John Stossel
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  • October 27, 2009 03:03 PM EDT by John Stossel

    The Global Warming Church vs. SuperFreakonomics, Part III

    Last Friday, SuperFreakonomics co-author Steven Levitt addressed the Global Warming Church’s criticism of his suggestion that geoengineering -- not carbon legislation -- could solve global warming:

    If we need to cool the Earth in a hurry, what is the best way to do it?

    ... Reducing carbon emissions is not a great way of cooling the Earth in a hurry for two key reasons: (1) even if we cut carbon emissions today, the Earth will continue warming for decades; and (2) reducing carbon emissions is expensive, with a price tag of at least $1 trillion per year …

    A much better approach, we conclude, is geoengineering …

    I don’t know enough about geoengineering to conclude that it’s the best solution.  But because Levitt and Dubner approach their question like economists, using data and logic -- not emotions and political orthodoxy -- their ideas deserve a fair shake from environmentalists.

    However, in today’s Wall Street Journal, Bret Stephens explains that Levitt and Dubner’s alternative views offend Al Gore and the Global Warming Church so much that they just won't listen:

    ... [W]hen it comes to the religion of global warming -- the First Commandment of which is Thou Shalt Not Call It A Religion -- Messrs. Levitt and Dubner are grievous sinners. They point out that belching, flatulent cows are adding more greenhouse gases to the atmosphere than all SUVs combined. They note that sea levels will probably not rise much more than 18 inches by 2100, "less than the twice-daily tidal variation in most coastal locations." They observe that "not only is carbon plainly not poisonous, but changes in carbon-dioxide levels don't necessarily mirror human activity." They quote [Nathan] Myhrvold as saying that Mr. Gore's doomsday scenarios "don't have any basis in physical reality in any reasonable time frame."

    ... But perhaps their biggest sin ... is pointing out that seemingly insurmountable problems often have cheap and simple solutions. Hence world hunger was largely conquered not by a massive effort at population control, but by the development of new and sturdier strains of wheat and rice. Hence infection and mortality rates in hospitals declined dramatically as doctors began to appreciate the need to wash their hands.

    Hence, too, it may well be that global warming is best tackled with a variety of cheap fixes … Alternatively, as "SuperFreakonomics" suggests, we might be better off doing nothing until the state of technology can catch up to the scope of the problem. All these suggestions are, of course, horrifying to global warmists, who'd much prefer to spend in excess of a trillion dollars annually for the sake of reconceiving civilization as we know it …

    If environmentalists actually cared about solving the problem, you'd expect them to at least rationally debate the merits of geoengineering. That they so rabidly attack Levitt and Dubner suggests that they care more about the opportunity to control people. After all, what fun would it be to solve global warming if they don't get to tell everyone what to do?

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Emmett Barcalow

zjohna, How many of the climate change deniers depend financially on institutions that will lose money if we move away from fossil fuels? And where did you get the information that the multitude of computer models failed to recreate past climate shifts? All too often, people repeat misinformation that non-scientists peddle in the media and on the internet. Why not see what real climate scientists say?

October 29, 2009 at 7:20 am

zjohna

Oh yes, Emmett. The same scientists whose livelihoods depend on continued grants to pay for global warming studies and whose multitude of computer models fail recreate past climate shifts. Those are the guys we to whom we should be listening.

October 28, 2009 at 7:37 pm

Emmett Barcalow

Yes, let's give a respectful hearing to economists who express their opinions about climate change rather than to scientists with genuine expertise in climate science. How much climate science do these economists know? It's the scientists who are trying to rely on data and logic rather than emotion and political orthodoxy. But why listen to people who actually know something about the subject when you can listen to people who don't, but who say what you want to hear?

October 28, 2009 at 7:23 pm

Aaron Huertas

Political ideology aside, Levitt and Dubner have now stated, in front of multiple audiences and in multiple interviews, that we still need to reduce carbon emissions and that geoengineering is NOT a replacement for doing so. Thanks, Aaron Huertas Union of Concerned Scientists

October 28, 2009 at 5:01 pm

cb750

Scientists have just shown the speed of light can be surpassed. One of the biggest "consensus" around is that the speed of light is absolute and it TOO fell to the way side. The point being is consensus is NOT science. The flat earthers were a consensus. You're arguing about how global warming should be dealt with when in fact any AGW has not been proven, certainly not enough to warrant massive taxes and control. Why is Al Gore a global cooling denier?

October 28, 2009 at 3:10 pm

Pat Cahalan

Mr. Stossel, the claims put forth by the Superfreakonomics crew have already been addressed by numerous scientists. This is not a matter of "rational economists" vs. "freak tree huggers", but a matter of two people who are not experts in the field making a number of serious errors in their reporting of the underlying science. In addition, they do not correctly cite some of the people that they claim support their ideas in the book.

October 27, 2009 at 11:53 pm

Levi Adon

"Climate Change" is the Left's "War on Terror" - A frightened populace is more easily controlled.

October 27, 2009 at 9:38 pm

gcropser

Global warming, cap and trade, etc is really about our present administration wanting more power, control and money. I'm more concerned about the carbon dioxide being excessively emitted by our politicians in Washington. Let's clean up the air there first.

October 27, 2009 at 8:44 pm
(1 Reply)

Eric Booth

The AGW ship has hit an iceberg and is now slowly sinking. With temperatures falling over the past decade, and the CO2 link theory going the way of the Dodo bird, we can now expect more religious interpretations of nature....God works in mysterious ways...global warming causes global cooling....It's time someone wrote a sitcom on the subject....

October 27, 2009 at 8:15 pm
(1 Reply)

George

The scary thing is that global warming/climate change or whatever you want to call it is a political issue. People with lives have no time to fact check the constant flood of partisan propaganda. Who do you believe?

October 27, 2009 at 7:04 pm

David Hundley

The same thing happened to Bjorn Lomborg and will happen to anyone who questions the absolute priority of taking action on global warming. The climate activists aren't really interested in scientific discourse. They have an ideology to uphold. And you can't ask them to decouple reason from whatever it is that compels them to save the world. To them, those things are bound together. It's hard enough for scientists to be objective. I don't hold out any hope for Joe the Environmentalist.

October 27, 2009 at 6:25 pm

Mike McCreary

I have no idea why this would surprise anyone. This orthodoxy, in my opinion, has not been about concern for the earth from the beginning. It was adopted by the Al Gores of the world to finance and further their political ambitions and to take further control of the economy. The lifestyles of Gore and his friends are testimony enough that they are concerned primarily for themselves and their political power. They really don't care if the rest of us freeze or boil.

October 27, 2009 at 5:47 pm

Lee Russ

Parody: Critics Worry Influence of Global Warming Religion on Congress Violates Separation of Church and State http://optoons.blogspot.com/2009/10/critics-worry-influence-of-global.html

October 27, 2009 at 5:36 pm

Soonerliberty

John, did you miss the latest from Lord Stern in Britain? http://hotair.com/archives/2009/10/27/global-warming-goes-vegan/ No problem with the cows . . . voila, we will have to become vegetarians, and probably we'll eventually evolve into herbivores instead of nefarious, carbon-emitting omnivores. Maybe they will insist on using state health care to sandpaper down (statist health care at its best) our canines, so we physically can't tear meat. I wouldn't put it past the most fundamentalists.

October 27, 2009 at 5:01 pm

Trish Ripstra

Amen. It is all about the control! They don't give a "rats" or even understand what they are talking about when it comes to global warming.

October 27, 2009 at 4:42 pm

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  • John Stossel joined FOX Business and FOX News in October 2009. His show, Stossel, airs on the Fox Business Network on Thursdays at 8 p.m. ET

    He is the New York Times best-selling author of Give Me A Break and Myths, Lies and Downright Stupidity. His "Give Me a Break" commentaries take a skeptical look at a wide array of issues, such as education, the economy, parenting, and more.

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