist).

I encourage you (and you, Mr. Shea) to recall this textbook as misleading and untrustworthy. For my part, I am going to spread the word about your textbook and Mr. Shea’s publishing house.

Sincerely,
yoram bauman
econ grad student
University of Washington, Seattle

From: Roy Ruffin
To: Yoram Bauman
Subject: Re: Textbook
Date: Thu, 30 Nov 2000 08:38:50 -0600

Dear Mr. Bauman: Received your e-mail. I think you must misunderstand the nature of the example on global warming. When we say that the issues are “debatable,” this simply means that there are disagreements among scientists not that the notions are untrue. We’re sorry to have alarmed you so much. Global warming is a serious issue, but one that should be addressed by scientific evidence and methods rather than a pros and cons approach that we seem to see. Global warming is certainly occurring. But there are questions dealing with its solution because the models themselves still need to be worked out until their predictions fit all the facts at our disposal–this is a point we have not yet reached. As a scientist, I believe that we must use testable and fully tested models of scientific questions. There is still the problem of the difference between atmospheric temperatures and earth-based measurements, and the models have not yet addressed this difference. This does not in any way deny global warming. Perhaps we should have used the word “controversial” rather than “debatable,” but its a big book and wrong words are often used. In any case, this will give you a chance to show just how smart you are compared to the authors! Thanks for your comments; hopefully, in the next edition there will be more closure on this issue. Best regards, Roy Ruffin

From: Yoram Bauman
To: Roy Ruffin (with cc: to Gregory and Shea)
Subject: Re: Textbook
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 16:37:55 -0800 (PST)

Professor: Thanks for your reply. I am not at all troubled when you say that global warming is debatable; disclaimers such as “the balance of evidence suggests that…” appear everywhere. What troubles me is when you say that global warming is _not_ debatable, and that is clearly the message of your sidebar, beginning with the opening sentence: “The debate over global warming shows that no matter how much contrary evidence is presented, it does not matter.” I cannot interpret this sentence (or the sidebar as a whole) in any way that is even remotely consistent with what you say in your email (”Global warming is a serious issue…”; “Global warming is certainly occurring…”; “[We] simply mean that there are disagreements among scientists…”).

I hope that you and Professor Gregory (and Mr. Shea, your publishing representative) will recognize this inconsistency and act accordingly. Your suggestion that this “misunderstanding” could be cleared up by using the word “controversial” rather than “debatable” is quite odd, if for no other reason than that words like “debate” appear only twice in your sidebar: once in the title (”Global Warming–The Great Debate”) and once in the opening sentence (quoted above). Thereafter your sidebar features not equivocations but declarations (”There are in fact very few climatologists in the United States, and the majority of them are skeptical of global warming”). These declarations are based on a single suspect source (see my postscript below for details), appear to contain major factual inaccuracies, and are at odds with what you say in your own email.

I would suggest that your reputations as scholars (and Addison-Wesley’s reputation as a trustworthy publishing house) are at stake here in much the same way that Paul Ehrlich’s reputation was at stake in his ill-fated bet with Julian Simon. To his credit, Ehrlich at least had the honor and good sense to acknowledge his error and pay the cost. It will be to your credit if you do the same and recall your textbook.

Sincerely,
yoram bauman

PS. In your book you dismiss the “scientific consensus” on global warming as one “consisting largely of social scientists and educators who have no direct knowledge of climate science.” Yet your own sidebar is based entirely on a lecture by the director of the Cato Institute’s program on natural resources, a man who may himself have no direct knowledge of climate science. (He didn’t return my emails, so I don’t know for sure.) What I do know for sure is that some of his claims fail to stand up to scrutiny. For example, he says that “4,000+ scientists (70 of whom are Nobel Prize winners) have signed the so-called Heidelberg Appeal, which warns the industrialized world that no compelling evidence exists to justify controls of anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions.” I have located various copies of the Heidelberg Appeal on the web (for example, at www.heartland.org); all of them feature the identical text, and that text makes no mention of greenhouse gas emissions.

From: Paul Gregory
To: Yoram Bauman
Subject: Re: Textbook
Date: Sat, 2 Dec 2000 22:50:43 -0500 (EST)

Dear Mr. Baum:

Your approach does not encourage discourse on the subject of global warming. I imagine that 99 out of 100 reports that reach the general public assert without doubt that global warming exists and will have dire consequences. When we cite an article that states that this may not be true, we are labelled as seeing “black helicopters” and declared “ignorant.” We may reach the point soon where anyone who raises such questions will be penalized and punished. It is rather extreme to ask the withdrawal of a book that consists of almost 800 pages of good economic analysis because of a sentence that you disagree with. The offending sentence simply says that contrary evidence has been and continues to be ignored.

I truly hope that this is not your position. If so, it does discredit to the position that you espouse and suggests a witchhunt.

Regards

From: Yoram Bauman
To: Paul Gregory (with cc: to Ruffin and Shea)
Subject: Re: Textbook
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 07:15:14 -0800 (PST)

Professor: Thank you for your email. At some point I hope that you and your coauthor can move beyond denial and anger and reach acceptance. What I hope you will accept is this:

1. It is not scholarly to say things like “I imagine that 99 out of 100 reports that reach the general public assert without doubt that global warming exists and will have dire consequences.” Academic discourse, and especially academic publications, should meet a higher standard than that found in the media, and a much higher standard than that found in our imaginations.
2. It is your approach, not mine, that “does not encourage discourse on the subject of global warming.” It is your writings, not mine, that claim that “the debate over global warming shows that no matter how much contrary evidence is presented, it does not matter.” It is your text, not mine, that dismisses contrary viewpoints. And, though it was my email that raised concerns about seeing black helicopters, it is your text and your email that highlight those concerns by asserting a scientific conspiracy, by imagining a media conspiracy, and by seeing a witchhunt when in truth there are only tough questions and solid criticisms.
3. I am asking for the withdrawal of your textbook because I see no better option. An errata sheet would be fine, but I don’t think that you or your publisher would support something that focuses attention on your sidebar, and in any case I doubt that a suitable message exists for such an errata sheet: a “clarification of intent” would be duplicitous, and a substantive clarification would be too uncomfortable. The only other alternative that I see is to sweep it under the rug and make changes in your next edition, but I hope that you and your publisher will find this dishonorable and distasteful.

Finally, I must point out that I have never declared you to be “ignorant”, and I do not intend to. I think you have made a mistake, and I hope you take appropriate steps to acknowledge and correct that mistake.

Sincerely,
yoram bauman

From: Paul Gregory
To: Yoram Bauman
Subject: Re: Textbook
Date: Mon, 4 Dec 2000 10:31:34 -0500 (EST)

Your colleague declared us ignorant, not you. We don’t seem to be progessing with these exchanges; therefore, this is my last one.

Emails from the economics editor at Addison-Wesley

From: Victoria Warneck
To: Yoram Bauman
Subject: Ruffin-Gregory
Date: 11 Dec 2000 11:38:58 -0500

Dear Mr. Bauman:

Thank you for your recent query to our web site. David Shea has forwarded me your messages regarding Ruffin-Gregory and the example on global warming. I am sorry that the authors’ treatment of this subject has offended you, and thank you for bringing this issue to our attention.

We are in the midst of reviewing the material in question. If you have further thoughts on this topic, please feel free to write to me at this email address. Written correspondence may be sent to the address listed below.

Again, many thanks for your valuable thoughts on this topic.

Sincerely,
Victoria Warneck
Economics Editor
Addison-Wesley

(My side of this email exchange is not at all interesting, so I’m skipping it…)

From: Victoria Warneck
To: Yoram Bauman
Subject: RE: Ruffin-Gregory
Date: 18 Dec 2000 09:21:42 -0500

Dear Mr. Bauman:

Thank you for your message and for your concern about our coverage of this issue. I will let you know the outcome of our discussions. It would be helpful if you could send to me (in a single email, if possible) the comments that you have gathered from climate scientists. I do not doubt the validity of your point of view, but having informed opinions from scientists may come in handy. Is there a chance that you could forward these to me by Monday afternoon?

I appreciate your willingness to assist us. I will be in touch soon.

Sincerely,
Victoria Warneck

From: Victoria Warneck
To: Yoram Bauman
Subject: RE: Ruffin-Gregory
Date: 24 Dec 2000 13:33:29 -0500

Dear Yoram:

Thank you for forwarding these email messages. I appreciate all of your efforts! We will indeed modify the book’s coverage of global warming in the next (i.e., third) printing.

Very best wishes for the holiday season–

Sincerely,
Victoria

Postscript

Many thanks to all those who took the time to write to Ruffin and Gregory and/or to me about this issue–it seems like we’ve had some success!!! Someday I hope to come across the new printing of Ruffin and Gregory’s textbook; if and when I do I will post their updated treatment of global warming…