Is this a bellweather?

There are two issues with global warming/climate change:

1. Is it happening?
and then
2. If it is happening, what should we do?

I can sympathize with debate on the second point. The so-called "precautionary principle" seems to me to be an invitation -- no, an imperative -- to do all sorts of things because there might be a problem. Massive social change should require a slightly higher threshold determination.

So I was surprised and even a bit heartened-- if one can be heartened by such a concession -- by statements on the The Becker-Posner Blog. (And, btw, these guys can hardly be considered wildass liberals -- quite the contrary if anything.) Both heavyweights concede that yes there is a troubling climate problem :

Professor Becker notes

...considerable skepticism about whether man-made activities explain much of the temperature build-up in recent decades, although Posner is right that consensus on this has grown considerably during the past 15 years.

So I agree with him that it is prudent to take actions to reduce the build-up of carbon gases in the atmosphere, but which ones?

Judge Posner states:

I agree there is room for doubt about whether industrial and other human activities are causing significant warming. But I have become more convinced than I was 15 years ago that it is a risk worth some effort to protect against, just as we insure against other risks that may never happen. I would oppose draconian cut backs in energy emissions, but not a modest and sensible program of the type set out in my commentary.

Fair enough and enormous progress, I think, when you compare such concession to a die-hard denier like Michael Crichton. Apparently, he seems to be saying that the problem is a political device. (I haven't read the book, I probably won't as a review from a friend who eats up thrillers says it's tedious and it doesn't matter if I read it ot not -- the book stands as a political broadside that climate change is nothing to worry about.)  

To what degree the concession noted above is a significant change for Posner or Becker, I don't know. Nor do I know whether other right-wing intellectuals are also shifting. But as a general rule it is extremely rare for people (especially famous big-names) to admit in public that they have changed their mind at all, so I wonder if this is some sort of indicator of a shift in the establishment psychosphere. If nothing else, the conservatism of Posner & Becker should give pause to those who sneer and smirk that climate change is a globalist plot to, I kid you not, impoverish America.

Comments

[Brian Miller]

I've heard rumors/read that the Insurance Industry certainly thinks global climate change is real and real;ly is a threat. If this is true, they are hardly liberals, either.

[TM Lutas]

Whether global climate change is real or not is one question. Whether mankind is causing global warming or the solar cycle is shifting is a different question. Global warming on Mars would seem to argue that it's a solar cycle issue but there's way too little data to make definitive conclusions. If you guess wrong either way you can cost hundreds of thousands of lives. Misallocation of capital explains an awful lot of the differential death toll between countries in the recent Indian Ocean tsunami tragedy. You can push the deaths out into the future and try to hide your responsibility by making the causality chain as long as possible but getting it wrong means having blood on your hands.