Climate change has jumped the shark.

Climate change has jumped the shark.

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Steven F. Hayward Contributor- Forbes

Lay aside for now all of the arguments that can be made about the weaknesses of catastrophic climate change predictions.  In fact, for purposes of discussion, let’s assume that the worst-case scenario is likely to come true.  The paradox of climate change is exactly this: the more serious the problem, the more implausible are the remedies of the environmental community.  That’s what ought to make the climate campaigners realize that last weekend’s mega-march in New York City represents the dead-end for their cause.  Truly we can invoke that overused cliché that climate change has “jumped the shark.”
Here’s why: From the beginning 25 years ago the arguments over climate science have dominated the scene and distracted us away from the fundamental problem: the prescribed method for preventing climate change is essentially replacing nearly all hydrocarbon energy, in the space of less than two generations.  Climate orthodoxy calls for an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions, worldwide, by the year 2050, which would take the United States back to a level of hydrocarbon energy use last seen more than 100 years ago.  For the developing world, it means remaining poor for several more decades.
There has been very little recognition and less candor about the sheer fantasy of the emissions target.  Energy transitions, as the energy scholar Vaclav Smil has explained in great detail, are long-term affairs, even if a new superior technology exists to displace a current technology.  But affordable large-scale, low- or non-carbon energy capable of replacing our current energy infrastructure simply doesn’t exist at present, and there isn’t much on the horizon.  The developing world needs to triple its energy supply over the next generation if it is going to raise hundreds of millions out of abject poverty, and that means using abundant hydrocarbon energy, not expensive boutique energy popular with ever-preening rich Americans and Europeans.  Just last week India’s new environmental minister, Prakash Javadekar, reiterated that India is not willing to discuss limitations on its rapidly growing energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.  “India’s first task is eradication of poverty,” Javadekar told the New York Times; “Twenty percent of our population doesn’t have access to electricity, and that’s our top priority. We will grow faster, and our emissions will rise.”
American and European climate change action advocates have ignored these realities, and have from the earliest engaged in relentless happy talk that a shift to renewable energy (chiefly solar, wind, and biofuels) would launch us down the golden road to a post-carbon energy future.  The more economically illiterate among the climateers peddle the free-lunch argument that we’ll all get richer by mandating investment in more expensive, low-yield energy sources. The relatively modest amounts of low-carbon energy developed over the last two decades have required enormous government subsidies and have delivered negligible reductions in greenhouse gas emissions.  (In some cases, like biofuels from palm oil and corn, the full environmental tradeoff is likely negative.)  The bitter irony for the climateers is that the most significant reductions in greenhouse gas emissions have been achieved by the production of newly abundant cheap natural gas through fracking, which has been displacing coal at a rapid rate.

The climate change community has reacted to this wreck of a policy not with second thoughts or openness to alternative frameworks, but with rage.  The fact that global warming has slowed or stopped, and that an increasing number of peer reviewed studies conclude that climate sensitivity is overestimated (meaning that the problem is either over-predicted or will be much slower in developing) is greeted with denunciations, and a shockingly shallow new refrain that “97 percent of scientists believe in climate change,” which is like saying that “100 percent of scientists believe in gravity” in response to any query about the mysteries of how gravity actually works.  When you point out the unreality of green energy dreams, you are met with foam-flecked denunciations of the Koch brothers.  In fact the opposition to the climateers is tiny by comparison to the resources deployed by the environmental establishment, not to mention the massive sympathy they receive from an uncritical media.  From the way people like Al Gore complain you’d think the climateers were up against the teachers union.
Which brings us back to last week’s crazy-quilt climate march in New York.  The most conspicuous aspect of the march was its open expression of discontent not so much with climate change, but with our current civilization generally.  It coincided with a new Naomi Klein book, This Changes Everything, that is getting a lot of buzz on the left (and even in Vogue magazine). In case you’ve forgotten your show notes, Klein is the author of The Shock Doctrine, a book ragingly popular with the far left that is so far gone into absurd conspiracizing and looney renderings of “neoliberalism” that it makes Lyndon LaRouche look positively staid by comparison.
What is the “this” that “changes everything” in Klein’s new title?  Why climate change, of course.  And what does it “change”?  Why capitalism, naturally.  The argument of the book in one sentence is that only overthrowing capitalism can we solve climate change.  Don’t take my word for it.  Here’s how the progressive lefty site CommonDreams described it: “Forget everything you think you know about global warming. The really inconvenient truth is that it’s not about carbon—it’s about capitalism.”  This view was well represented in the banners and posters at the climate march last week.  If climate change disappeared, one suspects the capitalism haters would still find a reason to march and rage against civilization. For this bit of candor, we owe Klein and the climate marchers a debt of thanks.

Even more revealing was the rage of Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who told reporters during the march last week that climate skeptics should be jailed, and that the Koch brothers are “war criminals.”  This is what passes for reasoning among environmental leaders?  Quite obviously no one would pay attention to RFK Jr. if is last name was Jones instead of Kennedy; on the other hand, he received a standing ovation a few years ago from the Society of Environmental Journalists after another of his typically demagogic speeches, proving that most environmental journalists are just green activists with bylines.  This is why you can expect that no environmental organization or prominent journalist will criticize Kennedy, Klein, or their extremist line of thinking.
The last big march in New York City like this was the 1982 march in favor of a nuclear freeze.  It drew more than twice as many people as last week’s climate march, and was equally irrelevant, if not in fact a hindrance, to genuine efforts to reduce the risk of nuclear war.  This is what a political movement looks like when it cannot recognize reality: it descends into ever more radical fantasies and rage, and gives its voice over to its most extreme elements.  Like anti-nuclear activism 30 years ago, climate change activism has decayed into irresponsible advocacy, and deserves the increasing scorn of the public.  And like the nuclear freeze movement of 30 years ago, if catastrophic climate change is a real prospect decades from now, these are the last people who should be put in charge of developing responses.

Shafted employees

I have heard of this anecdotally, but more recently saw a credible documentary about the way many businesses are treating their employees.

This is Walmart, McDonalds, Starbucks, etc.

You are paid minimum wage or close to it.

Your work time must be less than 40 hours/wk to avoid benefits. (another example of liberals and the stasis fallacy)

So you will have to have another one of these jobs to make ends meet.

All this is bad enough, but it gets worse:

You are frequently not told that you are not working that day until you arrive.

In order to work those 35, or 28, or 23 hours a week you have to be "on call" and ready to go to work for up to 80 hours a week!!

I generally think business folks take too much heat for normal operations.

But they ought to take a hellish amount of heat for this kind of thing.

entrepreneur

Definition:
entrepreneur - a person who is willing to work 14 hours a day in order to not look for a job.

Unions - some thoughts

If people who work hard for a living can't make a decent life, then we have lost America.

I agree with the following analysis by Abraham Lincoln: Italicised parts are implied.  

“Labor is prior to, and independent of, capital. Capital is only the fruit of labor, and could never have existed if labor had not first existed. (Therefore) Labor is the superior of capital, and deserves much the higher consideration. (Which is not to deny that) Capital has its rights, which are as worthy of protection as any other rights."  Abraham Lincoln – POTUS – 1861-65

Except for a short stint before college I have never been in a union.  But I support them because I think that they are the only way for the working people to get a big enough share of the fruits of their labor to raise a family.  Notice I avoid the word "fair" since I agree with Tom (who writes here) that fair is way too subjective to have any real meaning.  I wold add that, like FDR, I am not as enthusiastic about public employee unions.  The conflict of interest of the elected managers is too great.

I would even support the use of state power to assist the unions, because I believe that the disparity between the lower middle class and the upper middle class is becoming dangerous in this country.  It is not a classic rich vs poor.  The disparity is between the poor working class and the well to do knowledge class.

There are many of us who make (or made) a living with our minds and are doing very well in this new world.  If the disparity becomes too great it will produce instability.  This situation cannot continue in a nation which is fundamentally democratic and has even a large minority of poor people.  So how do you require the knowledge workers to grant the working class a greater share what they produce?  I see three ways to do that.

1.  Take it in taxation and mail them checks.

2.  Provide a broad array of free services – free education, medicare, and SS so that the obligations of the middle class are reduced.

3.   Have stronger unions.

I prefer a combination of 2 and 3.

I do have one problem with unions and that is this whole business of being required to join (or just pay) in order to work.  I see the validity of the argument that if you don’t pay, then you are a free rider and that is not fair.  But I find the argument that you have to join an organization that you may not agree with and pay for the things that it does in order to work there to be pretty offensive as well.  Huge amounts of that money go to the support of one political party.  If you oppose that party, then you are being forced to financially support something you are against.  Is there no reconciliation of this?  Is it not possible to just have the union contract apply only to union members and everyone else deals with management on their own?

Anyway, let me finish my note on unions with my real nightmare.

With the rise of multinationals and states and nations competing to attract industry (capital) the coin of the realm in which those deals are made is labor.  I find that very scary.  One can imagine this new world rising to be much like that of late nineteenth and early twentieth century America in which the states and the industrial leaders treated the workers as less than chattel. In that earlier environment there was the very powerful and overarching organization that was fundamentally controlled by the people:  the United States of America.  It eventually gave the people some leverage.  But in this larger world environment that same US will be just another one of the competitors.  The world itself is not fundamentally controlled by the people. This time there is no international entity that the people of the world can turn to for support.  

Throw into that mix the fact that some players and nations who are new to the whole capitalism game have no reason to respect the traditional rules which were made by those who are now their competitors.  Why should they be respectful of patents and copyrights made by those who happen to have gotten into the game first.  Then there is the possible rise of state capitalism where an entire nation might function as some corporate-state unit with people playing the roles of ants in a colony.  

Now there's a brave new world, so to speak.

Obama on business -2

On 7-16 I posted a quote from President Obama:    “If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.”  Of course the president said some other things.  If I had known about the next sentence, (Somebody else made that happen.), I would have included it as well.  I don’t remember my source, but it was apparently not FoxNews since  Media Matters says that FoxNews added the second sentence and more in their presentation.

MM offered the following rendition. [my emphasis]
 OBAMA: “[L]ook, if you've been successful, you didn't get there on your own. You didn't get there on your own. I'm always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody else. Let me tell you something -- there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.
If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life. Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive. Somebody invested in roads and bridges. If you've got a business -- you didn't build that.   Somebody else made that happen. The Internet didn't get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.
The point is, is that when we succeed, we succeed because of our individual initiative, but also because we do things together. There are some things, just like fighting fires, we don't do on our own. I mean, imagine if everybody had their own fire service. That would be a hard way to organize fighting fires.
So we say to ourselves, ever since the founding of this country, you know what, there are some things we do better together. That's how we funded the GI Bill. That's how we created the middle class. That's how we built the Golden Gate Bridge or the Hoover Dam. That's how we invented the Internet. That's how we sent a man to the moon. We rise or fall together as one nation and as one people, and that's the reason I'm running for President -- because I still believe in that idea. You're not on your own, we're in this together.”
End MM quote

Except for the two sentences (in red bold above) I would agree with everything that President Obama said.  In fact I would agree with variations of those two sentences as well.  For example:  If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that alone.  Somebody else made that happen a contribution to that. 

I have argued all of my adult life (which began at about age 35) that I have been very fortunate to be born in this time and place and that it would be silly for me to claim exclusive credit or moral superiority for what little I have achieved.  I have had help from many directions including the various governments.  Consequently, I have no quarrel with the state saying “good for you” and claiming a right to a significant part of what I have received for my work (incidentally, not in business) because they contributed to the environment.  On the other hand, I did do my part.  If I hadn’t worked at it, it wouldn’t have happened for me.

These two statements by the President go well beyond what is described in the previous paragraph and they also go well beyond what he was saying in the rest of his remarks. There is no reference here to the other things he said. 

If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that.  Somebody else made that happen.

Those two sentences stand completely alone in their meaning and their meaning is ominous.  They do not say that you ought to share credit for your accomplishments with the economic and political environment.  They say that you didn’t have anything to do with it.  The environment did it.  “Somebody else made that happen.”  In political and economic terms, what are the logical consequences of that? 

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Obama on business

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"If you've got a business, you didn't build that."   Barack Obama
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capitalisms

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This is a nice piece by E. J. Dionne about what kind of capitalism we want.  (Earlier I mentioned Brooks and Will as being rational conservatives that I read.  Dionne, Friedman, Shields, and Zakaria are among the rational liberals that I read.)

Elizabeth Warren

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Ms. Warren has been a Law Professor at Harvard, the University of Texas, and elsewhere; was a member of the Obama Administration; and is currently a candidate for the US Senate from Massachusetts.

In a recent discussion she said
"There is nobody in this country who got rich on his own. Nobody."

Warren rejects the concept that it is possible for Americans to become wealthy in isolation.

"You built a factory out there? Good for you," she says. "But I want to be clear: you moved your goods to market on the roads the rest of us paid for; you hired workers the rest of us paid to educate; you were safe in your factory because of police forces and fire forces that the rest of us paid for. You didn't have to worry that marauding bands would come and seize everything at your factory, and hire someone to protect against this, because of the work the rest of us did."

She continues: "Now look, you built a factory and it turned into something terrific, or a great idea? God bless. Keep a big hunk of it. But part of the underlying social contract is you take a hunk of that and pay forward for the next kid who comes along."


This was brought to my attention by Gib.

For one presentation of the other side go here.
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