CARPE DIEM
Professor Mark J. Perry's Blog for Economics and Finance
Thursday, February 14, 2008
About Me
- Name: Mark J. Perry
- Location: Washington, D.C., United States
Dr. Mark J. Perry is a professor of economics and finance in the School of Management at the Flint campus of the University of Michigan. Perry holds two graduate degrees in economics (M.A. and Ph.D.) from George Mason University near Washington, D.C. In addition, he holds an MBA degree in finance from the Curtis L. Carlson School of Management at the University of Minnesota. In addition to a faculty appointment at the University of Michigan-Flint, Perry is also a visiting scholar at The American Enterprise Institute in Washington, D.C.
Previous Posts
- Econ Lightened Up: We're All Freakonomists Now
- Real Retail Sales Suggest Slowdown, Not Recession
- Legal Process Outsourcing: Savings Up to 70%
- Seems a Lot More Like Global Cooling This Winter
- Trade Deficit Down, QIV GDP May Double to 1.1%
- Stimulus Updates
- Consumers Haven't Given Up Just Yet
- Recession? What Recession?
- Would Julian Simon Have Won a Second Bet?
- Last 25 Yrs.: Most Stable Economy in U.S. History
15 Comments:
Most scientists don't use the words global warming, rather they use the words climate change, discussing what is happing to our planet's climate.
The term global warming is a generalized trend and does not infer that every location on the planet is warming, or warming by the same amount.
The same way that some economists might say we are in a recession, they are not inferring every company or part of the economy is in a recession.
50 years ago people joked about drinking and driving and didn't think it was a serious problem, they didn't realize that thousands of people were dying from it.
While I enjoy the occation global warming joke, the seriousness and implications of the problem should not be made fun of lightly.
Yeah, unless you don't believe in a pending "climate change disaster," in which case you're labeled as a heretic....
Yeah, unless you don't "believe in" international scientific consensus like kraut apparently does not. I thoroughly enjoy this blog but I'm with Trevre on this issue.
"We could see colder winters and hotter summers in the future"
And they call Economics the dismal science....sheesh.
The world has surely gone stark, raving bonkers.
Kraut & Trevre,
Before you two become experts on the "consensus" view, you might try reading the most recent IPCC scientific report.
One of the items not covered by the media is that the report clearly states that there has been no increased in severity of tropical storms as previously predicted.
While climatologists agree that there is evidence of climate change, suggesting that all scientific inquiry on this subject can be summed up by the word "consensus" is ludicrous. Science is not a show of hands.
Scientific inquiry continues to examine this very complex problem. In some areas, there is very little data due to the inaccessibility and hostility of the environments involved. For example, there is very little data on ocean temperatures and no mapping of the ocean seafloor (including the volcanic ridge) under the arctic ice cap.
To pretend that we have all of the answers and don't need to have any more investigation demonstrates a total lack of appreciation of the complexity of the systems involved.
We can agree that there seems to be a problem. The nature of the problem seems to be beyond our limited knowledge. It therefore seems to be a supreme waste of time trying to debate about a subject about which we know less than nothing. In economics, this is generally referred to as an opportunity cost.
Prof. Perry,
With all due respect, perhaps we could move on to a subject in your area of known acumen, namely, economics. Recent postings have been far more informative that this one.
It seems pointless to engage in a debate between believers and non-believers when little in the form of substinative fact can be offered to support any argument. Where is the logic?
A perfect example of a 1st grader’s understanding of the issue. Why even educate yourself on the complex factors involved. Likely you don’t understand you mortgage either. Conservative sheeple.
anon, I disagree with the "consensus" view ... perhaps you meant to address to cory?
I agree that the issue is very complex and that's why I have such a hard time swallowing the consensus. Meteorologists have a hard enough time predicting the weather a few days from now let alone years or decades from now.
More than anything, though, I think I am most frustrated with how the media tries to connect virtually every weather "phenomenon" to so-called global warming or "climate change."
BTW, what was the "consensus" on the dot.com boom before the bust?
Scientific consensus, huh? Guess you only look at the 'facts' that appeal to you...
http://flaggman.wordpress.com/2007/02/06/global-warming-deniers-are-from-mit-princeton-uottawa-etc/
Sheesh...
Also, nobody mentions that the other planets within our solar system are also on average getting warmer.
Kraut,
My apologies for lumping you in with the true "believers". I am also tired of the media ascribing every weather anomoly to global warming.
There is very little doubt that human activities can change the climate. Deforestation, inappropriate cultural methods (ie. deep tilling of fragile soils creating the dustbowl effect of the 1930s), introduction of non-specific graising animals (ie. mereno sheep & goats) to name a few. Some of these changes have been remarkable like the creation of Dujiangyan dam in China over 2,000 years ago which has transformed an arid step land into the breadbasket of China.
I don't believe it is possible to learn anything from the present media hype. I also find it difficult to believe that I am destroying the planet every time I exhale. A very important scientific discussion is being hampered by attempts to hijack the agenda by activists making wild and unsubstantiated predictions. The very fact that anyone who asks a question is labelled a "denier" tells you something is wrong with this picture.
The strategy is very simple: bypass any scientific inquiry by jumping to a public policy debate, and discrediting anyone who asks any questions or expresses any other views. We even have those who compare dissent to denying Darwin's theory of evolution or believing that the world is flat.
Where are the scientists? Televised programs on this subject rarely include any climatologists on their panels of experts...the guests are largely comprised of journalists, public policy analysts, and professional activists.
The actual scientific inquiry is happening far from any news media or political activists.
How is it that everyone tells us what the scientists think without actually allowing them to express their opinions? Isn't this the equivalent of telling your host that your wife wouldn't like a glass of sherry?
When we do hear from climatologists like John Christy and Fred Singer, they suggest that climate change is a very complex subject and that there is no monolithic, group think consensus ascribed to by all experts. They tell us that the IPCC panel continues to examine and collect thousands of pieces of data.
Oh and by the way, Dr. Perry, I don't think you should limit the breadth of the topics you discuss on your blog. You don't require me to be an economist to give my two cents on economics, just like I don't require you to be a atmospheric scientist to give your two cents about climate change or global warming or global cooling.
Climate change has as much to do with economics as anything else and it belongs on the blog.
Prof. Perry,
I am personally sick of the hype around every snow storm, hysteria and morality in the name of climate change. You can post whatever you like but I find the the endless wrangling between believers and non-believers trading weather reports very frustrating.
"Climate change has as much to do with economics as anything else"
Trevre raises a key aspect of this debate and one that has had little attention aside from the Stern Report which did not get very much examination. Public policy proposal to "fix" climate change have huge economic consequences.
I would prefer that we concentrated on the economic rather than scientific aspects of this subject since we are neither climatologists nor earth scientists.
Climate research says Lake Mead, in the Southwest, could be gone by 2021. That'll put a wrench in the economy.
Yeah ... notice that "climate change" is one of the many listed reasons. I'd venture to guess population growth has more to do with it ...
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