KRUGMAN'S GLOBAL WARMING LIES, AND CALIFORNIA NONSENSE
Thanks to Glenn Reynolds at Instapundit <http://www.instapundit.com>
for pointing out <http://www.instapundit.com/archives/010889.php> my
National Review Online "Krugman Truth Squad" column yesterday, "Prove It
or Correct It."
<http://www.nationalreview.com/nrof_luskin/truthsquad081103.asp> Lots
of good reader responses came in as a result, including these two.
<http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/1552632121/luskinnet-20> One is
from Ross McKitrick, Associate Professor, Department of Economics,
University of Guelph in Canada, and one of the authors of Taken By Storm:
The Troubled Science, Policy and Politics of Global Warming (click here
to order it from Amazon.com, or click here to read more about it
<http://www.takenbystorm.info> ).
"Periodically Paul Krugman turns his attention to Kyoto and global
warming, a perfect Trojan horse for the folks who'd like to expand the
bureaucracy and raise taxation levels. In his August 8 New York Times
column <http://www.pkarchive.org/column/080803.html> , he spins up a
conspiracy theory based on some Salon.com article
<http://www.salon.com/tech/feature/2003/08/07/global_warming/print.html>
that supposedly shows global warming is uniformly accepted by all
scientists except those bought and paid for by the fossil and auto
industries. Then he defends his conspiracy theory by insinuating that Senator
James Inhofe is spinning his own conspiracy theories:
"'And before you accuse me of a conspiracy theory, listen to what the
other side says. Here's Senator James Inhofe of Oklahoma: "Could it be
that manmade global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on
the American people? It sure sounds like it."'
"The Inhofe speech <http://inhofe.senate.gov/floorspeeches.htm> from
which Krugman took a single line was about two hours long. It was a
detailed, well-informed survey of the conflicting evidence on climate
change and the clear evidence of the harm Kyoto would do to the US economy.
There is no conspiracy theorizing in the speech, but there is an
attempt at the end to account for the motivation of so many uninformed people
to push the global warming concept. It ends as follows:
"'Finally I will return to the words of Dr. Frederick Seitz, a past
president of the National Academy of Sciences, and a professor emeritus
at Rockefeller University, who compiled the Oregon Petition: "There is
no convincing scientific evidence that human release of carbon dioxide,
methane, or other greenhouse gasses is causing or will, in the
foreseeable future, cause catastrophic heating of the Earth's atmosphere and
disruption of the Earth's climate. Moreover, there is substantial
scientific evidence that increases in atmospheric carbon dioxide produce many
beneficial effects upon the natural plant and animal environments of
the Earth."
"'These are sobering words, which the extremists have chosen to
ignore. So what could possibly be the motivation for global warming
alarmism? Since I've become chairman of the EPW Committee, it's become pretty
clear: fundraising. Environmental extremists rake in million of dollars,
not to solve environmental problems, but to fuel their ever-growing
fundraising machines, part of which are financed by federal taxpayers.
"'So what have we learned from the scientists and economists I’ve
talked about today? 1) The claim that global warming is caused by
man-made emissions is simply untrue and not based on sound science. 2) CO2
does not cause catastrophic disasters—actually it would be beneficial
to our environment and our economy. 3) Kyoto would impose huge costs on
Americans, especially the poor. 4) The motives for Kyoto are economic
not environmental—that is, proponents favor handicapping the American
economy through carbon taxes and more regulation. With all of the
hysteria, all of the fear, all of the phony science, could it be that
man-made global warming is the greatest hoax ever perpetrated on the American
people? It sure sounds like it.'
"This is where Krugman got the quote."
And here's one from another economist -- he has asked for anonymity, so
I'll only say that he is affiliated with one of the regional Federal
Reserve Banks. Responding to my objection to the statement in Krugman's
August 1 New York Times column
<http://www.pkarchive.org/column/080103.html> in which he claimed that
real per capita California state spending growth was explained by
inflation and population growth, when those factors had already been
included in the numbers he quoted. The economist responds,
"On the real per capita business (and I hate to admit it) I'm with
Krugman. The raw number of the budget increase is huge -- something like
40%. The real per capita increase is 10% (or, more correctly, 13.4%).
That implies that 'most of the spending growth was simply a matter of
keeping up with the population and inflation' just as Krugman states.
Krugman isn't stating that real per capita spending didn't increase, but
only that real per-capita increases make up a minority of the raw
increase. That is, 10% out of 40% (or, more correctly, 13.4% out of 40%) is
less than half."
I responded,
"It doesn't surprise me that an economist would have no problem with
Krugman's statement about real per capita spending. When I first read
the statement it didn't bother me either, because I easily knew what
Krugman meant -- he was implicitly saying that population growth and
inflation reduced what would otherwise seem to be even greater spending
growth to 'only 10%' (of course it's really 13.4%
<http://www.poorandstupid.com/2003_08_03_chronArchive.asp#105999871000848008>
according to Krugman's own source, but that's another matter).
"But then I started getting emails from readers
<http://www.poorandstupid.com/2003_08_03_chronArchive.asp#106005937466013966>
, who are not economists. They were confused and misled by the way
Krugman chose to express himself. I went back and read it again, and could
see what they meant. Considering that Krugman has been browbeating the
Treasury Department
<http://www.poorandstupid.com/2003_08_03_chronArchive.asp#106015900037249213>
for the way it speaks about tax distribution statistics, he should set
a high standard and say exactly what he means. The evidence of the
emails I got is that people were misled -- and it's no coincidence that
they were misled in the direction that flattered Krugman's point. While
that element of Krugman's statement may not deserve a 'correction' per
se, he should certainly acknowledge its flaws (and hopefully not in his
usual supercilious way of sighing, smiling ironically, and then going on
about how he sometimes forgets that he's not writing for other trained
economists, and space is so constrained, and so on and so on....)."
The economist shot back,
"We are basically in agreement then, probably more than you think.
While the sentence does not fall into the category of 'factual error and
thus needs correction by the newspaper' it does fall into the category
'not a very good argument and thus needs refuting.'
"That is, what fraction of a raw spending increase that is due to real
per capita spending increases is irrelevant? What matters is the real
per capita increase itself. If one focuses on the fraction, it's as if
having a lot of inflation or population growth gives the state a license
to increase real per capita spending.
"The higher the inflation and population growth, the higher real per
capita spending growth can be and still allow the state to claim that
the fraction of the increase due to real per capita growth is below some
level, say 50%, and thus be able to argue that most of the increase is
due to population growth and inflation. This is nonsense."
Well said!
Posted by Donald Luskin at 12:01 AM | |
