Over at Skeptic Ink, the Prussian picks up the theme in an analysis whose thesis he declares
up front:
To summarize, when it comes to climate change, the left is right on the science and wrong on the politics, and the right is wrong on the science and right on the politics.
As evidence of both propositions, he cites me, and no lefties at all. But I'd forgotten the passage he quotes from me on the politics of "climate change", and, if I do say so myself, I think it bears repeating:
Governments that are incapable of—to pluck at random—enforcing their southern border, reducing waiting times for routine operations to below two years, or doing something about the nightly ritual of car-torching "youths," are nevertheless taken seriously when they claim to be able to change the very heavens—if only they can tax and regulate us enough.
That's the point. The President of the United States assured us last night that there's no argument, "climate change" is happening, "the science is settled", and he needs a free hand to act now. But he's the guy who gave us Obamacare, and there's no reason to believe that letting his genius loose on the planet's climate would be anything but an even bigger fiasco. The Prussian again:
One can take the Solyndra fiasco in the United States, the failures of things like wind power, and so forth. There is a distinct impression, by no means unsupported, that government initiatives in this will lead to nothing whatsoever except cronyism and failure. Indeed, as Bjorn Lomborg has repeatedly shown, carbon cuts right now will do effectively nada when it comes to tackling this problem.
But, whatever they do for the polar ice caps, they massively expand government, and advance the power and prestige of the likes of Michael Mann. And, if it turns out they're wrong, do you seriously think they'd surrender all that? So I would say it's more important to be right on the politics than on the science, which will take care of itself, and would be healthier if restored to a normal branch of objective inquiry from its present politically sexed-up fever swamp.
