Category Archives: Media Criticism

Business, Economics, Media Criticism, Political Commentary, Science And Society

CO2 Mitigation

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Thoughts on the cost ineffectiveness:

As we say on the shopping channels, “But wait. There’s more.” How much would it cost, I wondered, to forestall 1 Celsius degree of warming, if all measures to make “global warming” go away were as hilariously cost-ineffective as the Sandwell Sparrow-Slicer?

We economists call this the “mitigation cost-effectiveness.” You get the mitigation cost-effectiveness by dividing the total warming forestalled by the total lifetime cost of the project. And the answer? Well, it’s a very affordable $13 quadrillion per Celsius degree of warming forestalled.

And remember, this is an underestimate, because our methodology will have tended to overstate the warming forestalled — and that’s before we politicians ask any questions about whether IPeCaC’s estimates of climate sensitivity are wanton, flagrant exaggerations. (Cries of “No!” “Shame!” “Resign!” “What did I do with my expenses claim form?”)

Suppose it was just as cost-ineffective to make “global warming” from other causes go away as it is to make “global warming” from CO2 go away. In that event, assuming — as the World Bank does — that global annual GDP is $60 trillion, what percentage of this century’s global output of all that we make and do and sell would be gobbled up in climate mitigation? The answer is an entirely reasonable 736%, or, to put it another way, 736 years’ global GDP.

But won’t someone think of the children?

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

The Coming War Against Israel

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Predictions from Barry Rubin:

How would the U.S. government respond?

A. President Barack Obama warns Egypt that breaking the U.S.-guaranteed Egypt-Israel peace treaty would bring a strong military response from America, an immediate aid cut-off, sanctions on Egypt, full U.S. aid to Israel, and possible U.S. military action against Egypt.

What? Oh, sorry, I was daydreaming for a moment. Let’s start that section over again….

How would the U.S. government respond?

President Obama would make a speech, call for a solution of the Israeli-Palestinian issue, express his admiration for Islam, stress the need for further study, play golf.

Have I left out anything?

More thoughts from VDH:

If one had, for two and a half years, made it clear to the world that the Middle East’s problems were attributable not to the rising Hamas-Syria-Iran nexus, not to the corruption and intransigence of the Palestinian Authority, and not to the general misery that accrues from tribalism, fundamentalism, gender apartheid, lack of constitutional government, and statist economic practices, but to democratic Israel’s building apartments in Jerusalem and general unwillingness to trust its assorted neighbors — then one might have anticipated the current aggression against Israel. The more the Obama administration talked up the Israel “problem” in the midst of Middle East unrest that had nothing to do with Israel, and promised to lean on it, the more it became a self-fulfilling prophecy that an Iran, Syria, Hezbollah, or Hamas would try to deflect popular dissatisfaction with their own ruthless autocracy onto the constitutional state of Israel.

Indeed, it’s already started to happen.

Media Criticism, Political Commentary, War Commentary

Public Choice

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…in national security:

Assume that Democrats know that Republicans will generally support them when Democrats are in the White House and taking tough national security positions. But the Democrats also send unmistakeable signals to the electorate that, if they are pushed out of power, they will undermine a Republican administration trying to do exactly the same, and taking exactly the same actions. Their support is not reciprocal even when the action is the same.

It should be abundantly clear by now to any objective observer that most of the fulmination against George Bush by the Democrats was nothing but convenient posturing.