Reading the thread on global warming below, I see a common mistake that pops up in a lot of arguments at the intersection of science and policy. With all due respect to the participants in the thread, they are largely talking past one another. This often happens in arguments over global warming, and I think there’s a specific reason for it: there are really two separate questions in the global warming debate, and both sides tend to conflate the two, treating them as though they are the same issue with the same answer.
The thread below can really be thought of as two arguments:
Is human-caused global warming taking place?
If human-caused global warming is taking place, what, if anything, should be done about it?
Consider the two questions separately for a moment.
Is human-caused global warming taking place?
There are two obvious answers to this question: yes or no. It’s largely an empirical question, needing scientific inquiry.
If human-caused global warming is taking place, what, if anything, should be done about it?
This question, which accepts that we are causing global warming, is more complex. There are theoretically many answers, but policymakers and people who believe global warming is a serious problem tend to reduce it as though the answer were a simple dichotomy of 1) the government takes action, or 2) we do nothing.
The problem is, it’s easy to combine these two questions and their answers so that it seems as though a particular solution Y follows logically from a particular answer X, when this is really not the case at all. It distorts the global warming debate so that it seems as though there is only one question: Is human-caused global warming taking place? And the only answers are: No, and therefore we should do nothing, or Yes, and therefore the government needs to take action.
When the two essential questions in the global warming debate become tangled up in this way, those of us who oppose government action feel as though we are placed in an untenable position; either we deny global warming is happening or we acknowledge that it is and therefore accept the necessity of government action. I believe that when we allow the debate to be framed this way, we’re missing what’s really important, and we’re missing the opportunity to make a point that desperately needs making in the public arena.
For this purposes of this post, I’m not going to take a position on whether or not humans are causing global warming. But there is a position I can take: if global warming is real, government action is not the answer. State action is too inefficient, too slow, too vulnerable to power-seeking and rent-seeking behavior, too apt to ignore the serious economic consequences of an action that has popular appeal. I am indebted to Dan D’Amico for also making the vital point, in the context of criminal justice, that government is unable to accommodate citizens’ diverse preferences for the handling of large-scale societal problems. That is why libertarians must disentangle the two questions above and stay focused on the one that is most important to us, the question of state action. The presence and cause of global warming is a scientific question that will continue to be argued. That is as it should be; in science, complacency, the sense that we have all the answers, is always our enemy. But the idea that government is the logical, best, and only answer to the largest-scale problems in society is so appealing that it is often treated as though it needs no debate. It’s this idea, not the idea that we’re causing global warming, that is our enemy. Sitting here at my laptop, I freely admit I don’t know the solution to global warming. But that does not mean that millions upon millions of freely acting humans in a dynamic market cannot or will not produce one. That is the central message, the one we need to keep in front of people. If we can keep our eye on that, whichever way the debate goes, we will be ready.
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Tokyo Tom wrote:
“I have been trying to argue that air and water pollution problems arise precisely because of the lack of clearly defined or well-enforced property rights.”
everybody is looking under the wrong rock Tom by trying to focus on the bodily effects of pollution and then advocating for ajudication via the courts.
none of this is necessary – all that has to be established is the absolute right to the fruits of our labor and the state’s role in protecting that right.
negative externalities are nothing more than a cost unwillingly imposed on our wages (higher health care costs)…the reason this happens is we allow some to enclose the sky as an inter-generational, natural commons (privatize) to be used as a sink beyond the sustainable yield (Locke’s proviso) which FORCES these costs upon those being excluded.
this would happen EVEN in an anarchy!
the role of the state (a fiduciary responsibility) then as the public trustee of our common assets is to:
1. protect the common asset for future generations by limiting it’s use/access upto the sustainable yield
2. protect the absolute property right we all have to our labor and hence our self-ownership.
this can be accomplished just the same way as we should for land…
1. issue annual permits (titles to pollute) ONLY up to Locke’s proviso (sustainable yield)
2. collect the revenue (economic rent) and distribute it back to the owners directly and equally.
the state CAN NOT keep the money and spend it because then we will have conflated the sky from being owned in common as an individual right to being owned collectively as a group right.
I am not a collectivist!
TZ wrote:
“I will agree that you can theoretically come to some apolitical process that could assess damages in a legally acceptable manner since I already argued that in the other cases.”
BillG responds:
if you limit the total CO2 to this years amount by selling annual permits for only that amount and give the money back to us all equally as the owners of the commons then next year people will say “let’s get bigger dividends for all”
and what happens?
they restrict the number of permits tied to a specific amount of carbon and low and behold before you know it the self-interests of the owners in setting up a negative feedback loop will natural forces the CO2 amounts emmitted BELOW the sustainable yield of using the sky as a dump.
so it really doesn’t matter what level of CO2 you start with…
self-interests of individuals will forces it down over time!
TZ wrote:
“If damage is done by things like Heroin and Cocaine (which tend to be abused), would you argue for similar permits to sell (or buy) those goods?”
BillG responds:
cocaine and heroin effect only individuals who engage in that activity whereas negative externalities effect everyone rqually.
TZ wrote:
“How do you avoid black markets and all the other problems of the DEA and “war on drugs” applying to CO2?”
BillG responds:
think about it…everyone gets a citizens dividend from the full rental value of using the sky as a dump for protecting your property rights to your labor and the inter-generational commons for future generations.
can you imagine the enormous social pressure and stigma there would be for cheating as you are stealing from everyone??
TZ wrote:
“How does the market set the price? Either the permits must be printed like fiat currency and hence tend toward zero, or there is a finite number of them, and like taxi badges will sometimes be ignored.
There is also a problem of composition. Do you tax cars, which produce no CO2, or Fuel? If you tax fuel, do you tax vegetable oil which can be used as biodiesel? Crayons which can become candles? I.e. a “carbon tax” even on items unlikely to be burned?”
BillG responds:
the permits are required as close to the “wellhead” as possible…estimates show that this is about 2000 companies worldwide.
oil should also be considered part of the natural commons too (but that is another post)
TZ wrote:
“Do you give credits if I turn CO2 into chalk or plant trees or an algae farm?”
BillG responds:
yes, we may even have to require that those who purchase permits also have to sequestor more carbon as you have described because of the potential dire straits we may find ourselves in shortly (geologic carbon is accumulative in the atmosphere)
FWIW, this interesting new site about climate science just went live today: The New Zealand Climate Science Coalition.
(Apparently ice mass is currently increasing on Greenland, contra Tokyo Tom…)
Thanks, Peter. I`d direct interested readers to http://www.RealClimate.org, and on Greenland, to their various posts at http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2006/03/greenland-ice-and-other-glaciers/#more-267.
Regards,
Tom
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