There is very little that is the product of the human mind that is incomprehensible to an individual who is determined to understand it. I’ve gone through the climate arguments for years now, and the data as presented is tentative if not counterfactual and contradictory. Especially troubling is the fact that the increase in temperatures does not seem to continue.
I’ve even invested (and lost money) in the AGW movement. As a participant I’ve been witness to the opportunism of political bureaucracies in finding a new means of taxation and regulation that mean more jobs, more budget and more political power — all justified by popular sentiment, and none motivated by the matter under question. I’m personally acquainted with some of AGW’s leadership early proponents, and the leadership of the supposedly neutral agencies. I’ve witnessed self interest trump public good on the part of nearly every one of these people I’ve come into contact with. It was nothing but a cash grab: a gold rush by everyone I encountered.
The demonstrated abuse of the scientific process, and the energetic politicization of the material throws what is potentially informative into question. Especially in light of the more serious environmental concerns, particularly overfishing, developing-world pollution, and human overbreeding — concerns whose solutions would requires states engage in the difficult task of competing with one another rather than against a weaker private sector that cannot refuse their authoritarian violence.
Therefore the objective mind is left to choose between a possible risk that cannot be proved, or yet another abuse of institution of science for self serving and political purposes. And the simpler solution prevails: human self interest, hubris and error.
However, given that we all want a cleaner world to live in, and that a world that continues to industrialize will only exacerbate the problem. Then the objective mind argues that we should attempt to produce power and create the fewest emissions.
That’s a smart policy. Tax games that just reward the academic and political bureaucracies for shoddy science and immoral political behavior are not smart policy.
The AGW peak has passed. But we must keep up the struggle against the bureaucracy until we learn how to privatize, and that we must privatize, in order to prevent the abuses that naturally arise from any bureaucracy that is not subject to market pressures.