Some philosophical thoughts on Climategate

The Guardian has an article the title of which they changed because…

…we got the impression people were reading just the headline and not engaging with the article before commenting, which tends not to result in the highest quality debate.

It’s not as if we’ve changed the question raised by the event, which is still referenced in the article and open to discussion.

The question being “Is climate change scepticism the new Holocaust denial?”

I say no, yet again, because the question, as it stands, conflates history with science, and is nothing more than a smearing device. If I had lost someone to the Holocaust, I would be very upset if someone used the event to score brownie points in their juvenile debates. There are some interesting (in a thoughtful way) comments on the piece though, which merit discussion and I have picked the one that I think is the most intelligent.

Jonathan, referring to a faction of the naysayers who subscribe to “libertarian conservatism” writes-

There is really a very simple explanation for this. The brand of conservatism to which you refer has as one of its basic premises the principle that rugged individualism is a core virtue for humankind, and that government interference should always be minimised, since lots of individuals acting ruggedly in an individualistic way are always better able look after themselves than can be achieved by any government organised arrangement.

The problem with climate change is that it is too big a problem for the solution to be achieved in this kind of unorganised way. Moreover, if humans by means of the carbon emissions necessary for their individual comfort are in fact collectively harming the planet, this is an issue where rugged individualism, far from providing the solution, is actually a key contributor to the problem.

If climate change is (at least in large part) man-made, then efforts to tackle the causes will have to be global and government-led, and moreover will have to be co-ordinated internationally.

This is such anathema to the rugged individualists, that it is unthinkable. So they unthink it. They refuse to believe that climate change is man-made and therefore that rugged individualism is causing any problem at all. Because to accept the evidence would mean they would have to give up one of their most cherished principles.

The author of the original piece notes that when confronted with attacks from the skeptics, “the language of the left has become increasingly vitriolic.” To which the above commentator replies-

This is not surprising, though it is mistaken. The left is misunderstanding the underlying causes of the resistance. They are working on the basis that if the evidence is presented clearly enough, any reasonable [person] would accept it. What they fail to realise is that resistance to belief is not based on any kind of misunderstanding or doubt about the evidence, it is based on loyalty to what the climate change skeptics perceive as a higher principle. Therefore banging on about the quality of the evidence will have no effect on the skeptics.

In this respect, the tactics (and in many cases even the language) of the climate change skeptics is remarkably similar to that of the Creationists and the proponents of Intelligent Design. They aren’t in the least bit interested in objectively analysing the evidence, but look instead to cherry-pick bits of evidence to fit their higher principles, and to find ways of muddying the debate in order to prevent the defeat of those principles.

In the last fifteen days or so, this is the first comment that I have read which actually understands a big part of the “libertarian conservative” opposition—I don’t buy his head-in-the-sand conclusion, but that’s quibbling over a minor issue—which merely goes to show the level at which the mudslinging across the aisle has been taking place.

For the purpose of this piece, let me stipulate the existence of AGW. Now, here are some problems with the proposed “solutions.”

One, AGW is not universally harmful. Countries that lie in arid regions or that have some area of their coastline under what the new sea level might be, will suffer. Countries that have most of their area under permafrost, or are cold, or near the poles will benefit. Those who settled where they did, and are suffering as a result of the same, cannot ask others to compensate them for changes that take place in their environment over extremely long periods. For example, (this is what I can think of right now!) someone who builds his house at the edge of a cliff, “for the view,” cannot demand compensation from traders who have been using mountainous pathways to lead their caravan of elephants(!) because his house might collapse. Tough luck. He should move.

Two, causation. If you have to pin down guilt, you must be able to locate the source. How much carbon dioxide, and emitted by whom, is responsible for what part of the rise in sea level which is causing problems in Tuvalu? There are seven men in a room, the lights go out, two gun shots are heard, the lights come on, and we find two of them dead and two guns lying on the ground. If forensics fails to identify the killer(s), should all five go to prison?

For those comfortable with the “command economy” political system where governments wheel and deal and citizens are obliged to give in to orders from the top, whether from an emperor, or a president, these are mere “technicalities.” The scientists have pronounced their verdict, what’s the problem? Ban this, ban that, and lets get things done. The individualist is not in a position to accept this because of his “higher principles.”

All this gets lost in the “bigger debate” over “denialism.”

Why is the free market bad?

Because it undermines the authority of the government. North Korea has “banned” cash-

All cash transactions in North Korea have been frozen after the Government’s shock decision to revalue the won currency in an effort to crack down on the country’s burgeoning free-market economy.

[...]

Reliable information about the North Korean economy is difficult to come by, but the move appears to have two purposes. One is to control price inflation by limiting the amount of cash in circulation. The other is to destroy the fortunes of black-market traders, money changers, and others who have been profiting from North Korea’s nascent free-market economy.

To rephrase Orwell, who controls the market controls your life; who controls the printing press controls the market.

Merit and the marketplace, free choice etc

Horwitz has an article on the “myth of merit”-

In his various chapters and essays on the “mirage” of the concept “social justice,” F. A. Hayek makes a claim that is very often overlooked by those who support the market. He argues that markets generally do not reward “merit.” That is, the people who become wealthy in the marketplace do not do so, for the most part, because they are somehow “better” people than those who are not as wealthy. The wealthy are not necessarily more intelligent, more moral, or even harder-working than the rest of us. However meritorious we think those attributes are, they are not what the market rewards. The market rewards the creation of value in the form of providing goods and services that other people want. Period, end of sentence.

Paraphrasing one of my comments, the free market is not a meritocracy.

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O&M has a post on “cognitive dissonance.”-

[Chen] basically demolished 45 years of experimental results in social psychology that claim to have discovered cognitive dissonance in choices. According to this literature, it is among the best-documented results in psychology that people change their preferences after making a choice so as to rationalize the choice and make themselves feel better about their decision. Chen argues — persuasively — that essentially all these results are statistical artifacts. At a much more sophisticated level, social psychologists have fallen victim to the igon value effect.

“L” for …

An interesting interview at Reason with a fellow named Greg Gutfeld-

I became a conservative by being around liberals and I became a libertarian by being around conservatives. You realize that there’s something distinctly in common between the two groups, the left and the right; the worst part of each of them is the moralizing. On the left, you have people who want to dictate your behavior under the guise of tolerance. Unless you disagree with them. Then the tolerance goes out the window. Which kind of negates the whole idea of tolerance. That’s the politically correct moralizing. Then when you become a conservative, the other kind of moralizing comes from religion. But if you remove both of those from the equation, what you’re left with is libertarianism.

From the right, you’ve got free markets. From the left, you have free minds. To me, that’s the only sensible direction. As you grow older, you kind of end up there. Especially if you drink and do a lot of drugs.

[...]

Bill Maher is not a libertarian. He’s not even close. He’s a P.C. liberal [...] I hate that guy.

Libertarianism is a very cool thing to use as a disguise. Bill Maher does not say he’s a liberal. He says he’s a libertarian. That’s the reason why he does it. I think Glenn Beck is a libertarian, but he’s also got a very strong religious component, and it’s hard to put those two things together, I guess. But I think that “libertarian” provides cover for a lot of people.

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I found this article (probably) through a link on someone’s blog. The writer was once Deputy PM of Poland. He writes-

Mises, Hayek, Schumpeter, Nozick and other thinkers have noted that under democratic capitalism there are always influential intellectuals who condemn capitalism and call for the state to restrain the markets. Such an activity bears no risk and may be very rewarding. (This contrasts strongly with the consequences of criticising socialism while living under socialism.)

Evans

This article in the Guardian by Anthony Evans, thanks to the Mises blog, is a must read. His suggestions-

1. Legalise insider trading.
2. Repeal legal tender laws.
3. Eradicate crony capitalism.

Obviously these suggestions have driven most commentators mad. They think its an April Fool’s Day joke. Therefore, the comments are an even better read with Evans responding to the diatribes.

Update: His blog.