I see there is some uncertainty over whether the Chancellor’s “green” taxes are really green taxes - designed to prevent or mitigate environmental damage - or bad old non-green taxes dressed up in green clothes.

There is a simple enough test.  Will the money raised be used to compensate the victims or not?  Because if it is you’ve got yourself a green tax and if it isn’t you don’t.

OK, there may be no victims as yet (just when is Tuvalu going to sink under the waves for heaven’s sake?) but that’s no reason not to put the money into a fund for a non-rainy day. 

See Also
How to deal with Global Warming

Many readers will have seen the reports on the news yesterday about the banning of good, old-fashioned incandescent light bulbs and their replacement with these new-fangled, all-the-mercury-you-can-eat low-energy ones.

But, as Philip Stott points out3 there’s more to it than that:

1. They can’t be used with all sorts of light fittings
2. There are all sorts of people who won’t be able to use them
3. Councils don’t know how to dispose of them1
4. In terms of life-cycle costs they may not even reduce energy consumption2
5. This all comes from the EU

Notes
1. So, how come they can deal with traditional fluorescent tubes then?
2. Mind you, if we go all-nuclear then this won’t be a problem.  But then, why ban incandescent bulbs at all?  Lobbying perhaps?
3. On Apple’s evil blogging system

At the Berlin conference last weekend Ernst Beck gave a talk on the history of CO₂.  In essence what he said was that it was a crock.  CO₂ concentrations haven’t gone up at all and there’s nothing to worry about.

I’ve heard this sort of thing before.  There are all sorts of dissenting scientific viewpoints out there stretching from “There is no global warming” to “There is global warming and it’ll be a good thing”.  And then the economists get going with the debate over prevention versus adaptation.  It all leaves me a bit cold.  My problem is that libertarians spend much too much time trying to deny global warming rather than engaging on the level of “What if it’s true...” It smacks of running away from the debate which to my mind is a sure-fire way of losing it.

So, on the level of conclusions, I wasn’t all that hot on Beck’s talk.  But it did make me think.  It was how he went about his research.  He pointed out that:

• the leading proponent of the increased CO₂ concentration argument carried out his research on a volcano
• many of the early measurements were carried out incorrectly
• much data has been ignored
• CO₂ concentrations vary both by time of day and by lunar cycle
• there are doubts about the accuracy of the ice core record

There were probably a few other problems with the CO₂ argument that I have since forgotten.

What struck me was that it seemed that will never be able to pin this stuff down.  And this is in only one tiny part of the case.  If there are doubts here then there are bound to be similar doubts in all the other areas.

For some time I have been arguing that global warming is something that could be dealt with by the courts but I am beginning to doubt if even they would be able to come to any firm conclusions.

I notice that not a few bloggers have taken a look at the gargantuan emissions associated with Al Gore’s house, air travel etc and accused the climate change campaigner of hypocrisy.

Now, much as this is fun, knockabout stuff and helps silence a man who could benefit from a few moments of quiet reflection, there’s just one small teensy-weensy problem with it.

It’s not hypocrisy.

Hypocrisy means saying one thing and doing another.  But that is not what the former Senator is doing.  What Gore is saying is that emissions should in the future be cut by the use of coercive measures such as tax and regulation.  Presumably, he would be happy to accept the consequences of such measures even if they affected him personally.  Judging by the energy consumption of his house this could end up being quite expensive.  But seeing as those measures are still some way in the future he can hardly be accused of hypocrisy in the here and now.

Now, if he were to be, in some way, opposing emission controls on the quiet or seeking to avoid having to personally pay the price, then he would, indeed, be a hypocrite - but to the best of my knowledge he is doing neither of these things and I have no reason to think that he is.

Frankly, Al Gore, in this case at least, is no more of a hypocrite than I am for using the NHS or state-regulated trains.

Update.  Brian makes the point, albeit in a roundabout, you’ve-got-to-follow-the-link kind of way, that Gore is not quite as white (or should that be green?) as all that.  Gore talks about dealing with climate change as a “moral imperative”, and therefore an individual responsibility.  So, he’s guilty as charged and I take it all back.

I don’t think I’ve ever used one of these round-ups to link to Samizdata before.  My guess is that anyone who comes here also goes there.  And also because - for various technical reasons - Samizdata articles tend to slip through the net, round-up wise.

But I think there is a principle here.  If this is to be any good as a round-up I should be giving space to articles I like even if every single reader has already read them.  This is where to find the best articles in the Blogosphere, n’importe quoi.

Anyway, Samizdata is always good but this week I particularly liked:

Thaddeus Tremayne’s piss take of David Cameron’s Europe policy; Brian Micklethwait on that global warming documentary and Johnathan Pearce’s challenge to Mark Steyn on the subject of demographics:

...as people get richer and no longer have to rely on big families to support parents in their dotage, birth rates fall. It seems to happen pretty much everywhere, including in those countries with very different religious and cultural traditions.

Right, enough of Samizdata.  Now for what has been going on elsewhere:

1. Adriana doesn’t think much of television:

   I stopped watching TV a few years back soon after I started blogging on Samizdata.net [did I speak too soon?]. These days when I switch it on for whatever reason, it feels oddly one-way and restrictive. You can’t choose what and when you are watching something you are interested in, the controls are pathetic compared to what I am used to online.

   That’s exactly how I feel about television these days.  Who else one wonders?

2. Christopher Hitchens writes on Ayaan Hirsi Ali and “bogus equivalences”.

3. Douglas Murray reviews Nick Cohen’s new book and picks out this gem:

   I feel like a class traitor when I say it but the first lesson from the “heroic” age of the Left in the Thirties is that it never works like that in a conflict in which your own society is involved. You can be a critical friend of one side or another, a very critical friend as often as not, but you have to choose which side you are on, and those who don’t usually end up as the biggest villains of all.

4. And finally… Latvia: they do things differently there

   

I see Channel 4’s going to broadcasting an Equinox special on Thursday challenging the consensus over global warming.  I also see that leading dark age economics campaigner, George Monbiot, has been getting in his retaliation first.  Somehow, I doubt if he’ll be alone.  The really stinging criticism (from my point of view, at least) is that the producer of the programme is mixed up in the Spiked (formerly known as the Revolutionary Communist Party) crowd.

Might be an idea for libertarians not to nail their colours too firmly to this particular mast.

For other reasons too.  Although I am a global warming sceptic (largely, ahem, as a consequence of a 1991 Equinox documentary), I have the attitude of “Never say never”.  It could be happening.  It could be a bad thing - it’s bound to be bad for somebody.  It could be caused by humans.  Not that I think that’s a problem.

Update 9/3/07 Brian Micklethwait says something very similar but better.