Sources and Authorities

by Liberty and Power

Alexander Cockburn cites sources and authorities as he defends dissidents against anthropogenic global warming dogma.

No doubt Randians will be telling us how private enterprise is once again the"victim" of the state. But as Cockburn explains in an apt turn of phrase,"[c]apitalism is ingesting global warming as happily as a python swallowing a piglet." State capitalism, that is.

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Tim Sydney - 6/15/2007

Unfortunately AGW is such a big issue that there are both "big government" and "state protected big business" interests, and free market interests, on both sides of the debating line.

And sometimes they swap position. In particular note the recent shift of Exxon-Mobil. Discussed here and here.

I'm enough of a cynic to be suspicious that the recent gains in popularity for the pro-AGW position may have had more to do with Exxon-Mobil than the latest IPCC report.

One popular response to AGW among libertarians has been to blame the whole thing on big government and posit a "public choice" driven push to the public trough by greedy scientists for the whole thing. Big science certainly works this way and the big science / big government connection is one worthy of more exposure, but big government interests don't simply line up holus bolus on the pro-AGW side.

Take for example, the entwined interconnections between the US Federal Government and major US oil producers have been well documented and analysed by libertarian historians and economists in discussions on everything from the oil depletion allowance to the Iraq war. (There is an extract from a 1965 Milton Friedman Newsweek column on "Oil and Middle East" contained in here.)

Some commentators and environmentalists have noted that the influence of government officials on the IPCC process tended to "water down" rather than "heat up" the IPCC's climate forecasts etc. (For example, the report here. Although this claim is disputed here ).
And the public choice argument used by AGW skeptic libertarians against AGW science can just as easily be turned around and used against AGW skeptic libertarians themselves. See here for discussion on the relationship between some libertarian think tanks and some petroleum companies. "What's good for the goose is good for the gander"?

The same corporatist tussle applies outside of US borders too. The EU support for Kyoto for example skillfully exploited the 1990 baseline date to protect EU business interests versus those of their non-EU commercial rivals. And the AGW "skepticism" of say the Australian and Saudi governments may be better explained by a look at those governments' revenue base rather their scientific opinions.

The idea that there would be powerful corporate state interests both opposing and supporting policy action on AGW shouldn't really be a surprise. We live in a neo-mercantilist world.

Mark Brady - 6/10/2007

Glad to hear it!

Geoffrey Allan Plauche - 6/10/2007

Hey, not all Randians confuse state capitalism with laissez-faire capitalism. :o)