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BobbyDigital
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Thoughts on Dr. Baejter's Lecture
« Thread Started on Mar 14, 2007, 9:13pm »

I had a lot of problems with Dr. Baetjer’s lecture Tuesday night. The main problem I had was the entire premise his speech. That being if we had a political failure with the War in Iraq, then solving the problem of global warming using government intervention will only result in a failure. The Iraq War and Global Warming are apples and oranges. I understand the argument that since we had a “knowledge problem” going into Iraq, global warming has the potential for the same issue. However Iraq has resulted in a “failure” so far because it has been mismanaged.
It is now seen as common knowledge that Iraq never had the weapons of mass destruction that we and many other intelligence agencies around the world thought they had. However we did not know this until we went in for ourselves, because Saddam kept throwing out the weapons inspectors. Once it started to seem as if the WMD’s that we thought Saddam had were non-existent, we had taken on a huge responsibility of making sure Iraq was better than we left it. We had to make sure that Iraq did not fall back into the wrong hands, or become a breeding ground for terrorism because of the weaknesses of any post-Saddam government. Thus began the democracy experiment in the middle east, where the administration wanted to make the Iraqi government a model for other governments in that part of the world. A great concept however this is where the war was largely mismanaged. With Donald Rumsfeld at the helm and “neoconservative” think tanks such as the American Enterprise Institute dictating policy, the middle east has taken a down turn. Diplomacy took a backseat while the military became stretched thin in an area of the world that was growing more scared of us than their own terrorists. Fortunately now that the Administration lost it’s congress with the ’06 election, we are seeing Bush’s stubbornness disappear. He is finally admitting mistakes and changing course. We now have a Defense Secretary that does not get defensive(pardon the pun) when a problem occurs but tries to solve it. John Bolton is now condemning U.S. foreign policy from the AEI and not dictating it at the UN. And Condi Rice is now freed up to show the world her strengths now that the Vice-President’s influence in the Administration is diminishing.
Getting involved in Iraq may or may have not been a mistake, but a mistake that we had to make if we trusted the intelligence (or those who may have cherry-picked it). The problems that occurred were policy decisions that resulted in these political failures. The same goes for global warming, if we are to relate the two issues. For those who missed the lecture, Dr. Baejter’s solution to the global warming problem was essentially to adapt to it when the time comes. His reasoning for adaptive solutions and not preventative solutions was that since Iraq has resulted in a failure with government as the vehicle that led to that failure, government will only lead us to failure if they take on global warming. As I said earlier these are apples and oranges. If you want to compare government monitoring of carbon dioxide emissions to anything compare it to the U.S. government’s current policy on monitoring sulfur dioxide emissions
( http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/progsregs/arp/s02.html )
which has been very successful in reducing social costs/negative effects of sulfur dioxide without creating a market or political failure. If signing an international treaty is the problem, then how has the Montreal Protocol not resulted in the political failure that Iraq has? The Montreal Protocol is the international treaty that phases out substances that deplete the ozone layer. The U.S. along with 190 other nations signed this treaty in 1987, and now data is suggesting that the ozone layer is repairing itself because of these reductions.
( http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2003/08/0805_030805_ozone_2.html ) I would not consider the national geographic to be a bias source considering that publication is how I found out about global warming occurring on Mars, which is an issue that seems to keep Dr. Baejter skeptical on whether or not humans are affecting the climate.

With all this said I have great respect for Dr. Baejter mainly for his ability get students as excited about the subject matter as he is. I thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to hear him speak, although I respectfully disagree.

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Howard Baetjer
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Re: Thoughts on Dr. Baejter's Lecture
« Reply #1 on Mar 15, 2007, 3:17pm »

BobbyDigital:

First, thanks for making the effort to come to the talk and give your opinions here, and thanks for your kind remarks on my getting students excited.

You write: “However Iraq has resulted in a “failure” so far because it has been mismanaged.”

I agree that it has been mismanaged, but I think the reason for THAT is the reasons I gave: people in government have neither the knowledge nor the incentives necessary to manage well anything that complex.

I hope you are correct Gates and Bolton and Rice will now make good decisions. I would love to be proved wrong in objecting to the war in Iraq from the outset.

I think you make good sense when you write: “If you want to compare government monitoring of carbon dioxide emissions to anything compare it to the U.S. government’s current policy on monitoring sulfur dioxide emissions
( http://www.epa.gov/airmarkets/progsregs/arp/s02.html )
which has been very successful in reducing social costs/negative effects of sulfur dioxide without creating a market or political failure.”

True, the “cap and trade” policy on sulfur dioxide emissions, which creates in essence a market for permissions to emit, has been very successful in reducing sulfur dioxide emissions. And as I said in my talk, good studies suggest that a similar program for carbon dioxide could bring about good results, if applied to all nations and enforced.

But arguing this way misses my main point: I’m saying that if we let government loose on the global warming problem, they probably won’t choose sound policies such as an international cap and trade program, well enforced.

For evidence I offer two points: 1) the Kyoto protocol that so many push for sets up a cap and trade program that DOES NOT INCLUDE all nations. Developing nations are exempt (or not signatories?). And without all nations participating, the models Bjorn Lomborg refers to in The Skeptical Environmentalist indicate that major net harm would result.

2) What Mr. Bush talked about in his State of the Union address, and what Congress seems to be rallying behind, is not a sensible international cap and trade policy but the deeply stupid policy of increasing use of ethanol and other biofuels, an approach that is already producing substantial net harm.

Again, my point is not that policies that produce net benefit don’t exist; it is that because politicians and bureaucrats care about politics more than science and economics, they usually choose policies that produce net harm. That’s not certain, but it’s likely. Therefore we should severely limit what we let governments do.

--H. Baetjer

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BobbyDigital
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Re: Thoughts on Dr. Baejter's Lecture
« Reply #2 on Mar 15, 2007, 9:44pm »

Thank you for taking the time to respond to my post and clarifying your position. I’m glad that my criticism has lured a professor onto this forum, and I apologize for misspelling your name earlier as you may have noticed.

First allow me to clarify my position by separating Bolton from the list of individuals I think will now make the right decisions. John Bolton is part of the old school of thought that I hope is on its’ way out of the administration. Here is a good article from the Financial Times this morning related that topic for anyone interested. http://www.ft.com/cms/s/dc14fd96-d25c-11db-a7c0-000b5df10621.html

Forgive me for being misleading with your stance on “cap & trade”. Perhaps I misinterpreted your presentation of “cap & trade” by generalizing your position on government intervention.

I agree that the Kyoto Protocol is and will be a failure for the same reasoning. Especially now that the internet has allowed developing countries to develop faster and integrate more globally, any international treaty that deals with carbon dioxide levels needs to provide incentive for developing countries to join or a disincentive not to join.

I also can agree with your second point that President Bush’s State of the Union Address and new plan to import more ethanol from Latin America could produce net harm. Mainly because of the reasons listed in your lecture; i.e. corrosion of pipes used for oil therefore it can only be transported by truck. This “step in the right direction” as many have said seems more of a ploy to get "Greens" on board with his 2006 State of the Union goal of breaking our “addiction” to foreign (middle eastern) oil. My solution to the future ethanol problem would be a Manhattan Project-style initiative for hydrogen and renewable energy technology to leap frog adapting to ethanol all together. We could even use the money that the administration’s energy plans tend to give to companies like Exxon for research and development to fund the project.

The area where I have problem is with your conclusion:
“Again, my point is not that policies that produce net benefit don’t exist; it is that because politicians and bureaucrats care about politics more than science and economics, they usually choose policies that produce net harm. That’s not certain, but it’s likely. Therefore we should severely limit what we let governments do.”

The only way to severely limit what we let governments do (unless there is a better suggestion) is to elect politicians that will severely limit what governments do. So if that were possible why shouldn't we just elect politicians that will implement policies that produce net benefit? I would conclude that prior to implementation of policy, net benefits are all relative to the individual; which puts me back at square one.

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