The Philospher’s Preferred Instrument of Change: Tax

On ABC’s Lateline, last night, Emma Alberici interviewed Prof. Michael Sandel (the text is that of Lateline’s own transcription):

EMMA ALBERICI, PRESENTER:  Our guest tonight is the famed Harvard University professor of Government, Michael Sandel.  Newsweek calls him the most relevant living philosopher.

Well, if Newsweek praise him—

EMMA ALBERICI:  Which takes me to the dangerous political territory which you traverse in the book around climate change.  Now, you talk about this market in buying and selling the right to pollute in a way that clearly demonstrates that you’re not a fan.

What she means, by “the right to pollute”, is the lawful, industrial emitting of carbon dioxide—the trace gas which is essential for life on earth—as a byproduct, for example, of generating affordable power.

MICHAEL SANDEL: Well, I think the best way to reduce carbon emissions would be a carbon tax, which is terribly unpopular, certainly in my country and elsewhere.

This, of course, is assuming that “carbon emissions” need to be reduced on the further supposition that they cause global warming.  Strangely, for a supposed philosopher, Mandel neglects to question those pseudo-scientific assumptions.  Not so strangely, for an awarmist presenter on the awarmist ABC, Emma Alberici doesn’t bother asking her guest for evidence to support his assertions.

Some international agreements on global warming have included provisions, often at the insistence of the US, to allow countries to meet their obligations either by reducing their own emissions or by paying other countries to reduce theirs.  The worry, it seems to me, my worry, is that if we’re trying to generate a global ethic on the environment, on climate change, we're going to have to cultivate a sense that we are all in this together.  And if we allow rich countries to buy their way out of shared sacrifice, I’m concerned that this could erode the attitudes, the sense of common commitment and shared sacrifice that we will need truly to tackle the long-term challenge of reducing emissions.  So attitudes matter.  And sometimes monetary incentives can damage or erode or even corrupt attitudes that we need to support a shared public, in this case global, ethic.

So, if richer countries were to transfer more wealth to poorer countries, it would be bad because that sacrificing of money wouldn’t be as sacrificing as losing wealth by making energy less affordable for the less affluent.  Why, pray, do we even need a “global ethic”?  If global warming were truly endangering us all would not prudent, cost-effective action be more important than possibly protracted attempts to alter ethics?  Would Prof. Sandel prefer that ethical positions be shared on, say, the evils of slavery or the wickedness of the use of torture in police investigations, ere such practices be banned?

EMMA ALBERICI:  But isn’t that problem equally levelled around the carbon tax in so far as if only one country does it – the whole idea of an emissions trading scheme was that everyone was going to be doing it together, wasn’t it?  I mean, the carbon tax will only apply in one territory.
MICHAEL SANDEL:  Well ideally I think the major countries should try to get together and agree on – to enact carbon taxes, but I think if the major economies begin to do so, I think that can have a desirable effect for others.  I’m all in favour of anything we can do internationally to create a sense of shared responsibility to tackle climate change and global warming.  My worry was that simply relying on tradeable pollution permits, giving rich countries the right essentially to buy their way out of shared sacrifice would undermine the global cooperation, the shared ethic we need as citizens of this planet to do something serious about climate change.

Right, and that “something serious” to “tackle climate change” is to ruin the economies of wealthier countries.

EMMA ALBERICI:  What are your attitudes towards the compensation element?  I mean, in this country we have a carbon tax and then in some circumstances households were overcompensated for the effect of the tax on their particular household budgets.  And we see the same thing with big corporations being compensated for the harmful effect of such a tax.

By “overcompensated” Alberici means that people have been assigned slightly more funds—taken from taxpayers—than the Government has calculated—using, too often, imagined figures—might be the average burden foisted on ordinary taxpayers by various rises in costs after the imposition of the “carbon” tax, without taking into account the deleterious effect on the economy generally.

MICHAEL SANDEL:  Well I think that trying to offset the regressive aspects of a tax, helping those who are least able to bear it, is a good way of making a carbon tax politically acceptable without putting the greatest burden on those who can least afford it.  I’m not familiar with the way the compensation works with regard to companies. But I wish that we in this country would adopt a carbon tax and helping alleviate the burden on those who can’t afford it.  Because I think it would begin to change habits and change attitudes as well as practices and the emissions themselves with regard to one of the biggest challenges long term that we face.

Well, there you go:  a philosopher, and promoter of global ethics, wants to change others’ habits, beliefs and practices; he therefore advocates that governments impose additional taxes on them in order to force the changes he supports.  How philosophical and ethical!

“FrackNation” Reviewed

“FrackNation” is an independent feature documentary by Phelim McAleer, funded by the public through Kickstarter, that aims to correct the record about “Gasland”—an alleged documentary—which has persuaded people, who haven’t taken the time to research the matter, to  believe that fracking—induced hydraulic fracturing—is so polluting that you can get sick from breathing the air as you drive through Pennsylvania and that the farmers are in dire need of help. Josh Fox, the director of “Gasland”, was unwilling to talk about the historical facts that disprove one of the movie’s most memorable and influential scenes of a man setting his water of fire, and dismissed them as “not relevant”. McAleer then tried to post the video on different websites of Josh Fox stating the historical records of people being able to light their water on fire before fracking was irrelevant, but was silenced by HBO—supposedly because of copyright. This motivated McAleer to make his own movie based on what the affected farmers in Pennsylvania really had to say.

Phelim McAleer starts his investigation into the effects on farming that fracking had made by talking to the farmers themselves. He finds that a majority of the farmers and families involved with fracking were in favour of fracking and claimed that there were no ill effects, and that very few families opposed making much-needed money by leasing their land for drilling. Some opponents of fracking claim that their water was polluted because of fracking and that they got sick from drinking from their wells; one man even stated that because of fracking there is now weapons-grade uranium in his water along with a list of other dangerous and deadly chemicals. McAleer also found that there has always been methane and iron in those wells—and not from fracking—and that the families who say that their water is contaminated are unable to produce on film anything but clear water instead of the murky red or brown water shown in Gasland. McAleer and his crew then ask some real scientists about the affects of fracking on the environment.

McAleer asked several researchers (including journalists and engineers) about the effects of fracking and, each time, was told just how safe fracking is and how much Josh Fox misrepresented the process. Fox said that fracking was unsafe, destructive, polluting and could even lead to earthquakes. However, these claims prove to be false. James Delingpole, the journalist and author, said that shale gas is the miracle of the early twenty-first century; in terms of safety and environmental friendliness and economic efficiency, shale gas is about the best thing going in the world right now, he says.

Josh Fox used his film “Gasland” to try to scare decent people into believing that natural gas is bad and to convince us through lying and deception that the gas corporations are evil and are deceiving hard-working farmers into leasing their land to them, which those corporations would pollute beyond repair. Phelim McAleer, after investigating the matter himself, shows the public the truth about fracking.

As a compelling film that keeps you interested: 7 out of 10;

As a documentary that gives corrective arguments along with stories, interviews and visual confirmation of facts, presented in an interesting way: 7 out of 10.

(Cross-posted at Alfred’s Review.
DISCLOSURE:  Deadman helped fund FrackNation; see his earlier post “FrackNation”.) 

UPDATE I:  see “What Happened to the Media”, by Phelim McAleer:

For [anti-fracking] journalists and activists there has been no better story about the evils of fracking than the Hallowich family in Washington County Pennsylvania.  Mrs Hallowich told news outlets from across the world how her family’s health was destroyed by fracking activity near their home.  She claimed her family and in particular her children were suffering devastating health impacts caused by fracking and said her children could some day have cancer as a result.  […]

This narrative was only strengthened when it emerged that the Hallowiches had settled a legal battle with an oil and gas company and received a financial settlement.  And if any further proof was needed the settlement was covered by a non-disclosure clause—which the journalists and anti-fracking activists took as evidence of wrongdoing and then the cover up of the wrongdoing

But let’s not forget that journalists, when they want to be, can be enterprising.  So they worked out that the agreement covered minors–who of course have to be protected from corporations and, in the eyes of the law, sometimes even their parents. So they petitioned a court to release the details of the agreement because the court and not the parents were allowed to decide what was right for the children.

The court decided that there was no reason why the lawsuit covering the children should be kept secret and ordered all the documents should be released.  […]

To the dismay of anti-fracking activists and, I suspect, their journalistic supporters, the document dump confirmed that the Hallowiches had lied to them. The documents confirmed that even as they were claiming to media that fracking was damaging their children’s health, the Hallowiches were sitting on scientific and medical evidence that their children were healthy and not affected by fracking.  […]

In my documentary, FrackNation, we interviewed the Sautner family in Dimock, PA.  They had given dozens of interviews and in all of them claimed their water contained three types of uranium—“two of them weapons grade.”  Not one journalist ever asked for the science behind these claims.  It was a story that was too good to check.

The publicity surrounding Dimock, PA is one of the main reasons that fracking is now banned in New York—even though test after test by the PA state scientists and the EPA have revealed that there is no contamination in the water.  But these results—overturning a key allegation of anti-fracking activists—have received very little media coverage.

It is the same with the Hallowiches.  When the evidence proved their allegations wrong, the media just refused to publish the science and moved on to the next exciting allegation.  And in the meantime families who know no better are frightened of fracking, worrying if their family’s health will suffer.  Journalists owe it to these families to follow the story of the Hallowiches to the very end and publish the science that shows their water is clean and their family is healthy.

UPDATE II (23 April):  see “Tribeca festival shuts out dissent” by Phelim McAleer:

Our mistake was to believe the Tribeca Film Festival’s claims to want diversity of opinion and people who are passionate about film.
As a journalist who made a documentary looking at the factual deficiencies in the first “Gasland,” I put some inconvenient questions to Josh Fox as he was speaking to the media on the red carpet.
The farmers milling around nearby decided to join in with pointed but respectful questions of their own.  After all, they know their land better than anyone, and they felt aggrieved that their lives and communities had been misrepresented by the first “Gasland.”
They asked Fox if he now accepted that the water in Dimock, Pa., is clean.  He’d claimed that Dimock was one of the most contaminated areas in the United States because of fracking.  But state scientists and then the EPA investigated and found the water clean.
The farmers asked Fox if he’d accept the science and apologize for calling their community a wasteland.  He didn’t reply.
There was silence also when they asked Fox if he’s going to withdraw his claim that fracking has caused a spike in breast cancer.  That’s been debunked by the country’s top cancer experts, but Fox has remained silent, allowing the fears to linger.  […]
It seems that inconvenient questions aren’t welcome at the Tribeca Film Festival.  […]
One staffer said they were not allowed in “because you’re making trouble.”  Another was more honest: “We just don’t feel comfortable letting them into the movie,” she explained.
The festival organizers called the police just in case the farmers didn’t get the message that they weren’t welcome.
Julia Mineeva, a Russian journalist who’s covered the film festival for five years, thought she’d stumbled across a great story and started interviewing the various groups.  When she went in to see the movie she was asked to leave, followed, put in handcuffs, arrested and charged with trespassing.
It seems that covering both sides of a story is an arrestable offense at the Tribeca Film Festival.

Polar Bears and Awarmists

The Perfect Symbol

Cold weather, without
adequate energy for
heating, snatches lives

but the awarmists
complain of the plight of the
polar bear, which thrives.

That animal is
thus a perfect symbol for
awarmist alarm:

propagandists of
“climate-change” don’t understand
what causes most harm,

and polar bears are
depicted as endangered,
despite evidence,

for facts don’t matter
and feelings are always more
worthy than good sense

when pushing pseudo-
scientific forecasts of
catastrophic doom,

and demonising
industry and Western folk
who dare to consume.

Unfortunately,
for self-serving scaremongers,
the world is cooling

and, consequently,
the numbers will ever fall
of those they’re fooling.

See Rob Lyons, in “Adopt a polar bear? Have you seen what they do?”:

The claim that polar bears are under threat is a cynical attempt at emotional blackmail, designed to short-circuit debate about climate change while adding cash to the overflowing coffers of multinational green mega-NGOs.  WWF alone reported a worldwide income of over €500 million in 2011.  Given the apparent health of most polar-bear populations, it’s time the whole fairytale about polar-bear extinction was put on ice.

UPDATE (10 April):

A Lack of Warming Does Not Prove a Lack of Warming
 
Any hot summer
must make us swallow foolish
awarmists’ absurd

conjecture that slight
warming dooms us.  Logic, for
them is but a word.

Remind them of all
their faulty prophecies:  “Our
first, second and third

reports,” they shriek, “missed
that oceans have hidden warmth,
but you’ve never heard

a mistake from us!”
Though covered in crap, such folk
remain undeterred.

Ezra Levant and Patrick Moore: Environmentalist No More

See, in “Environmentalist No More”, Ezra Levant and Patrick Moore discuss how far from charitable the alleged environmental charities are.

ANU’s Survey on “Climate Change” Fails to Define “Climate Change”

The awarmist ANU sponsors a questionnaire on “climate change” which lacks a definition of “climate change”.  The study, “Understanding Beliefs About Global Climate Change”, is allegedly unbiassed, with “no specific agenda”:

Purpose of the Study:  This project addresses how governments, businesses and communities might build a sustainable future.  […]

Potential Benefits:  This study creates an opportunity to help provide policy implication guidelines for enabling a sustainable future.

A “sustainable future”:  forthcoming events which can then be maintained, or times to come which will then remain the same?
One question asks, “Do you think that global climate change is occurring at present?”  (Well, of course, the world’s climate has always changed and, for as long as we have a climate, always will.)  Another question asks respondents to estimate the extent that “climate change has been a cause of […] Changing weather patterns”.  (Hmm, that’s a trickier one:  a change in climate might well effect a change of weather, I suppose.)

Notice that there is no provision for a respondent to answer “I don’t know,” or, “it depends on what you mean by ‘climate change’, you galegnathous thickheads.”

The full survey can be seen here.

UPDATE I: I sent an e-mail to the ANU’s Prof. John Roberts asking why the survey failed to define “climate change”.  I shall add any response I receive.

UPDATE II (16 May):   Prof. Roberts has kindly responded:

Thank you for your comment on the survey that my colleagues and I are conducting at the ANU regarding “climate change.”
I do take your point about the desirability to define “climate change” before gathering people’s attitudes towards it.  This was indeed an option that we considered, but decided against it.
The primary (but not only) reason for our decision is that it is the perceptions of different stakeholders in which we are interested.  The expression climate change has a considerable amount of social usage and we are interested in the degree to which different groups in the community feel that is an issue, consistent with their perceptions of what the term means, to them.

Piers Corbyn: the Sun Warms the Earth, and How

To say that CO₂ drives global warming, “is utter madness, and fraud”.

“We are heading for a Dalton-type minimum of cold temperatures which will affect Europe considerably: there will be more very cold winters and more lousy summers.”

Droughts May Lead to Droughts!

In “We’re likely to be a land of increasingly severe droughts and floods”, the mendacious lackey of the Australian Government’s Office of the Propagation of Awarmist Faith, Prof. Will Steffen, asserts (with the supporting evidence, as always, of axioms and appeals to authority):

Extended dry periods are expected to increase in southwest and southeast Australia by the end of this century, increasing the risk of drought.

So, to be clear, extended dry periods, or droughts, will increase the risk of extended dry periods, or droughts.  No!  Clearly, we need a new, ruinous tax on the air we breathe, instanter.

The magnitude of these risks [of Climate Change!] ultimately depends on the effectiveness of global emission reduction efforts, including by Australia.  The transition to a clean energy economy, which is gathering speed in many parts of the world, gives us great hope that we can minimise these potential risks.

So, to be clear, the world must reduce the emissions of gases, which have not been proven to warm the world dangerously or to cause more floods and droughts, lest the world warm dangerously bringing more floods and droughts; and the enforced use of more expensive forms of energy production by corrupt, incompetent governments should make us more optimistic that we can avert the risks which are not real risks.

UPDATE:  see also “A Land of Severer Severities”.

A Submission to the DPP

I sent this submission today to Mr. Tim Ellis SC, the Tasmanian Director of Public Prosecutions:

I write to suggest respectfully that you give serious consideration to investigating Prof. Tim Flannery (the Australian Climate Commissioner) and, should you find sufficient evidence—as I’m sure you will—I advocate that you prosecute him for conspiracy to defraud the people of Tasmania, for fraud, for acquiring a financial advantage, and for numerous other crimes.
I was present in the audience recently (at the Hobart Town Hall, on Wednesday, 22 February) when Prof. Flannery and several other malfeasant accomplices presented false, manufactured, deceitful, specious arguments in favour of the fraudulent, pseudo-scientific conjecture of Catastrophic Anthropogenic Global Warming (CAGW).  It is obvious wherefore Prof. Flannery promotes the silly, unfalsifiable (and therefore unscientific) conjecture of CAGW: he makes a great deal of money therefrom and clearly expects to make much more; he already receives a handsome salary (plus, I imagine, other benefits) extracted from taxpayers (by way of incompetent governments); he also stands to extort more funding for his self-interested proposals for the development of geothermal energy.

I shall gladly provide contact details of real scientists who can explain how greatly mistaken Prof. Flannery’s predictions, analyses and explanations are.  It is my contention, of course, that Prof. Flannery is more than mistaken: he must know by now that CAGW is a scam, but he relentlessly continues to spread alarmist, nonsensical claims of likely doom for all mankind from slightly rising seas and insignificantly increased average temperatures because of his egregious greed.
Prof. Flannery and his fellow conspirators need to be prosecuted for their willfully criminal attempts to defraud, and for their related, alarmist scaremongering, so I beg you to investigate this mendacious, mercenary, lucripetous, alleged scientist (and to acknowledge this request) as soon as possible.

From the Tasmanian Criminal Code Act 1924:

252A.  Acquiring a financial advantage

—(1)  Any person who by any deception dishonestly acquires for himself or for any other person any financial advantage is guilty of a crime.

297.  Conspiracy

—(1)  Any person who conspires with another [...]

(c)  to commit any crime;
(d)  to cheat or defraud the public, or any particular person, or class of persons;
(e)  to extort, by any means, any property whatever from any person;
(f)  to inflict by any unlawful means any injury or harm upon the public, or any particular person or class of persons;
(h)  to do any act involving, and known to be likely to involve, public mischief; [...]

is guilty of a crime.

UPDATE I (3 March):  I sent today a request to Mr. Chris Craigie SC, the Commonwealth Director of Public Prosecutions, recommending that he too investigate and prosecute Prof. Flannery (under provisions of the Criminal Code Act 1995) “for obtaining a financial advantage by deception, for general dishonesty, for conspiracy to defraud, and for numerous other crimes.”

UPDATE II (5 March):  I received this message from Cathy Granger, Executive Assistant to the DPP:

Mr Ellis SC has read your letter and has asked me to advise you that he has no investigative function or power.

UPDATE III (5 March):  I sent today a request to Tasmania Police recommending that the police investigate and prosecute Prof. Flannery.