The fact that the American Enterprise Institute (currently funded by ExxonMobil, but not for much longer it seems) is offering $10K a pop to scientists and economists willing to attack the IPCC report is all over the press and the blogosphere (a PDF scan of one of the letters has been posted here. I was alerted by David Adamson, who pointed me to this Courier-Mail report citing the Guardian. It’s striking to think that when I started blogging in 2002, the AEI was still widely respected.
Meanwhile Brad DeLong has suggested that he and I should put our hands up for the cash. Since we are closely familiar with all the main denialist arguments, it would be money for jam after all. Sad to say, this appears to be an invitation-only offer and neither Brad nor I is on the list. In any case as radek points out in comments
10K seems like a pretty low amount to pay for a shredded reputation. Unless, I guess, you ain’t got much reputation to begin with. Even market forces, politics and ideology aside, predict that whatever comes out will be of extremely low quality. You get what you pay for.
Of course, this applies equally to anyone willing to hire AEI itself.
In related shenanigans, another recipient of the ExxonMobil cash spigot, the Fraser Institute (whose efforts on this point are headed by the egregious Ross McKitrick) is holding an event on Monday in London, aimed at discrediting the IPCC. The Fraser Institute report has already been leaked and dissected at DeSmogBlog, which suggests that Fraser may be fronting for AEI. Any readers who happen to be in London might want to roll up and join the Rent-a-crowd there. No guarantee that you’ll get paid for attendance only, though.
And on the lighter side, the search engine on the White House website has been rigged to return no results for searches on “global warming”
John Quiggin 
JQ – I don’t get what the problem is. Everybody oursources work nowadays, why can’t the AEI do it?
Also not sure why taking money from AEI should shred reputations (a normative, not positive observation – It may adversely affect reputations, but I don’t know why it should do so).
On a different track, it is very likely that there are mistakes in the IPCC report, as it is very detailed. For example, I have heard that the report doesn’t adequately deal with the Castles critique. If the AEI “sponsorship” points out errors faster, than this may be a good thing from a public policy perspective. It is unhelpful if we accept things uncritically.
Of course, the AEI criticisms could be attempting to debate issues that are largely closed – eg they could be arguing that global warming is caused by changes in solar activity, when this doesn’t appear to be a respectable conclusion from the evidence. But most intelligent observers should be able to discern the reasonable criticisms from the unreasonable ones.
“For example, I have heard that the report doesn’t adequately deal with the Castles critique”
On the key issue the IPCC report gets it exactly right – the choice of index number is unlikely to have a substantial effect on projected emissions, and the effect may be in either direction, a point I’ve spelt out at length. The significance of this issue has been greatly overstated.
As regards AEI, it has a long track record of promoting the worst kinds of denialists, like Michael Crichton and Ross McKitrick. And, aside from the global warming issue, it employed John Lott long after his unethical antics had been exposed. And in this case they are working for ExxonMobil, which has funded all the kinds of bogus arguments you mention.
There is no point in trying to respond to people like this, looking for reasonable criticisms among the lies and propaganda. If people have reasonable criticisms they should put them forward in a way that doesn’t discredit them in advance.
“the report doesn’t adequately deal with the Castles critique.”
Maybe the Castles critique doesn’t get much airplay because it’s a third order issue.
Anyway, Castles and his sidekick David Henderson got an extended writeup in today’s Oz by Terry Mcrann.
The $10K has to be a joke. Even the lowest rent intellectual whore would charge more than that.
On a similar note, the UCS (Union of Concerned Scientists) in the US has issued a report based on thorough research amongst US climate and other scientists unequivocally showing that there is ‘systematic and widespread’ political interference in the US to prevent or change the emphasis of climate research reporting (but not the research)in the United States. The UCS web site has the details for those interested.
As for Exxon-Mobil, I would expect nothing more nothing less from them. I do not know why we continue to be surprised or shocked, standard modus operandi from big oil.
John, I think you have a point but push things too far. Even the IPCC admits only 90% certainty. The consultancy sounds reasonable to me. Would you do paid consulting work on policy work relating to the costs of warming or on policies for mitigating it? I would.
There are some self-selection biases in IPCC and some of the aid-scheme junkies from UN organisations like ESCAP that are feeding into IPCC I would not trust an inch.
It worries me a bit that IPCC seem to have an administrative structure that draws on such people. I hope the UN deadheads are only administering and not doing IPCC scientific work. The difficult bit remains that the aid scheme masters of intrigue will run rings around hard scientists when it comes to the politics of preparing such reports.
I side with MP. Why do people get excited when the AEI hires consultants, but not when Greenpeace hires consultants?
Tol, I guess Greenpeace doesn’t have the ear of the Chimp.
As well as Denialists..The AEI is well known for being a place where all the worst neo-cons can get a hearing and a good stipend.,,and which constantly pumpdlout neo-cons propaganda.People like Leeden and Pipes!
It also offers a platform for the most rabid of the US zionists and has well-de established links with the Likud Party in Israel…need more be said than that !!as the saying goes,,..”if you lie down with dogs you get up with fleas”
If we (atomatically) reject what ExxonMobil says against climate change, should we also therefore (atomatically) reject what BP says in favour of it? Or any other company (eg Westpac or IAG)? There are a number of Australian companies saying we need to do more about climate change, coincidentally almost all of them stand to gain financially from doing more.
If we reject what Exxon says because it has a financial stake, we should also reject what these other companies say because they have a financial stake.
And if we found out that Westpac (for example) were donating money to WWF, does this mean that everything that we should reject everything WWF says on climate change? That would be consistent with the OTT rejection of AEI we’re seeing here.
Re Castles critique, this is just an example of where the IPCC could be wrong. There may be others. Castles was just the first example that came to mind.
You’re all wasting your time commenting on this.
It is not relevent to any thing.
Howard and Turnbull have spoken “the world is changing, so what!! Shut and get used to it!! Adapt”.
Let’s move on here. Next topic….the price of coal, perhaps, or maybe the tax USV’s. It should be lower, don’t you think?
Explantory link
http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200702/s1839522.htm
On the last bit – have a look at DeLong’s blog where there are a few stats on the “global warming” thing at the whitehouse web site.
Hey BilB, don’t forget our Mike has spoken too-
“South Australia Premier Mike Rann says his state is leading the way on tackling climate change by introducing a Bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
He is calling on Prime Minister John Howard to take similar action.”
What, introduce a Bill too? Too easy Mike.
Can’t you just see SA’s ‘Mr 60%’ enforcing GG emissions targets on Mitsubishi and Holdens?
I just watched ABC ‘Best of Landline’ effusing over coalfield development around Dalby and Chincilla. It is indeed amazing what can happen when you get to dump millions of tons of CO2 into the atmosphere for free. If I’ve done the sums correctly that killjoy Stern seems to suggest doubling the price of black coal fired electricity. We’ve had Al Gore then Stern and now the IPCC telling us to cut emissions urgently. However I think the ABC hit the nail on the head about coal industry growth when they said ‘this is just the beginning’.
Re: The Fraser Institute as a ‘front’ for the AEI.
Actually, we here on the left coast of the Canuckistan like to think of it as one of the AEI’s farm team.
Exhibit A:
Kenneth Green the ‘visiting’ AEI scholar who wrote the letters looking for the $10K shills was once the FI’s “Director, Risk and Environment Studies”.
Just went into the White House website and searched on “global warming” and found lots of hits. Must be a Democrat making that earlier claim about no hits.
The good news is that we can have our Stern, Gore, IPCCake and eat them too.
There are other things that you can do with coal that are far more profitable than chucking it into a fire at $7.00 per tonne. The most important of which is the production of plastics. Whether it is coal carbon or oil carbon the process is similar. There is a precursor compound (the big long name escapes me at the moment) that must be reached from the coal or oil state by conversion processes, beyond that the manufacturing of plastic compounds is the same. with oil carbon at around $340 per tonne I think that there is scope for a more complex process for the coal conversion and stiil run a handsome profit.
The advantage with coal derived plastics for Australia is that plastics do not wind up in the atmosphere as energy coal does. Plastics wind up sequestered in land fills. No atmospheric damage and the comercial value is way above both energy production and oil useage. Clearly there is less volume involved with the plastic production, but I am willing to bet that the GNP content is the same or better. Net gain, we breathe and keep the coal longer.
The billions of dollars being spent developing clean coal technologies (hah) would be better spent re-developing the coal to plastic process.
Mike, fortunately William Connolley anticipated the likelihood that the White House would scramble to fix this once it was exposed, and has recorded the results so you can compare what was actually on the site with what the search engine produced.
Mike, check my screenshots. Note that the search is for the exact phrase “global warming” (in quotation marks), not the individual words. To be honest I incline to the view that it may just be a broken search algorithm, as a number of other failures have been found (see comments on the post).
The politics of coal here BilB
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,23599,21168909-1702,00.html
I just twigged to the fact there are not one but two high powered committees looking at carbon trading; the State and Territories carbon taskforce and the PM’s advisory group mentioned on this website. In fact that group is supposed to issue a discussion paper about now
http://www.dpmc.gov.au/emissionstrading/submissions.cfm.
Complicating everything is that the PM has pre-decided nukes are the way to go (I agree) while Rudd has ACF & Ian Lowe convening the ‘we don’t need nukes’ forum. What interesting times.
Melanie (#7):
I guess “the chimp” is someone of influence you do not like. Don’t you think that Greenpeace has the ear of other people of influence, that may not be universally liked either?
Richard
Chimp or no chimp, green or grey, revered or repulsive, are they correct.
The world is arriving at concensus on what is correct.
Attributes can now be measured.
For the sake of your own personal well-being who will you choose to support? “Liked” shouldn’t come into it.
BilB, the only cheap thing you can do with coal is to burn it – a truism in the field that I first heard so long ago that I have forgotten where I heard it. That means that for there to be any more profitable uses, they have to have a lot of profit margin. Ironically, gasifying brown coal may work quite well since that involves adding water, whereas one of the problems with burning it is from having to get rid of enough of the water it contains naturally.
By the way, your nom de blog reminds me of a line in “Bill the Galactic Hero” when he gives his name as a recruit and it gets written down as “Bil”. When he complains, he is told that “Two Ls are for officers, bowb”.
BilB:
You missed the point.
I remarked: Why do people to get upset when the AEI commissions a paper, but not when Greenpeace commissions a paper?
Melanie responsed: But the chimp listens to the AEI, and not to Greenpeace.
To which I said: But other politicians listen to Greenpeace.
The AEI has the right to speak its mind, and to hire consultants to support its arguments — just like any other organisation.
Richard,
Withdrawn. I don’t read things thououghly enough some times.
But to your point, I would suggest that the forces at play are accelerators and brakes.
AEI are generally trying to drive forward. Green peace are generally trying to slow things down. People get nervous when things accelerate and they are not clear of the direction. Alarm. Comfort returns when the brakes are applied.
I think you’ve missed my point, Richard. I’m not complaining about the fact of hiring consultants, just making the point that anyone who accepts this offer is selling their reputation very cheaply.
AEI has a long and well-publicised track record of publishing and promoting dishonest anti-science research on global warming (as do other thinktanks that have been funded by ExxonMobil). It is equally bad in other areas (for example, it kept John Lott on long after his many unethical activities had been exposed). Doing research for a thinktank involves taking on, in part, the reputation of that thinktank, so if you do contract work for a disreputable outfit like AEI you will shred your own reputation. The fact that the required outcome is stated so clearly in advance only makes this clearer.
But that cuts both ways John, witness your own association with the dubious Australia Institute, whose Clive Hamilton latest would have us believe we live under Stalinist repression here and now with all dissent prohibited. Your own contribution to one of theirs as late as Dec 1997 assumed that Kyoto emission reduction targets would cover all developing countries.
Only $10,000. Is that indollars or peanuts. That number is ridiculously small. What scientist would go through all the years of university and graduate studies, struggles for tenure and all that then write up a piece in such humiliating and widely advertised circumstances for such a small sum. And why on earth does this Denialist front group advertise it wants pieces with specific outcomes. They are reputed to be financed by corporations that are not in the business of supporting non profit organizations or science proper but the business of profit making activities. Their interest is not the facts but the continuation of their business harmful to life or not. And here they publicly step in a cow pat as they come out the door. It is so bad it makes one wonder if their business manager is in the pay of the environmentalists. Either these company types are sincerely dumb or there is a longer game in play than is obvious. I vote they are led by clowns and the environment groups should attack, in public relations terms. Such cement heads can definitely be had. And this Tol guy, is he not the same character who defended the idea that a human life of an African is !00,000 while that of an American is 1,500,000; and who has railed against the Stern Review opposition to any by a tiny discount for the future by reaching under the skirts of posters to insinuate their basic greed and self concern. If that is he, the AEI should give him a call, he seems to be a natural.
For those who aren’t familiar with Tim, he’s invariably wrong.
In this case he hasn’t even read the paper to which he refers, or he would know that it refers to Kyoto as a first step, and states that that developing countries will be brought into the target-setting process once Annex 1 countries have shown the way (by meeting their own Kyoto targets).
JQ: The summary from which I drew my quote says no such thing. Check my website, I have a track record of being more often right than wrong, eg you dreamt that Bob Gregory and Bruce Chapman had allowed for the higher taxes that graduates pay on their higher incomes vis a vis non graduates, but they never did, hence their reactionary HECS which you would decry if you were a true social democrat but never have. As for Kyoto I, it did not include the LDCs in its targets, and I would not bet on Kyoto II doing so. Dream on!
JQ – so you would similarly decry any contract put out by Greenpeace, WWF or anyone else where they specified the outcome in advance?
Tim, I could tell you’d read the summary and not the paper. A hint – the sensible thing to do in this position is to admit that you have got it wrong, or at least to shut up, not to keep on digging. But correction is wasted on you.
MP, certainly if Greenpeace wanted people to do contract work and required anti-science results (eg on GMOs) my reaction would be the same. But, with a few exceptions, Greenpeace and WWF pay attention to science, whereas AEI, CEI, Cato and the entire Republican/apparatus routinely trash it. Note, in my post on the science wars, that even critics of the academic left like Gross and Levitt now see Bush, AEI and similar as a far worse threat to science than the whole school of postmodernists.
You can also check, if you like, on the proportion of leading scientists and engineers who support Bush. IIRC, it’s less than the proportion of the general public who think Elvis is still alive.
Has anybody actually read the letter? It is not as near as duplicitous as the Guardian or people on here are making out. See here http://volokh.com/posts/1170703446.shtml
Dear—–
This is Steven Hayward and Ken Green writing from the American Enterprise Institute in Washington. We are writing to solicit your thoughts about, and hopefully your participation in, an AEI project on climate change policy. Between the forthcoming Fourth Assessment Report of the IPCC due later this year, the Stern Review, and the close of the Kyoto Protocol’s first commitment period on the intermediate horizon, the time seems propitious for a fresh round of discussion of climate policy. AEI would like to commission a series of essays from a broad range of experts on various general and specific aspects of the issue, around which we should like to organize several conferences in Washington and ultimately a book.
Two general thoughts dominate our thinking about the structure of a useful project. First, in the public mind at least (which is to say, the news media) climate change has tended to be caught in a straightjacket between so-called “skeptics� and so-called “alarmists,� with seemingly little room left in the middle for people who may have reasonable doubts or heterodox views about the range of policy prescriptions that should be considered for climate change of uncertain dimension. This perception is mistaken, of course, as Andrew Revkin’s recent New York Times article on “an emerging middle ground� on climate change made evident. Nonetheless, we would like to attempt to break out of this straightjacket and see if it is possible to create a space for an identifiable “third way� of thinking about the problem that is similar to the various “third way� approaches to other social policy problems that were popular in the 1990s.
Our second general thought is that the chief difficulty of carving out a “third way� on climate change is due to the unwieldy size and complexity of both the scientific inquiry and policy approaches to the problem. We had thought to produce a series of essays to review and critique the forthcoming IPCC FAR, early drafts of which are circulating, but have been persuaded that an IPCC-focused project is too limited. Although some commentary on the IPCC FAR is in order, our latest thinking is broaden our scope. One idea is to solicit essays in two categories. The first category would be along the lines of a blue-sky essay on “What Climate Policies Would I Implement If I Was King for a Day.� The second category would be specific critiques of existing or proposed policy responses such as will appear in Working Group III or have been put forward in reports such as the Stern Review. (Such essays might take as their focus a single chapter from Working Group III, or an aspect of the Stern Review.)
Above all we want to have a diverse collection of pre-eminent thinkers on this subject, which is why we are keen to include you in the project. AEI is willing to offer honoraria of up to $10,000 for participating authors, for essays in the range of 7,500 to 10,000 words, to be completed by September 1, and we are keen to work with you to refine an appropriate topic.
John Q:
Can you repeat that Greenpeace and WWF respect the science? You must have mistyped, or maybe I lost my ability to read. Are you, like, serious? Did you ever read the Greenpeace magazine, or listen to one of their briefings, or read their reports? I regularly do, and I can’t think of single instance in which they were even close.
I must admit I don’t read them closely. However, a quick visit to the WWF website on climate change reveals nothing to support your suggestion. As far as I can see, they endorse the IPCC report. If there are instances where they have hired shills like McKitrick, Baliunas and Soon, Michaels and so on to dispute mainstream climate science, and promote a more alarmist viewpoint it’s not obvious.
Similarly, Greenpeace states “Greenpeace relies heavily on IPCC reports as the basis for its international climate campaign”.
I must say, I find this hard to square with your claim that “I can’t find a single instance in which they were even close”. Perhaps you could point out their main disagreements with the IPCC view to justify this claim.
From the Greenpeace website, opening on climate change
“The 1990’s was most likely the warmest decade in history, and 1998 the warmest year.”
history is undefined, so this may be right or wrong
“If our greenhouse gas emissions are not brought under control, the speed of climate change over the next hundred years will be faster than anything known since before the dawn of civilization.”
wrong — the next hundred years will see very fast warming regardless of emission control
“There is a very real possibility that climate feedback mechanisms will result in a sudden and irreversible climate shift. No one knows how much global warming it would take to trigger such a “doomsday scenario”.”
“very real possibility” is undefined, but it suggests a higher probability than the 1% that most scientists would give to this
“doomsday scenario” is not supported by any climate impact research
from the WWF website, third page or so
“Water … 662 million to 3 billion more people at risk of water shortage … 3.1-3.5 billion additional persons at risk of water shortages with potential migration because of drought, leading to socioeconomic and political instability”
this assumes no adaptation, and is therefore extremely unlikely
unsurprisingly, stakeholders like Greenpeace and WWF twist the evidence for their own purposes …
Most of these points are semantic quibbles or disagreements about points that are disputed in mainstream analysis, not support for a claim that “they are not even close to getting the science right” or that WWF and Greenpeace don’t respect science.
At least on the standard definition of history (the period since written records began) Greenpeace appear to me to agree with IPCC and NAS on this one. Similarly, I’d interpret “very real possibility” as “large enough to be relevant in decision analysis” and clearly this is the case. Nordhaus and Boyer take this possibility into account, and if your analysis excludes it, I’d say the problem is with you rather than Greenpeace.
What I’m asking for is not points that are open to dispute but instances where Greenpeace has propagated bogus research like that of AEI, Fraser and so on. I assume, by the way, that you do agree that the work of McKitrick, Michaels et al is bogus – I know Castles and Henderson have endorsed it, but I didn’t think you went along with this.
As far as I can determine, the figure for people at risk from water shortage comes from IPCC TAR. You may disagree, but it seems unfair to accuse Greenpeace of “twisting the evidence” just because they rely on the IPCC as a source.
40.
The water stuff comes from Nigel Arnell, from a project funded by DEFRA — which is a stakeholder. The results have been severely criticised and the IPCC put the appropriate caveats in. The IPCC did not dare say that that particular paper was published in a sponsored special issue edited by the project leader. Independent? The table on the WWF does not have these caveats. The table was taken from a study sponsored by the WWF, and that study relied heavily on an earlier study sponsored by Greenpeace. They have tried and failed to get this table into a journal.
39.
So, you argue that displaying disputed results as undisputed facts is not the same as distorting science?
If you want to see bogus research sponsored by Greenpeace, look no further than Bill Hare. WWF endorses the 2 degree target and the underlying “study” by the European Commission, and they criticise Stern for not being stern enough. Quality research?
I can’t really follow what you are saying in your first para. Is Defra the UK Department for Environment Food and Rural Affairs? Are you saying it’s a stakeholder in or sponsored by WWF and Greenpeace?
On the general point, everything published by the IPCC has been disputed, so it would appear that it is impossible to write anything without distorting science on your criterion. There’s a big difference between honest disagreement over unresolved issues and bogus research of the type sponsored by AEI, seeking to cast doubt on well-established findings.
‘
On your final sentence, which seems to come close to the heart of the matter, the fact that WWF has policy preferences that differ from yours (note that these are justified on the basis of claims about damage to the natural environment in areas like the Arctic and coral reefs which are pretty well founded) does not make their work dishonest, any more than the fact that AEI agrees with you makes work like that of Baliunas and Soon or McKitrick and his various co-authors genuine science.
Coming back to my request for actual examples of bogus research, Googling Bill Hare + Greenpeace + research produced a couple of articles of which the most relevant seem to be
” * Johnston, P., Santillo, D. & Hare, B. (2004). Can the Kyoto goals be achieved using the oceans as sinks? In: Grover, V.I. [Ed.] Climate Change: Five Years after Kyoto, Science Publishers, Inc., Enfield (NH), USA, ISBN: 1-57808-326-5: 107-134.”
and
“Johnston, P., Santillo, D., Stringer, R., Parmentier, R., Hare, B. & Krueger, M. (1999). Ocean disposal/sequestration of carbon dioxide from fossil fuel production and use: an overview of rationale, techniques and implications – Executive Summary. Environmental Science and Pollution Research 6(4): 245-246.”
Are these the papers you had in mind, and if so, can you point to some evidence about them?
List of winners:
http://exxonmobil.com/corporate/Citizenship/Corp_citizenship_enviro_publications.asp
If you want to be entertained by Greenpeace watch the video The Angry Kid. He comes straight out of Omega Man.
http://weblog.greenpeace.org/makingwaves/archives/2007/02/hes_talking_to_you.html#more
Unless drastic action is taken soon,
All fish will be gone
No rainforests
Both icecaps gone
Entire countries will have disappeared
Life expectancy reduced
But it gets better, we bad grownups have to choose sides today, and then we will be the lad’s friend, or enemy! In days of old Christians said that though this life was shit wear it for the sake of a better next life. It now seems that we must give up much of what we enjoy in this life for the better next life so to speak, the life of our children.
The AEI instead of offering honorariums should put together a video like that, it would be cheaper. They certainly won’t be offering honorariums to Jerry North and Steve Schroeder any time soon. Indeed the 2 chaps may find many possible offers disappearing, who knows what 15 second distortion could hit the ether if an institution was foolish enough to write to them.
That video is certainly OTT, Ros. On the other hand, I don’t imagine many people would regard a kid on YouTube as making an authoritative statement, even if he is being promoted by Greenpeace. As regards really bogus videos, I assume you’re aware of CEI’s ventures in this area.
42.
Yes, DEFRA is the department of the environment etc. It is a stakeholder, not a neutral observer. It has paid for the “fast-track” impact studies (and their publication) that have poisoned the IPCC and European climate policy. DEFRA is the source of the nonsense that we will all die of climate-change-induced hunger, thirst and malaria (and indeed, many die thrice in that work).
Bill Hare, on Greenpeace’ paylist, is the author of the study that is most frequently cited to defend the EU’s two degrees target. The fact that Bill Hare occasionally co-authors a reasonable paper does not make all his work reasonable.
Malte Meinshausen, on WWF’s paylist, is a more innocent player. His strategy seems to be to parrot that part of other people’s research that fit his political ends, creating a numerical bias in the publication record.
John: You repeatedly show an unfamiliarity with climate policy and climate research that seems at odds with your strident claims. Are you sure you want to be in this business?
Richard, I don’t think you need to be intimately involved with the key policy players (more precisely, the key European policy players) to contribute to the debate.
There are plenty of more relevant pieces of knowledge. For example, until I pointed it out, you appeared to be unaware that the discount rate used by Stern was about equal to the long-term real bond rate. More generally, your discussion of this issue has led me to conclude that you are not really on top of the relevant issues in finance theory. I’ve sought to engage in constructive discussion on these points, but you don’t seem all that keen to respond.
Looking at the thread above, the only point on which I’ve been strident is that AEI and its researchers are dishonest shills. I’m very familiar with these guys, across a range of issues, so I’m well qualified to be in this business. Since you apparently disagree, I can only conclude that you need to take a closer look at the people you’re lining up to defend.
John,
That was not a kid on YouTube, it was clearly identified as a video *produced by Greenpeace*.
James, the link pointed to YouTube, and the comments there didn’t seem to take it very seriously. But there’s no doubt that it’s nonsense and Greenpeace should not be pushing this kind of stuff.
47.
John: I do not defend the people who work for AEI. I just alerted you and others to the fact that the other side of the debate is up to the same tricks. Closing your eyes to that is either naive or misleading.
On the discount rate, I think you’re wrong. I challenged you to publish your stuff in a journal rather than on your blog. That may convince me.
49.
I’m glad that you admit that Greenpeace pushes nonsense. They do it all the time.