Tim Worstall in The Register

2 Comments / Economics, Environmental policy / By

Lynne Kiesling

The KP Spouse has introduced me to The Register, kind of a British Slashdot news website for computer folks. It’s very useful for keeping abreast of technical news, without some of the inane comment threads that can ensue on Slashdot (although I still love Slashdot, just not the comments on the posts).

I was happy to find this Tim Worstall article last week on the New Economics Foundation’s “Green New Deal” report. Tim, being Tim, pulls no punches:

The group, which describes itself as a collection of “experts in finance, energy and the environment” consists of various greens and lefties, Friends of the Earth, Green Party, Guardian journos and the like. And it arguably falls at the first hurdle by taking as fact three highly debatable points: that we face a financial crunch, a climate change one and an energy crunch. For a cloud of doubt hangs over the crunchiness of all three.

He then takes each of those three points in turn. For example, with respect to climate:

Similarly, we don’t face a climate change crunch: we have a chronic problem, not one that is either immediate or catastrophic. It’s extremely difficult to claim that Greenland melting in 2,500 AD is an immediate problem. As to the energy crunch and Peak Oil, well, markets themselves seem to be dealing with that rather well: oil at $130 a barrel will certainly reduce appetites for it, and if it becomes in yet shorter supply then prices will rise again and appetites will be further curbed. So too will other forms of energy generation flourish in the space now vacated.

But that is all being reasonable and rational – which really isn’t what this report is about. What it is about is their desire to impose their version of how you should live upon you, regardless of your own wishes. Cheeringly though the report is based on such a concatenation of false arguments and at times willful stupidity that there’s (well, at least I hope so) no chance of anyone taking it with the slightest bit of seriousness.

I hope Tim’s a regular at The Register; that would keep me reading regularly!

2 thoughts on “Tim Worstall in The Register”

  1. Ed Reid

    “Similarly, we don’t face a climate change crunch: we have a chronic problem, not one that is either immediate or catastrophic.”

    I remain unconvinced that “we have a chronic problem”. If we have a problem at all, is it: the 0.7C rise in “global average temperature” over the past century; or, the flat “global average temperature” profile over the past decade; or, possibly, the 0.6C decrease in “global average temperature” over the past year?

    I will consider the possibility that we have a “problem”, of any immediacy, when I see the first AGW “affirmer” propose a “solution” to the “problem” which actually had a snowball’s chance in hell of actually solving the “problem” as described. The closest approach I have seen so far is the IEA proposal in June to reduce anthropogenic CO2 emissions by 50% by 2050, at an estimated investment/cost of $45 trillion. I remain fascinated by the failure of the AGW “affirmers” to propose a complete solution to the “problem” about which they continue hyperventilating.

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