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I thought this article by Steven Hayword on the scandal on climate change science was a helpful overview of what’s gone on in recent weeks. If you don’t know about the scandal, this is a helpful place to catch up. I think this is a key line in his piece: “The biggest hazard to serious climate science all along was not so much contrarian arguments from skeptics, but rather the damage that the hyperbole of the environmental community would inflict on their own cause.”

When thinking through this issue, I think it’s important to make distinctions and to discern what is and is not being claimed, and what is and is not being proposed in response. Toward that end, this article by Kevin Williamson helped to break these things down. He lists the following propositions, in “ascending order of unlikeliness”:

  1. The planet is getting warmer.
  2. The planet is getting warmer, and human activity is the reason.
  3. The planet is getting warmer, human activity is a main factor, and the consequences will be catastrophic.
  4. The planet is getting warmer, human activity is a main factor, the consequences will be catastrophic, and some U.N.-style climate policeman is going to be able to manage a mitigating response.
  5. The planet is getting warmer, human activity is a main factor, the consequences will be catastrophic, and some U.N.-style climate policeman is going to be able to manage a mitigating response — in an economically efficient manner.
  6. The planet is getting warmer, human activity is a main factor, the consequences will be catastrophic, and some U.N.-style climate policeman is going to be able to manage a mitigating response — in an economically efficient manner that also is consistent with our political liberties and national sovereignties.

Read the whole thing for his evaluation of each proposition.

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