In my classes, students who don't do the required reading are easy to spot. The primary indicator is that they don't have a clue as to what the reading actually says, so they wind up saying some foolish or embarrassing things. Ryan Avent, who blogs at The Economist, finds himself in exactly such a spot.
In a blog post critiquing my book, The Climate Fix, he carefully explains that instead of what I "pretend" to argue in the book, I should instead have been calling for
- A low but rising carbon tax
- With proceeds invested into things that show immediate benefits to the public
- That I should argue that the environment and economy are not trade-offs
7 comments:
I'm not sure he's proposing exactly what you think he's proposing - his proposal on the carbon tax was an exponentially rising, but economically crushing carbon tax, that just happened to start small enough for folks to plan their tax dodges well in advance. He seems to think that as companies see the doom that's coming, they will invest in technologies ahead of schedule. This is very silly thinking - the smart businesses would instead invest in politicians to change the policies that are bringing on doom. Graft will be much cheaper here, and more predictable than investing in risky technologies that probably won't fly without government subsidies.
-1-Skip
No, not exactly, but pretty damn close ;-)
While I support the principle of investment in new technology, a carbon tax is a regressive, right wing policy based on a lie. A rising carbon tax is is an insidious, regressive, right wing policy, based on a lie.I am surprised a member of a progressive think tank would propose it.
My attitude to global warming is that is far too big a lie to swallow, and it should be abandoned. It's obvious that virtually no one in the UK believes in it. The reality will be the carbon trading system and that has already proved to be outrageously corrupt in practice. It will make the mortgage crisis look like a Sunday afternoon in the park.
I just posted this on The Bellows Blog, subject of the post:
My real problem with the iron law formulation is that it is so high-level and imprecise as to be more of a political science guiding principle than a law of any type. To quote from The Climate Fix (p. 46), here is the first mention of the law: "However, if there is an iron law of climate policy, it is that when policies focused on economic growth confront policies focused on emissions reductions, it is economic growth that will win out every time." The next lines go: "The iron law of climate policy reflects a powerful ideological perspective that is broadly shared. Society could have evolved around a different ideological commitment, and may yet in the future. Nevertheless, as a deeply ingrained ideological commitment, the iron law will never be easy to displace."
So I have made peace with discussions around the iron law (and moving on to more precise and interesting topics than semantic debate) by understanding it thus:
1) The 'iron law' is not a law, it is a guiding principle that may change as values change.
2) As such, this principle says that there are limits to the costs that people are willing to pay to mitigate climate change. It also says that societies value economic growth. Both of these seem quite obvious, but they are accurate, and even though obvious the implications of these two imprecise principles are in action in all the political debates around carbon and climate policy.
3) The iron law is imprecise, and has potential rule-of-thumb policy value, but no economic predictive value.
4)The iron law does not address other potentially critical issues around winners and loser of climate policies that have nothing to do with overall economic growth, but rather who will enjoy the fruits of that growth. For example, a $100/tonne tax on carbon dioxide emissions that was entirely refunded to taxpayers would discourage carbon emissions, but not necessarily reduce GDP growth noticeably. How would Peabody Coal react to that proposal? We already know. How would the political system respond? We already know. The iron law only addresses one aspect of getting climate policy implemented, and perhaps not the most critical one in some cases.
5) Dr. Pielke, Jr., will occasionally get very enthusiastic, and write something like this (Yale e360): "The “iron law” thus presents a boundary condition on policy design that is every bit as limiting as is the second law of thermodynamics, and it holds everywhere around the world, in rich and poor countries alike." This analogy is flawed - the second law is not likely to change with human values, the "iron law" may. Presumably as well, that amounts that people WOULD pay are different in rich and poor countries, even if they do have limits, so the "iron law" is not particularly rigorous, but again more of a guideline.
However, setting that distracting formulation aside, The Climate Fix is worth a look. RPJ is quite facile with the facts around the environment/energy/economy discussion, and I learned some new things from the read. Of particular importance is the clear re-statement of how large this problem is, how difficult to address, and how current policies are clearly not getting the decarbonization accomplished. There are some analogies that I am not fond of, and the re-hashing of the climate science debate seems a bit of a distraction for a forward-looking policy discussion, but on whole it was worth the time, elucidating many of the challenges and potential solutions in the energy/environment/economy nexus.
I always find it very persuasive when someone twice uses a crude synonym for testicles to make his point.
Is he one of the elite?
-4-Sam
You are right -- it is a semantic debate with disciplinary undercurrents.
Believe it or not, the plain English usage of "law" need not conform to its disciplinary usage in economics. It is not proposed for purposes of prediction.
It seems that everyone gets it except a few academic economists, who are a bit too fond of their jargon ;-) If so, that is OK by me.
I'm glad that you liked the book, thanks!
Roger; You might be interested in the 2 replies at Ryan's
1. PaulM Says:
November 2nd, 2010 at 1:36 pm
If you are too cheap to buy his book, you could at least read what he says about the ‘iron law’ on his blog before criticising it from your position of almost total ignorance.
“The iron law simply states that while people are often willing to pay some price for achieving environmental objectives, that willingness has its limits. Such limits may fall at different thresholds for different places at at different times.”
But I suppose you don’t have time to read this as you are so busy writing your own ill-informed opinions on your blog.
2. Bob Says:
November 2nd, 2010 at 1:58 pm
You may also want to read up on the “First Law of Holes”
— When you’re in one, stop digging.
Cheers,
–Bob
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