Graham Young,

You have allowed your own opinion about carbon pricing to enter and detract from your otherwise excellent article.

While carbon pricing seemed like a good idea in the euphoria leading up to the Copenhagen Conference, it could never have succeeded. This explains why: http://jennifermarohasy.com/2013/08/why-the-ets-will-not-succeed-peter-lang/

In short, unless there is near full participation of all countries and all GHG emissions sources within all countries, the cost penalty to the participants is so high as to be prohibitive. So it cannot succeed - as is being shown by the failing EU ETS, the failed Chicago Carbon Exchange and the soon to be repealed Australian carbon tax and ETS.

The EU carbon ETS included only 45% of the EU's GHG emissions. If the most developed countries in the world can only manage 45% participation, there is clearly next to no chance of rolling out a carbon pricing system across all 195 countries with 80% participation or more. Even if it could be started it would have to be maintained for many decades or centuries. It has to be uniform and tightened frequently and across all countries and all emissions sources in unison. It is impracticable. It is the wrong approach. It won't succeed. The sooner the carbon pricing idea is dropped the better

Furthermore, the assumptions that underpin the economic analyses used to justify carbon pricing are suitable for an academic exercise but totally unrealistic for as real world application.

Please see the link for details.

I really like the title you have given this article. And yes the book suggests we each have a responsibility to become a bit educated on this subject and not just parrot the so-called experts.

We're told "so many "experts" say we shouldn't apply the same due diligence to their expertise ..."

Funny, I've never heard an expert say that. Most experts - myself included, would love people to take an interest in their work. Sadly, to take an interest in mine, you'd need a maths degree, and a bit of postgraduate study as well, so I'm not really optimistic.

But for those who don't want to, or don't have the relevant background, or don't have the time, to take an interest in my work, I'd seriously object if you just were to say that I'm wrong, or I haven't proved my case, or whatever. And, allowing for the difference between the fields (that is, in maths, something is either certainly right or certainly wrong, and if its in a published paper it should be provable with absolute certainty), this seems to be pretty much what climate scientists are saying.

And to answer another piece on OLO recently - it's much better that you should read and understand the science. But for those who don't or can't - isn't the fact that it's consistent with an overwhelming consensus is relevant, even if that's only a second-best way of coming to a conclusion?

Jeremy,

The science is contested (especially about the 'catastrophic' bit). And it is not providing the information needed for policy decisions. For example, there is little understanding of the damage function - the costs and benefits of AGW. The case for catastrophic or dangerous AGW is particularly weak.

Furthermore, scientists have become advocates for policies - such as carbon pricing and renewable energy - which they know next to nothing about. So they have seriously damaged their credibility.

We need proper due diligence before we implement policies that would do great economic damage to the world. Climate scientists want their beliefs and the polices they advocate to be accepted, but they have no expertise in fields like due diligence.

Climate change is politically partisan and suffers from massive directed funding, especially by 'progressive' governments. As a result there is a massive amount of group think and herd mentality amongst climate scientists. There is no way I want to see us implement high cost useless policies like those that have been advocated by the activist climate scientists over the past 25 years.

I get the impression that this book, along with most commentaries on the vexed subject of climate change, misses a key issue.

The issue is that reducing greenhouse gases and switching to renewables is very expensive and costs more than most countries are prepared to pay on a large scale. As a result we see lots of token schemes (like our carbon tax or direct action proposals) that are only likely to slow the rate of emissions growth instead of resulting in an actual reduction.

To have sufficient effect to reduce emissions, such taxes would need to be set at levels unacceptable to most people. We also see collateral damage in that energy intensive industries in countries with emissions taxes get driven away to countries with low taxes on such emissions.

In my opinion much of what is said (with a lot of passion) in this debate is academic. In the absence of further technical breakthroughs that might serve to drastically reduce the cost of renewable energy, we better get used to climate change if the consensus of scientists is correct.

'While scientists may have expertise in determining scientific facts they generally have none running economies."

And who does have expertise in running economies? Certainly not the politicians who are following the "advice" of the expert economists.
Since the days of Friedman and the Chicago school, we have been led up a blind alley towards globalisation which is now obviously only a pretext for bigger profits for multinationals.
It is quite obvious that this is a blind alley and will eventually lead to disaster as population increase, a necessary requirement for the so called level playing field with steady growth, brings shortage of everything.
There is also a lot of talk about "the science".
It does not take science to see satellite pictures of the Arctic and see the amount of sea ice that has disappeared, just common sense.
It does not take science to see the extreme weather now being experienced around the world.
It will not take science to experience the diminishing food available to a large part of the population due to climate change , peak cheap oil and population pressure from climate refugees.

The climate denial machine run by "think tanks" set up and paid for by big business is the only reason that there is confusion among the population about global warming.
They are perpetuating the efforts that they put into denying the ill effects of tobacco.
And they are using the same methods.