According to Amanda Vanstone, public discourse is ailing because public intellectuals and commentators fail to address “Bob and Mary Stringbag (an average couple who shop on the weekend with a string bag)”. I don’t know when Amanda last went shopping, but it’s been years since I saw a string bag down at the mall. I don’t even bother to suggest that Amanda might have heard of weblogs.

Teresa Fels asks what Jason and Ken Parish think about the issues raised by the Esso class action which is about to commence, but I’ll take her invitation as general. In this piece, which was mainly devoted to debunking the Y2K bug (remember that?), I made the case for strict liability in the case of privatised (or for that matter, corporatised) monopoly suppliers of infrastructure services. Key para:

The case for corporatisation and privatisation is based on the assumption that the profit motive is the best guide to efficient outcomes. If this is the case, then we will get as much safety and reliability as is profitable. Assuming the suppliers of services have better information than anyone else, this means they should be absolutely liable for the consequences of any systems failure, without a requirement to prove negligence. Absolute liability is the criterion that prevails, for practical purposes, in the United States, which is the model for private provision of infrastructure services. If we import US institutions like private electricity companies, we must also import the legal institutions, such as aggressive litigation, that keep those companies honest.

What revolution are You?
Made by altern_active
Thanks to Group Captain Lionel Mandrake for pointing me to this quiz. Judging by our shared views, and the fact that we both got the same revolution, the Founding Fathers really hated Microsoft.

Tim Blair says “Call me an optimist, but signs of wonderful green death seem to be appearing all over” and I’m happy to take up the invitation. The only signs of death mentioned by Tim are a collision between two rallies and an attack from someone called “Leon Mann”, director of something called the ” Free Market Foundation”. I bet lots of Greenpeace activists handed in their resignations when they heard that Leon had come out against them.
Meanwhile, as Tim himself observes “BMW, Zurich Financial, De Beers and Shell spent millions in Johannesburg to present themselves as green-friendly. ” and of course China, India, Canada and Russia announced that they would ratify Kyoto. By omitting Canada and Russia, and ignoring the fact that China and India are now committed to future rounds in which they will have targets, Tim manages to dismiss this as meaningless. The Australian government isn’t quite as silly, and is starting to realise how lonely life will be as the only non-ratifying country small enough to be kicked with impunity.
For some real signs of death, hop on over to the Global Climate Coalition Until a couple of years ago, this was the main big business lobby group opposing Kyoto and included most of the big motor and oil companies. The individual companies started dropping out and GCC regrouped as an umbrella body for business organisations. That didn’t work and they’ve now declared victory and gone home. To quote their site:
“The Global Climate Coalition has been deactivated.  The industry voice on climate change has served its purpose by contributing to a new national approach to global warming.  ”
Of course, Tim’s objections are more about style than substance and here there’s some good news. The kind of street-theatre politics in which Greenpeace traditionally excelled is becoming obsolete. Why chain yourself around a corporate headquarters when, as Tim’s own report notes, they’re eager to invite you into the boardroom.

In the interests of readability, I’m experimenting with changes to the colour scheme. One result may be the end of the interesting (and sometimes confusing) coincidence of templates with the Catallaxy collective and Weatherall’s Law. But if my changes are an improvement, Jason and Kim are welcome to copy them. If you have comments or suggestions, please email me – it will be easier for me to keep track of than the comments box.

The RSL says no to war with Saddam. More precisely, it sets out sensible conditions: clear evidence of danger, a specific UN resolution, a plan for postwar reconstruction.
A couple of observations on this. First, I’d guess that this means that the RSL is now dominated by people who were in Korea and Vietnam, rather than WWII, and are therefore unimpressed by slogans like “All the way with the USA”.
Second, as is pretty much the norm, I used the term “sensible” in the first para to mean “agrees with me”. I can see that this is problematic, but I can’t think of any *sensible* alternative.

Following some vigorous exchanges, we seem, surprisingly enough, to have come close to a consensus about the range of scientific views on global warming. All contributors to the debate, notably including Ken Parish, seem to agree that my proposed statement of the Global Warming hypothesis:

GWH: Human activity has contributed to global warming over the past century, and, in the absence of policy responses, is likely to generate additional warming of at least 1 degree C over the next century

is broad enough to encompass the views of all the serious contributors to the climate science component of the debate, including moderate sceptics like Richard Lindzen. In particular, all serious contributors to the debate agree, at least on the balance of probabilities, that the evidence supports human-induced global warming.

So the big question for debate is how much warming the “business as usual” scenario will lead to. The range
(a) around 1 degree – the skeptical view
(b) 1 to 3.5 degrees – the mainstream IPCC view
(c) 3.5 -5 degrees – the worst-case view (e.g Stephen Schneider)
From what I can see, effects like substantial species extinction, destruction of natural ecosystems, flooding etc are likely to be severe if the warming exceeds 2 degrees, and warming of 5 degrees would produce widespread human catastrophe.
Which of these is right depends on complex arguments about feedbacks and so on, on which aren’t going to be resolved in a hurry. But the existence of uncertainty cuts both ways. Things might turn out better than the IPCC expects, but they could also be worse.
So the question is, what do we do in the face of this kind of uncertainty. There are both philosophical and practical issues here. Philosophically, there’s a choice between ‘precautionary’ and ‘permissive’ principles. The precautionary principle says we should minimise environmental risk in cases of uncertainty, the permissive principle says we shouldn’t restrict economic activity unless it’s been proven to be harmful.
I prefer a practical rather than a philosophical approach. Will it be cheaper, on average, to do nothing now and take really drastic action in a shorter timeframe if the warming turns out to be in the upper range of predictions, or to start now with Kyoto and take the risk that costs will have been incurred for nothing if the sceptics turn out to be right? Given the difficulty of doing anything fast that’s already been demonstrated, I think the latter approach is justified.

An interesting piece from Daniel Gross at Slate, looks at the declining fortunes of Edison (a for-profit schools company, listed on NASDAQ) and concludes that for-profit (or at least corporate) education is inherently uneconomic. I agree, with the caveat that narrowly focused vocational training can be delivered on a for-profit basis, as witness the ‘University’ of Phoenix (the scare quotes reflect the fact that this institution would probably not qualify as a university in Australia or many US states).

There’s been an interesting debate within the Catallaxy collective concerning inheritance taxes, affirmative action and related topics. Without covering all of the issues let me make a couple of observations. First, as David Friedman observes, efficiency arguments are based on the presumption that, if we always choose the policy that maximises aggregate dollar benefits, gains and losses to individuals will cancel out over time, leaving everyone better off than under any plausible alternative rule. This argument clearly doesn’t apply if much of one’s life chances are inherited or otherwise determined at birth. So, to my mind, efficiency arguments against inheritance taxes are doomed from the start.
Second, this debate raises questions about the idea, popular in Third Way circles, that we can forget about equality of outcomes and focus on equality of opporunity. Given highly unequal outcomes in one generation, the successful members of that generation will find ways to give their children a headstart. Hence, equality of opportunity can’t coexist with ‘too much” inequality of outcomes.

Ken Parish sensibly declines my challenge to find 50 climate scientists opposed to the global warming hypothesis, but continues to deny that there is a scientific consensus on the subject. So let me sharpen things up a bit. I assert that at least 95 per cent of climate scientists (and probably 99 per cent) accept the global warming hypothesis, as defined below

To back up my claims, I’ll offer a version of the challenge in which I do the heavy work. I invite Ken (or anyone) to provide a list of independent climate scientists opposed to, or sceptical of, the global warming hypothesis, stated as follows
GWH: Human activity has contributed to global warming over the past century, and, in the absence of policy responses, is likely to generate additional warming of at least 1 degree C over the next century
To recapulate, qualified experts must:
(i) hold an academic or equivalent position in climate science or some closely related field such as meteorology or oceanography (as opposed to, say, areas of physics unrelated to climate modelling)
(ii) have no conflict of interest, such as employment by fossil fuel companies or thinktanks with a stated viewpoint on the issue
For each name supplied, I’ll either
(a) object on grounds (i) or (ii), or failure to demonstrate scepticism
(b) supply 20 names of similarly qualified supporters of GWH, with backup
Assuming I can keep up my end of the challenge, the ratio supports my estimate of 95 per cent support for GWH
(Note: I have deleted a comparison with anti-evolution sceptics which I thought on reflection was unreasonable)