31 July 2009
Today’s Tabbloid
PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Keeping Allies at Bay [Cato at
Liberty]
JUL 30, 2009 08:06P.M.
Many people who care deeply about the Henry Louis Gates incident will
steer clear of it because of the racial component and the high dudgeon.
Maybe I’m not so wise. At the risk of sounding ”I know what it’s like . . .
.”
I’ve been harassed by police for idling my car outside of a grocery store,
waiting for a friend to bring out his groceries. I gave them the wrong look
as they passed, I guess, so they circled back to berate me on the pretext
that the asphalt in front of the store was a fire lane. Never mind that it
was after 11:00 p.m. and the parking lot was empty.
I held my tongue - even pretended to get a little weepy - and collected
their car number. Once home, I called the sheriff’s office, saying I had
gotten some help from some officers and wanted to get their names
to ”write a nice letter or something.” The next day I called back and
spoke to their Senior Deputy, Deputy Arnaldi, about what was at a
minimum rudeness and to me very threatening. It turns out that Deputy
Tuller was a training officer bringing a young man named Vargas up to
speed on how to intimidate and offend the public.
Also in college, police came to a party of mine because of a noise
complaint - well-founded, I’ll admit. Instead of quieting the party, they
drew my roommate outside and claimed they needed his ID, but refused
to let him get it. Instead, they encircled and harangued him. It appeared
to me that they were trying to draw him into violence. It’s a tribute to his
lifelong decency and dignity that he didn’t take the bait. My roommate
was black, and the inference I drew from the circumstances is that the
police had it in for him because he was black.
I was a little more assertive this time. I demanded the name of the
ringleader. He responded by asking me to come talk to him on the street,
but I guessed that he would have stronger grounds to arrest me there so I
declined.
His name was Abel Pibo. Abel Pibo of the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s
Department is a stain. If he has family who loves him, they should know
that other people feel very differently.
Next up, law school. In the summer between my first and second year,
police officers in South Dakota invented a reason to convert a tail-light
stop into a full-blown search of my car and passengers, complete with a
1
drug-sniffing dog and a camera crew from a television show called ”Real
Stories of the Highway Patrol.” The car, which had been broken into by
thieves earlier in the trip, was ransacked again, by “law enforcement.”
My assertiveness grows. To render the television footage unusable, I
stood just off-camera swearing like a sailor throughout the search and
the re-staging of events the officers did for the camera crew. Every
combination of the filthy words I’ve ever known passed my lips twice.
Why recite these incidents in such detail? Why tell you what I think
of Abel Pibo? To convey the depth of feeling I have - and so many of us
have - about police abuses of power.
I’ve been lucky, of course, because I haven’t been arrested - even as I’ve
gotten mouthier with age. And it’s entirely clear to me as a person who
resides in the upper echelons of society (putting aside traditional
categorizations) that much worse is happening to other people.
It’s not about being anti-police. During those college years, I worked in a
nightclub where we often relied on and worked with local police. I won’t
use their last names, but Bill, Sid, and Dennis (aka “Sergeant Idol”) are
great guys. When I got decked by a guy wearing a ring and had to get my
chin stitched up, Sid was ticked! I had never seen him scurry around
quite so much. And I appreciate it.
As Tim Lynch noted, Radley Balko captured what won’t be taught in this
evening’s teaching moment: “[T]he issue here is abuse of police power,
and misplaced deference to authority.”
Radley tells the story of our friend Brooke Oberwetter, who was arrested
at the Jefferson Memorial for dancing on his birthday - perhaps, more
accurately, for asking why she wasn’t allowed to dance there on his
birthday.
At a cross-ideological panel discussion on civil liberties post-9/11 some
months ago, I told the story of Brooke’s arrest and the slightly over-
righteous commentary about “the state” in one of the videos. A co-
panelist from the NAACP observed to my delight (paraphrasing), “So
your ‘the state’ is our ‘the man!’” It was an absolutely hilarious comment
- and a delight because it crystalized the common interest we all have.
Police abuses I’m quite certain fall disproprtionately on African
Americans.
With regret, I report that the NAACP is seeking policy changes that
aren’t grounded in these common interests. They want anti-racial
profiling training and race and gender sentivity training.
These things won’t address the issue most central in the Henry Louis
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
Gates incident, or the issue that will bring more communities and
constituents on board. Unfortunately, this approach to the matter is
keeping allies at bay.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
The Benefits of Going
Naked…Swaps and Derivatives
[Cato at Liberty…Swaps and
Derivatives]
JUL 30, 2009 04:28P.M.
Key House Democrats have just proposed a new plan for regulating our
Nation’s derivatives’ markets. While the heart of the plan mirrors the
Obama Administration’s proposal to require standardized derivatives,
such as credit default swaps (CDS), to be traded over a centralized
exchange, the House proposal also goes further, raising the possibility of
banning “naked” positions in the derivatives, equities and debt markets.
Taking a naked position, where one hedges or bets on a specific risk
without actually holding the underlying asset or liability, has been widely
blamed for bringing down our financial system. This blame is misplaced.
For instance, credit default swaps betting that companies such as Fannie
Mae, Bear Stearns or AIG would fail did not bring down those companies
- bad management practices and excessive risk-taking did. Of course
when those companies were on the way down, their management wanted
to blame everyone but themselves; short-sellers and speculators were
just the messenger of a truth that management wanted to hide.
At heart, our markets, particularly our capital markets, serve as valuable
aggregators of information, generally via the price mechanism.
Speculators, including those holding a naked position, help bring new
and valuable information to the market place. Recall it was the short-
sellers who discovered Enron’s frauds, not the regulators or the rating
agencies. Banning naked positions will only serve to reduce the
information content of market prices, and also further entrench
incompetent management.
In addition to the aid in price discovery, speculators also provide much
needed liquidity to other holders of the same instruments. For instance if
you purchase a GM bond and also a credit default swap on GM to hedge
the credit risk in that bond, you would prefer to be able to see that CDS
contract in as broad a market as possible. If you were limited to selling
that contract only to another holder of that same bond, you will likely
have both a harder time selling that contract and will receive a lower
price for it. One of the hardest parts of resolving AIG has been finding
buyers for its derivatives contracts. A deeper market in derivatives would
lessen the potential “fire sales” that can occur when a large financial firm
fails.
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31 July 2009
Of course how one treats derivatives in the case of an issuer failure can
greatly impact the stability of the financial system. By removing
derivatives and CDS from the automatic stay provisions of the
bankruptcy code in 2005, Congress guaranteed that when a large issuer
of CDS got into any trouble, there would be a run on its collateral. The
solution is not to ban naked positions, but to reduce the potential for
collateral runs by treating CDS counter-parties like any other creditor.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Tweeting Lawmakers [The Club
for Growth]
JUL 30, 2009 02:18P.M.
The Politico’s Glenn Thrush has a few theories on why Republicans
outnumber Democrats two-to-one on Twitter.
Theory I: Democrats have a lot less time on their hands.
Theory II: Republicans are more desperate to appeal to young
people.
Theory III: When you’re in power, you’re less likely to share
details of what you’re doing minute by minute.
I like all of them, especially the last one.
NOTE: If you want to follow me on Twitter, click here. For the Club,
click here.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Transparency: Read the Bill?
See the Earmarks! [Cato at
Liberty]
JUL 30, 2009 12:39P.M.
Via MLive.com, here’s House Judiciary Committee chairman John
Conyers (D-MI) pooh-poohing the idea that members of Congress should
read legislation before they vote on it.
He is under attack for it — attacks he can deflect because they’re partisan
and because he’s a from a quintissential safe district. So instead of
gulping the too-potent elixir of outrage, let’s sip a while on substance.
Members of Congress don’t read bills. Instead, they efficiently (for them)
place trust in staff and other politicians to know enough of what’s in a
bill, and enough of the politics, to get by.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
I agree with the ReadtheBill campaign, which wants Congress to post all
legislation online for at least 72 hours before it is considered. It’s
complementary to President Obama’s 38-times-broken promise to post
bills online for five days before he signs them.
The point, of course, is not having 535 people sit down and thumb
through every single page of the legislation coming before them. It’s
having the 535 members of the House and Senate know what’s in the
bills they vote on. But even more than that, it’s about letting the public
know what is in the bills before Congress votes.
“What good is reading the bill if it’s 1,000 pages and you don’t have two
days and two lawyers to find what it means after you read the bill?” says
Congress. Give us two days — no, make it three — and Americans,
including lawyers, will let you know.
The thirst for transparency is not speculative. WashingtonWatch.com (a
site I run) recently asked the public to gather data about congressional
earmarks, which have long been shrouded in secrecy. In under two
weeks, ordinary Americans have put more than 8,000 earmarks into the
database to create a ”United States Earmarks Map.” (It loads a little
slowly because of all that data.)
Through this project, a relatively small group of people will help expose
how the Washington spending machine works, and by exposing it,
change it.
You can review Chairman Conyers’s earmarks by selecting “Michigan” in
the drop-down menu below the map, then selecting “Rep. John
Conyers.” And if the earmarks your member of Congress requested are
not in the database yet, you can enter them here.
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31 July 2009
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Cult Watch: Obama’s “Chat”
About Cambridge Arrest [Cato
at Liberty“Chat” About
Cambridge Arrest]
JUL 30, 2009 12:01P.M.
So President Obama is going to host Professor Gates and Officer Crowley
today at the White House. Much has already been said about
the controversial arrest for “disorderly conduct.” IMHO, it seems like a
false arrest. I wasn’t there, but it is not a crime for someone to
be obnoxious to the police (and that is basically the cop’s version of the
incident). For additional background, I recommend the columns by
Eugene Robinson, Harvey Silverglate, and Radley Balko.
But leave the arrest itself aside. Even more disturbing is Obama’s leap
into this matter. It is yet another indication of the Cult of the Presidency
where the President sees a role for himself in just about any aspect of
life. The news media covers the event as if it is pretty much ordinary
business. What’s next? Will Mr. Obama try to help the Gosselins out by
having Jon and Kate over for tea? Obama could bring in the best
counselors in the world while Michelle takes the kids on a helicopter ride
to Camp David for the afternoon.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Thursday’s Daily News [The
Club for Growth]
JUL 30, 2009 11:55A.M.
THE DAILY NEWS Why ObamaCare is Morphing into RomneyCare -
J. Pethokoukis, Reuters The Pelosi Jobs Tax - Wall Street Journal
Editorial Is Health Bill Too Complex to Grasp? - Victoria McGrane,
Politico Senate Deal: Change a Few Names - Michael Tanner, Cato
Institute Pete Sessions’s Blimp Flies into Storm - John Bresnahan,
Politico Can the Fed Identify Bubbles Before They Happen? - Donald
Luskin, WSJ Too Many Presidential Czars - Rep. Eric Cantor,
Washington Post Relentless Cuts Net 0.0025% In Savings - IBD
Editorial House Dems May Resurrect ‘Cramdown’ Bill - Silla Brush, The
Hill Why Investors Should Ignore GDP - John Tamny, Real Clear
Markets Cubs 12, Astros 0 - Associated Press
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Is America About to Be Overrun
by the
Chinese/Russians/Anybody?
[Cato at Liberty]
JUL 30, 2009 11:45A.M.
One of the frequent tropes of recent years is the notion that the United
States is in decline, and America is plunging from being the only great
power in the system to a status merely as first among equals. A veritable
slew of books have come out in recent years making this argument. You
also get this rhetoric when folks are arguing that we need more F-22s
than we actually do, or for various other military-industrial-
congressional boondoggles that the MIC complex and its supporters
don’t want to give up.
One rhetorical tactic these folks have used is the “defense spending as a
share of GDP” approach, which implicitly argues that defense needs
should not be based on threat assessment, but rather on economic
growth. The more economic growth, the more defense needs we have.
(By this ramshackle logic, an uncharitable critic like me could note,
economic growth is deleterious to national security. By contrast, if we
went into a serious and enduring economic downturn, we’d get much
more secure.)
A couple of useful data points have recently emerged that could help
lower our pulse a little. The folks over at the U.S. Naval Institute blog
point to the sixth failure of the latest Russian SLBM technology, snarkily
observing that “generally speaking, the preferred direction for a ballistic
missile, especially a sub-launched one is UP.”
In addition, Tom Donnelly offers a sensible take on the “Russia is going
to reassemble the USSR” argument, noting
Moscow’s ability to enforce its writ in the hinterlands has
fallen far down. And even Putin isn’t spending the rubles
required to rebuild the Red Army. Second, the collapse of the
Soviet Union cost the Russian empire about 400 years worth
of conquests. Retaking Abkhazia [sic] might seem like a first
step, but the road to great power status — as measured by
something more than nuclear weapons and commodity prices
— is very long.
Still, recognizing that Russia is not capable of reassembling the Soviet
empire does not mean that we ought to be sending Joe “Ukrainian
Chicks Are Hot” Biden over to Georgia and Ukraine to plump for NATO
expansion and dance on the Soviet grave.
But the new panic we’re supposed to take up is the latest discernment of
the glacial Chinese move toward developing their first aircraft carrier.
The USNI blog points to an op-ed by the Brookings Institute’s Peter
4
31 July 2009
Singer throwing cold water (sorry) over the bow of said carrier:
In trying to justify Cold War-era structures, people often
point to the danger presented by the rise of another “peer”
state that is building a blue-water fleet just like our own. This
is Pentagonese for China as a “rising sea dragon,” with their
desire to match our aircraft carriers perhaps the most widely
cited manifestation of their menace.
[...]
But a little reality check may be in order. First, their “new”
carrier is not all that new. Actually, the Varyag was first laid
down back in 1985. Originally planned for the Soviet fleet, it
was never completed. Instead, at the Cold War’s end, it was
scrapped of all its electronics and engines and sold off to be a
floating casino. Even if the Chinese can refurbish it, at best
they will be getting an old, untested ship that carries only a
third as many planes as a U.S. carrier.
Similarly, the idea that the Chinese can build four new
carriers over the next decade is less than realistic. It takes
approximately six years to build one of our aircraft carriers,
and we have been doing this for more than eight decades. By
comparison, the biggest warship the Chinese have yet to build
on their own is 17,000 tons, a quarter the size. More
importantly, building a ship is not the same as operating it
successfully.
Maybe we’re all going to survive after all. My colleague Ted Carpenter
has described our tendency to overrate our threat environment as
“strategic hypochondria.” We should get over it. It’s unbecoming in a
country, as Sen. J. William Fulbright noted, “whose modern history has
been an almost uninterrupted chronicle of success.” Such a country,
wrote Fulbright, “should be so sure of its own power as to be capable of
magnanimity.” Meanwhile, some of the most serious problems the
country faces, as has become evident, come from within. It’s going to be
much harder to fix them while we’re simultaneously trying to run the
planet.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Who are Entrepreneurs? [Cato
at Liberty]
JUL 30, 2009 11:14A.M.
The Kauffman Foundation has produced an interesting study about the
background of entrepreneurs. They create businesses for many reasons,
including to make money and work for themselves, and play a major role
in generating the economic growth that benefits the rest of us. Too bad
politicians, who create so little of value, so often stand in the way of
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com 31 July 2009

productive entrepreneurs. President Obama’s coveted government-run “public option”

plan.

“I want to see the Senate give its proposal so that in

FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS September we can contribute to having a conference that’s
productive and results in health care reform,” said Hoyer. “I
Big Tax Burden News [The Club don’t think there’s any specific item that is
absolutely essential to reform.”
for Growth]
JUL 30, 2009 10:07A.M. You can say that again.

The IRS just released some interesting tax information - the Top 1% is
now paying more in taxes than the Bottom 95%. Scott Hodge from the
Tax Foundation created this chart to illustrate the news. This begs the FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
question: At what higher rate do liberals want to tax “the rich” in order to
make the tax code, in their eyes, more fair? Cherry Picking Climate
Catastrophes: Response to
Conor Clarke, Part II [Cato at
Liberty]
JUL 30, 2009 08:53A.M.

Conor Clarke at The Atlantic blog, raised several issues with my study,
“What to Do About Climate Change,” which Cato published last year.

One of Conor Clarke’s comments was that my analysis did not extend
beyond the 21st century. He found this problematic because, as Conor
put it, climate change would extend beyond 2100, and even if GDP is
higher in 2100 with unfettered global warming than without, it’s not
obvious that this GDP would continue to be higher “in the year 2200 or
2300 or 3758”. I addressed this portion of his argument in Part I of my
response. Here I will address the second part of this argument, that “the
possibility of ‘catastrophic’ climate change events — those with low
probability but extremely high cost — becomes real after 2100.”

The examples of potentially catastrophic events that could be caused by

anthropogenic greenhouse gas induced global warming (AGW) that have
been offered to date (e.g., melting of the Greenland or West Antarctic Ice
Sheets, or the shutdown of the thermohaline circulation) contain a few
drops of plausibility submerged in oceans of speculation. There are no
scientifically justified estimates of the probability of their occurrence by
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS any given date. Nor are there scientifically justified estimates of the
magnitude of damages such events might cause, not just in biophysical
Then Let’s Call the Whole Thing terms but also in socioeconomic terms. Therefore, to call these events
“low probability” — as Mr. Clarke does — is a misnomer. They are more
Off [Cato at Liberty] appropriately termed as plausible but highly speculative events.
JUL 30, 2009 09:43A.M.
Consider, for example, the potential collapse of the Greenland Ice Sheet
According to CNS News: (GIS). According to the IPCC’s WG I Summary for Policy Makers (p. 17),
“If a negative surface mass balance were sustained for millennia, that
In a sign that intra-party negotiations continue to drag on, would lead to virtually complete elimination of the Greenland Ice Sheet
[House Democratic Majority Leader Steny] Hoyer [MD] and a resulting contribution to sea level rise of about 7 m” (emphasis
declared that no single provision was sacred, not even added). Presumably the same applies to the West Antarctic Ice Sheet.

5
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
But what is the probability that a negative surface mass balance can, in
fact, be sustained for millennia, particularly after considering the
amount of fossil fuels that can be economically extracted and the
likelihood that other energy sources will not displace fossil fuels in the
interim? [Remember we are told that peak oil is nigh, that renewables
are almost competitive with fossil fuels, and that wind, solar and biofuels
will soon pay for themselves.]
Second, for an event to be classified as a catastrophe, it should occur
relatively quickly precluding efforts by man or nature to adapt or
otherwise deal with it. But if it occurs over millennia, as the IPCC says, or
even centuries, that gives humanity ample time to adjust, albeit at a
socioeconomic cost. But it need not be prohibitively dangerous to life,
limb or property if: (1) the total amount of sea level rise (SLR) and,
perhaps more importantly, the rate of SLR can be predicted with some
confidence, as seems likely in the next few decades considering the
resources being expended on such research; (2) the rate of SLR is slow
relative to how fast populations can strengthen coastal defenses and/or
relocate; and (3) there are no insurmountable barriers to migration.
This would be true even had the so-called “tipping point” already been
passed and ultimate disintegration of the ice sheet was inevitable, so long
as it takes millennia for the disintegration to be realized. In other words,
the issue isn’t just whether the tipping point is reached, rather it is how
long does it actually take to tip over. Take, for example, if a hand grenade
is tossed into a crowded room. Whether this results in tragedy — and the
magnitude of that tragedy — depends upon how much time it takes for
the grenade to go off, the reaction time of the occupants, and their ability
to respond.
Lowe, et al. (2006, p. 32-33), based on a “pessimistic, but plausible,
scenario in which atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations were
stabilised at four times pre-industrial levels,” estimated that a collapse of
the Greenland Ice Sheet would over the next 1,000 years raise sea level
by 2.3 meters (with a peak rate of 0.5 cm/yr). If one were to arbitrarily
double that to account for potential melting of the West Antarctic Ice
Sheet, that means a SLR of ~5 meters in 1,000 years with a peak rate
(assuming the peaks coincide) of 1 meter per century.
Such a rise would not be unprecedented. Sea level has risen 120 meters
in the past 18,000 years — an average of 0.67 meters/century — and as
much as 4 meters/century during meltwater pulse 1A episode 14,600
years ago (Weaver et al. 2003; subscription required). Neither humanity
nor, from the perspective of millennial time scales (per the above quote
from the IPCC), the rest of nature seem the worse for it. Coral reefs for
example, evolved and their compositions changed over millennia as new
reefs grew while older ones were submerged in deeper water (e.g.,
Cabioch et al. 2008). So while there have been ecological changes, it is
unknown whether the changes were for better or worse. For a melting of
the GIS (or WAIS) to qualify as a catastrophe, one has to show, rather
than assume, that the ecological consequences would, in fact, be for the
worse.
Human beings can certainly cope with sea level rise of such magnitudes
if they have centuries or millennia to do so. In fact, if necessary they
6
31 July 2009
could probably get out of the way in a matter of decades, if not years.
Can a relocation of such a magnitude be accomplished?
Consider that the global population increased from 2.5 billion in 1950 to
6.8 billion this year. Among other things, this meant creating the
infrastructure for an extra 4.3 billion people in the intervening 59 years
(as well as improving the infrastructure for the 2.5 billion counted in the
baseline, many of whom barely had any infrastructure whatsoever in
1950). These improvements occurred at a time when everyone was
significantly poorer. (Global per capita income today is more than 3.5
times greater today than it was in 1950). Therefore, while relocation will
be costly, in theory, tomorrow’s much wealthier world ought to be able to
relocate billions of people to higher ground over the next few centuries, if
need be. In fact, once a decision is made to relocate, the cost differential
of relocating, say, 10 meters higher rather than a meter higher is
probably marginal. It should also be noted that over millennia the
world’s infrastructure will have to be renewed or replaced dozens of
times – and the world will be better for it. [For example, the ancient city
of Troy, once on the coast but now a few kilometers inland, was built and
rebuilt at least 9 times in 3 millennia.]
Also, so long as we are concerned about potential geological catastrophes
whose probability of occurrence and impacts have yet to be scientifically
estimated, we should also consider equally low or higher probability
events that might negate their impacts. Specifically, it is quite possible —
in fact probable — that somewhere between now and 2100 or 2200,
technologies will become available that will deal with climate change
much more economically than currently available technologies for
reducing GHG emissions. Such technologies may include ocean
fertilization, carbon sequestration, geo-engineering options (e.g.,
deploying mirrors in space) or more efficient solar or photovoltaic
technologies. Similarly, there is a finite, non-zero probability that new
and improved adaptation technologies will become available that will
substantially reduce the net adverse impacts of climate change.
The historical record shows that this has occurred over the past century
for virtually every climate-sensitive sector that has been studied. For
example, from 1900-1970, U.S. death rates due to various climate-
sensitive water-related diseases — dysentery, typhoid, paratyphoid, other
gastrointestinal disease, and malaria —declined by 99.6 to 100.0 percent.
Similarly, poor agricultural productivity exacerbated by drought
contributed to famines in India and China off and on through the 19th
and 20th centuries killing millions of people, but such famines haven’t
recurred since the 1970s despite any climate change and the fact that
populations are several-fold higher today. And by the early 2000s,
deaths and death rates due to extreme weather events had dropped
worldwide by over 95% of their earlier 20th century peaks (Goklany
2006).
With respect to another global warming bogeyman — the shutdown of
the thermohaline circulation (AKA the meridional overturning
circulation), the basis for the deep freeze depicted in the movie, The Day
After Tomorrow — the IPCC WG I SPM notes (p. 16), “Based on current
model simulations, it is very likely that the meridional overturning
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
circulation (MOC) of the Atlantic Ocean will slow down during the 21st
century. The multi-model average reduction by 2100 is 25% (range from
zero to about 50%) for SRES emission scenario A1B. Temperatures in the
Atlantic region are projected to increase despite such changes due to the
much larger warming associated with projected increases in greenhouse
gases. It is very unlikely that the MOC will undergo a large abrupt
transition during the 21st century. Longer-term changes in the MOC
cannot be assessed with confidence.”
Not much has changed since then. A shut down of the MOC doesn’t look
any more likely now than it did then. See here, here, and here (pp. 316-
317).
If one wants to develop rational policies to address speculative
catastrophic events that could conceivably occur over the next few
centuries or millennia, as a start one should consider the universe of
potential catastrophes and then develop criteria as to which should be
addressed and which not. Rational analysis must necessarily be based on
systematic analysis, and not on cherry picking one’s favorite
catastrophes.
Just as one may speculate on global warming induced catastrophes, one
may just as plausibly also speculate on catastrophes that may result
absent global warming. Consider, for example, the possibility that absent
global warming, the Little Ice Age might return. The consequences of
another ice age, Little or not, could range from the severely negative to
the positive (if that would buffer the negative consequences of warming).
That such a recurrence is not unlikely is evident from the fact that the
earth entered and, only a century and a half ago, retreated from a Little
Ice Age, and that history may indeed repeat itself over centuries or
millennia.
Yet another catastrophe that greenhouse gas controls may cause is that
CO2 not only contributes to warming, it is also the key building block of
life as we know it. All vegetation is created by the photosynthesis of CO2
in the atmosphere. In fact, according to the IPCC WG I report (2007, p.
106), net primary productivity of the global biosphere has increased in
recent decades (see Figure 1, above), partly due to greater warming,
higher CO2 concentrations and nitrogen deposition. Thus , there is a
finite probability that reducing CO2 emissions would, therefore, reduce
the net primary productivity of the terrestrial biosphere with potentially
severe negative consequences for the amount and diversity of wildlife
that it could support, as well as agricultural and forest productivity with
adverse knock on effects on hunger and health.
There is also a finite probability that costs of GHG reductions could
reduce economic growth worldwide. Even if only industrialized countries
sign up for emission reductions, the negative consequences could show
up in developing countries because they derive a substantial share of
their income from aid, trade, tourism, and remittances from the rest of
the world. See, for example, Tol (2005), which examines this possibility,
although the extent to which that study fully considered these factors
(i.e., aid, trade, tourism, and remittances) is unclear.
Finally, one of the problems with the argument that society should
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31 July 2009
address low probability high impact events (assuming a probability could
be estimated rather than assumed or guessed) is that it necessarily
means there is a high probability that resources expended on addressing
such catastrophic events will have been squandered. This wouldn’t be a
problem but for the fact that there are opportunity costs associated with
this.
According to the 2007 IPCC Science Assessment’s Summary for Policy
Makers (p. 10), “Most of the observed increase in global average
temperatures since the mid-20th century is very likely due to the
observed increase in anthropogenic greenhouse gas concentrations.” In
plain language, this means that the IPCC believes there is at least a 90%
likelihood that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions (AGHG) are
responsible for 50-100% of the global warming since 1950. In other
words, there is an up to 10% chance that anthropogenic GHGs are not
responsible for most of that warming.
This means there is an up to 10% chance that resources expended in
limiting climate change would have been squandered. Since any effort to
significantly reduce climate change will cost trillions of dollars (see
Nordhaus 2008, p. 82), that would be an unqualified disaster,
particularly since those very resources could be devoted to reducing
urgent problems humanity faces here and now (e.g., hunger, malaria,
safer water and sanitation) — problems we know exist for sure unlike the
bogeymen that we can’t be certain about.
Spending money on speculative, even if plausible, catastrophes instead
of problems we know exist for sure is like a starving man giving up a fat
juicy bird in hand while hoping that we’ll catch several other birds
sometime in the next few centuries even though we know those birds
don’t exist today and may never exist in the future.
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Fun With DHS Press Releases!
[Cato at Liberty]
JUL 30, 2009 08:41A.M.
Let’s fisk a DHS press release! It’s the “Statement by DHS Press
Secretary Sara Kuban on Markup of the Pass ID Bill by the Senate
Homeland Security and Government Affairs Committee.” Here goes:
On the same day that Secretary Napolitano highlighted the
Department’s efforts to combat terrorism and keep our
country safe during a speech in New York City,
This part is true: Secretary Napolitano was in New York speaking about
terrorism.
Congress took a major step forward on the PASS ID secure
identification legislation.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com
There was a markup of PASS ID in the Homeland Security and
Governmental Affairs Committee. It’s a step — not sure how major.
PASS ID is critical national security legislation
People who have studied identity-based security know that knowing
people’s identities doesn’t secure against serious threats, so this is
exaggeration.
that will break a long-standing stalemate with state
governments
Thirteen states have barred themselves by law from implementing REAL
ID, the national ID law. DHS hopes that changing the name and offering
them money will change their minds.
that has prevented the implementation of a critical 9/11
recommendation to establish national standards for driver’s
licenses.
The 9/11 Commission devoted three-quarters of a page to identity
security — out of 400+ substantive pages. That’s more of a throwaway
recommendation or afterthought. False identification wasn’t a modus
operandi in the 9/11 attacks, and the 9/11 Commission didn’t explain
how identity would defeat future attacks. (Also, using “critical” twice in
the same sentence is a stylistic no-no.)
As the 9/11 Commission report noted, fraudulent
identification documents are dangerous weapons for
terrorists,
No, it said “travel documents are as important as weapons.” It was
talking about passports and visas, not drivers’ licenses. Oh — and it was
exaggerating.
but progress has stalled towards securing identification
documents under the top-down, proscriptive approach of the
REAL ID Act
True, rather than following top-down prescription, states have set their
own policies to increase driver’s license security. It’s not necessarily
needed, but if they want to they can, and they don’t need federal
conscription of their DMVs to do it.
– an approach that has led thirteen states to enact legislation
prohibiting compliance with the Act.
“. . . which is why we’re trying to get it passed again with a different
name!”
Rather than a continuing stalemate with the states,
Non-compliant states stared Secretary Chertoff down when he
threatened to disrupt their residents’ air travel, and they can do the same
to Secretary Napolitano.
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31 July 2009
PASS ID provides crucial security gains now by establishing
common security standards for driver’s licenses
Weak security gains, possibly in five years. In computer science — to
which identification and credentialing is akin — monoculture is regarded
as a source of vulnerability.
and a path forward for ensuring that states can electronically
verify source documents, including birth certificates.
We’re on the way to that cradle-to-grave biometric tracking system that
will give government so much power over every single citizen and
resident.
See? That was fun!
FISCALLY CONSERVATIVE BLOG FEEDS
Will the Blue Dogs Ever Bite?
[Cato at Liberty]
JUL 30, 2009 08:37A.M.
We’ve written more than once about the Democratic “Blue Dogs” and the
lack of any actual evidence for their supposed fiscal conservatism.
Now Merrill Mathews in The Wall Street Journal tells the sad story of
the Blue Dogs in the Obama era. They call in the journalists, and they
moan and complain about their concerns over the deficit and rising
federal spending. And when the rubber meets the road, what happens?
• The State Children’s Health Insurance Program (SCHIP).
One of the first things the Democratic leadership wanted the
newly inaugurated President Obama to sign was a huge
expansion of SCHIP. Democrats have been trying to pass the
expansion for over a year, with some bipartisan support.
President George W. Bush vetoed the legislation twice, and
Congress sustained his veto both times by a hair.
SCHIP was created for low-income uninsured children not
eligible for Medicaid. Under the old bill, children whose
family incomes were 200% of the federal poverty level were
covered. With the new bill, Democrats increased funding to
cover children whose family incomes are up to 300% of the
federal poverty level—or $66,000 a year for a family of four.
The Bush administration and most conservatives thought it
should remain at 200%. Did the Blue Dogs agree? Only two
voted against the expansion.
• The $787 billion stimulus. The next major spending package
was Mr. Obama’s stimulus bill. Not one House Republican
voted for the bill. The Blue Dogs? Only 10 of 52 voted against
it.
Today’s Tabbloid PERSONAL NEWS FOR lgn@limitedgovernmentnetwork.com 31 July 2009

• President Obama’s 2010 federal budget. In April, Congress

took a vote on the president’s $3.5 trillion budget for
2010—by far the biggest spending package in history. Again,
not one House Republican voted for the bill, but only 14 Blue
Dogs joined them in opposition.

Matthews says the health care bill is the Blue Dogs’ last chance to show
that they actually do care whether the federal government spends us into
bankruptcy.