Coronavirus days: lab leak?

The hot topic around coronavirus nowadays - apart from whether I get to go to Switzerland this summer - is the "lab leak theory"¹. As a starter, I like The media's lab leak fiasco; A huge fuckup, with perhaps not-so-huge policy stakes by Matthew Yglesias. From which the key part is

What happened is that Tom Cotton raised this idea in February in his capacity as a China hawk, and then again in March as part of a nonsensical attack on Joe Biden. He got shouted down pretty hard by scientists on Twitter, by formal institutions, and by the media. Then this kind of pachinkoed down into being a politics story where writers and fact-checkers who didn’t cover science at all “knew” that this was a debunked story that right-wingers were pushing for their nefarious ends. I think it’s increasingly clear that this was a huge fiasco for the mainstream press that got way over their skis in terms of discourse-policing, and there is in fact a serious scientific question as to where the virus came from — a question that we will probably never be able to answer because the Chinese government has clearly committed to one viewpoint on this and isn’t going to allow a thorough investigation.

I say "starter" but actually that's about all there is to say. This piece goes into some more detail (note: IANAV and can't judge the science) but it turns out that all you end up with is that (A) none of the evidence either way is particularly convincing and (B) various statements by various scientists expressing certainty or near-certainty that the lab-leak theory is wrong, are themselves wrong; in that their certainty is unjustified. The WMO investigation seems to me to have been farcical - as MY puts it "the Chinese government has clearly committed to one viewpoint on this and isn’t going to allow a thorough investigation"; it looks like political pressure made the statements in that report unreliable².

From the policy-response side I think the interesting point is that all the nice people saw the bad people saying this thing, and concluded that it must be false. Which is logically obviously wrong. And yet nominally sane people are still making this mistake. Wittily, it turns out that fb had banned talking about it, per Facebook lifts ban on posts claiming Covid-19 was man-made which shows the dangers of pressuring fb to censor things you don't like.

That the commies are doing their best to impede investigation is not proof of their guilt. It seems like moderately convincing evidence, until you remember that, well, that's just how authoritarian govts behave about everything; and also recall Saddam's impeding of the WMD inspections.

The NewYorker notes that The left’s theory blamed an unreconstructed pre-modern approach to wildlife that, instead of protecting it, killed and ate it; there certainly were a number of stories around that, and a number of people were rather clearly "happy" to have their worst fears confirmed. But I'm not sure these were influential.

Notes

1. FWIW, there are two variants: (1) accidental leak, and (2) deliberate release. (2) seems implausible to me, and I think some people have used 2-is-obviously-false to somehow elide into 1-is-false; which is logically invalid.

2. Quite a lot of other stuff by experts turned out to be unreliable; the early advice on masks for example; the surface-contact stuff: see the Economist's Evidence points to SARS-CoV-2 being a virus which travels easily through the air, in contradistinction to the early belief that short-range encounters and infected surfaces were the main risks.

Refs

* Possible, but far from proven: Assessing the theory that covid-19 leaked from a Chinese lab: The evidence so far is circumstantial - the Economist.

* PW notices that herd immunity was indeed the govt's policy, as advised to them by scientists.

* New Amazon Bond Film Will Feature 007 Assassinating Small Business Owners.

* Hayek was not a conservative. Here's why.

* Paper tiger: India’s national government looks increasingly hapless. Confronted with catastrophe, the state has melted away - the Economist.

* Johnson & Johnson single-shot Covid vaccine approved for use in UK.

* Switzerland walks out of seven-year treaty talks with EU.

* The Wuhan Lab and the Gain-of-Function Disagreement.

* The preservation of a free system is so difficult because it requires a constant rejection of measures which appear to be required to secure particular results, on no stronger grounds than that they conflict with a general rule, and frequently without our knowing what will be the costs of not observing the rule in the particular instance. A successful defence of freedom must therefore be dogmatic and make no concessions to expediency, even where it is not possible to show that, beside the known beneficial effects, some particular harmful result would also follow from its infringement. Freedom will prevail only if it is accepted as a general principle whose application to particular instances requires no justification - Hayek via CH; and In civilized society it is indeed not so much the greater knowledge that the individual can acquire, as the greater benefit he receives from the knowledge possessed by others, which is the cause of his ability to pursue an infinitely wider range of ends than merely the satisfaction of his most pressing physical needs. Indeed, a ‘civilized’ individual may be very ignorant, more ignorant than many a savage, and yet greatly benefit from the civilization in which he lives.

* The Climate Book You Didn’t Know You Need: The Physics of Climate Change by Lawrence Krauss by Sabine Hossenfelder.

* Covid: Zero daily deaths announced in UK for first time - Aunty

* WHEN WILL CTHULHU ENDORSE BEYOND BURGER?

* Washington Post Corrects Year-Old Article Calling Lab-Leak Theory ‘Debunked’

* Katherine Eban in Vanity Fair via Twatter.

* Some reflections on (corona) truth wars - ATTP.

* 2021/09: An appeal for an objective, open, and transparent scientific debate about the origin of SARS-CoV-2 by Jacques van Helden et al. in the Lancet via PG on Twatter.

* 2022/01: Scientists believed Covid leaked from Wuhan lab - but feared debate could hurt ‘international harmony’ - Torygraph

Twenty firms produce 55% of world’s plastic waste, report reveals?

It am de Graun, channelling The Plastic Waste Makers index. This is eerily familiar and reeks of Retread: Just 90 companies caused two-thirds of man-made global warming emissions? The Graun, as you'd expect, is a bit confused, quothing Twenty companies are responsible for producing more than half of all the single-use plastic waste in the world, fuelling the climate crisis and... But of course turning oil into plastics doesn't much affect the climate; carbon is emitted during this as during any industrial operation, but unless you burn the plastics, most of the carbon is locked away. Indeed, by being a use for oil, and thus raising its price, and thereby increasing the price of petrol, it arguably reduces carbon emissions. Until you burn the waste; but those twenty companies are, of course, not burning it.

As you'd hope, they've managed to get Exxon to the top of their list of Evil Plastics Companies, which sort of surprised me, cos I don't associate Exxon with making plastics. And they don't; because what the report is actually about is subtly different: the companies that produce from fossil fuels the five primary polymers (my bold). So, it is the feedstocks. I think that leaves me with the same opinion as for Evil Fossil Fuels: the people that burn them are responsible for burning them. Or, if you're worried about plastics pollution of the world, the people that throw it away are responsible for doing so.

Speaking of which, the Graun quotes “Plastic pollution is one of the greatest and most critical threats facing our planet,” said Dr Andrew Forrest AO, chairman of the Minderoo Foundation. Which is pretty funky; it is hard to see plastic as that, unless you're job is to be obsessed with plastic. I seem to have said this before... which link will also point you at nice pix telling you who the naughty people throwing plastic into the ocean are. Hint: it isn't the Cold West.

Pic: my Tree Peony. Thanx TPP.

Refs

* ExxonMobil found the real reason for the climate crisis: You - Salon mindlessly parrots Supran and Oreskes latest drivel, which is really just the same old drivel.

* One of the great scientific truths of the “invisible hand” is that the participants do not have to grasp (in fact cannot grasp) the overall operation of the system but are guided only by their own private interests in particular contexts. But it may very well be the case that while we don’t have to understand the spontaneous order of the free-market economy in order to benefit from it, a significant portion of the general public might need to grasp the basic scientific principles and the aesthetic beauty of the “invisible hand” in order for it to be sustained in the face of ordinary political pressures for expediency - from Fearing Freedom: The Intellectual and Spiritual Challenge to Liberalism by Pete Boettke; h/t CH.

* The media's lab leak fiasco: A huge fuckup, with perhaps not-so-huge policy stakes by Matthew Yglesias (arch) h/t TF; and The origin of COVID: Did people or nature open Pandora’s box at Wuhan? by Nicholas Wade h/t Timmy. Nate Silver.

* The long walk to learning; Asfaw Yemiru died on May 8th; The founder of Ethiopia’s best school for poor children was 78 or 79

* A lesson for a food writer and for all of us. The Secret Recipe for Civilization by Tim Worstall.

Coronavirus days: the beginning of the end

Today I went out for a coffee inside a coffee shop. Two indeed: the local Tishka's, and then Waterstones cafe. And for the first time in ages I got to sit down and read some book. Being rather at a loose end for a book I wanted I found... The Case For Trump. Well, it beats reading Kamala Harris. Notice that link focusses on very New Yorker things and doesn't once discuss Trump's shit-for-brains protectionism, because Newyorkers quite like that stuff. 

Aanyway, I just wanted to note that chapter one ("Meet Donald Trump") has as a tagline "Ordinary men usually manage public affairs better than their more gifted fellows" from Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War (spoken by Cleon, son of Cleaenetus). And the quote is accurate. But he is relying on you not realising that Cleon is the demagogue, opposed to the rationalist Diodotus. I covered this in the context of Brexit in The thing that hath been, it is that which shall be; and that which is done is that which shall be done: and there is no new thing under the sun; it is fun to see it come back.

Update: continuing, chapter two offers "Trump from the very beginning, saw that his budding idea of populism could be..." and what I wanted to say is that I don't credit Trump with skill or cleverness in tailoring his message or ideas. He got lucky. What he was offering fit the times. He pushed his only available ideas and style, and found that they were popular.

I'm still waiting for Switzerland to go onto the green list though. Come on Switzers, get those needles in. They're (just) doing even worse than the EU!

Refs

* The Only Ones - Another Girl Another Planet

* Book review: The War of the Worlds

* Book review: H G Wells anthology

* Book review: I, Robot

* SCOTUSblog: Justices divided on retroactive application of jury-unanimity rule / Court revives federal appeal for oil and gas companies in climate-change case

* Infant Industries and the Dubious Benefits of Barriers; by Bryan Caplan.

Half of emissions cuts will come from future tech, says John Kerry

Of course, this being a newspaper headline he didn't actually say that; nothing will stop newspapers from lying in headlines. What he said was something closer to I am told by scientists that 50% of the reductions we have to make to get to net zero are going to come from technologies that we don’t yet have. That’s just a reality. What he means by this isn't clear; I think it likely that most of the savings will come from solar panels and windmills, and entirely possible that this will come from boring incremental technological improvements that probably don't really merit the phrase "not yet invented"¹. But these are just words, from a politician, so it is probably a mistake to read too much into them². We won't be using this year's tech in what we install next year, let alone five or ten years from now. I thank KR for the Twit, and for getting the predicatable-response bandwagon rolling with "[I] thought it an unfortunate framing". But then MM kicks in with the equally predictable The Biden administration has pledged to reduce carbon emissions by a factor of two over the next decade. That will have to be done with existing technology  @JohnKerry, and not imagined & untested "future tech". Yawn. Even worse opinions are available, and some sane ones.

Slightly more interestingly, he prefixed this with You don’t have to give up a quality of life to achieve some of the things that we know we have to achieve. That’s the brilliance of some of the things that we know how to do. This too is vague pol-speak (you don't have to give up "a" quality of life, but you do have to give up some others? And you that applies to some-of-the-things; so you do have to give up quality of life for some of the others?) which again shouldn't be over-interpreted but does amount to not scaring the horses I think. My own answer hasn't much changed since How much would we have to adjust our lifestyle to stop global warming? but that was only in 2018.

Refs

* How much is climate change going to cost us?

* If you prefer science, KR has a nice post on new work on temperatures at the The Last Glacial Maximum.

* There have been 7m-13m excess deaths worldwide during the pandemic - Economist, modelling to try to fill the yawning data gaps in third world countries like India.

* Clash of the titans: Mann vs Gates, with a side of Hossenfelder

Notes

1. Which word "invented" I now discover is yet more made-up stuff from the Graun; FFS, why can't they just tell you what people have said rather than making up things they didn't say?

2. It looks like he was channelling Fatih Birol: However, IEA analysis shows that about half the reductions to get to net zero emissions in 2050 will need to come from technologies that are not yet ready for market; and "not yet ready for market" is a rather better way of saying it. There's also an IEA Press release: Pathway to critical and formidable goal of net-zero emissions by 2050 is narrow but brings huge benefits, according to IEA special report; 18 May 2021. But not everyone is happy with the IEA claiming to be first (or indeed the details of what they say). It does include "These include, from today, no investment in new fossil fuel supply projects", despite my doubts.

How to assess the multiple interacting risks of climate change?

Ponder Dr Nicholas P Simpson and Dr Christopher H Trisos, But not very deeply. They take for granted that A key threat of a warming climate is that it does not pose one single risk, but rather it presents multiple, interacting risks. How convincing is this?

Their first (and, I presume, their best; why would you put anything else first?) example is global warming of 2C is projected to reduce yields of staple crops by 5–20%. Yet greenhouse gas mitigation options can also increase food insecurity if bioenergy crops displace food crops, or can lead to biodiversity loss from land-use change and afforestation. But while GW, all by itself, might reduce yields, nonetheless yields overall are going up. And bioenergy is dumb, and it is unlikely that people will be dumb enough to do it on a large enough scale to affect global food production. So if that's the kind of top-level risk they're worried about, I personally wouldn't bother worry. Unless someone was paying me to, I suppose.

Is there more? Still on food, they suggest Similarly, trade networks link distant food systems together and can, thus, compensate for reduced food security. However, they can also create new risks of global impacts, such as multiple-breadbasket failure, more rapid spread of disease, pests and invasive species, and new threats to local food security from changes in commodity prices caused by policy choices made elsewhere. But this too is unconvincing; the converse - that trade and globalisation smooth out local production problems - is stronger. And, really, it isn't very much to do with GW anyway.

Dull stuff I think. So, I'll stop there :-). FWIW I still think that the most likely real dangerous risk of GW is on the biosphere, but in unpredicatable ways.

Refs

*There is no stark racial difference that jumps out, rather a dreary sameness - TF
* The Chauvin Verdict: A Good Start…Or Not - by Tarnell Brown at EconLog
* What has changed over humanity’s recent history is not biology, psychology, physiology, ecology, or geography. What has changed, instead, is their attitudes...
* Incentives Matter in Banking Too by David Henderson
* THE EXISTENTIAL THREATBURGER : HERE'S THE BEEF!

* No, global warming is not 50% of what CMIP6 models predict - Moyhu on Roy; Making predictions with the CMIP6 ensemble by Gavin.

* Fuckwits at Crooked Timber wanting to destroy big tech. I used to think John Quiggin was sane.

* Frédéric Bastiat’s 1850 Economic Harmonies; Chapter XXII, titled “The Driving Force of Society”.

* Assessing My COVID Expectations by Bryan Caplan

* Welcome To The Terrible World Of Prescription-Only Apps - SSC / AST

Yet moaah climate suing

Undeterred by being laughed out of court again, the New York Clown Posse are having another go: New York City sues ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, and the American Petroleum Institute for systemically and intentionally deceiving New Yorkers. From which we may find their inspiringly-named Earth Day Lawsuit. But wait, this isn't just them rehashing the old nonsense, this is new nonsense, or at least a variant.

They're trying for "Engaging in deceptive trade practices in violation of NYC Code § 20-700", in three variants: "misrepresenting the purported environmental benefit of using their fossil fuel products and failing to disclose the risks of climate change caused by those products"; "deceived NYC consumers by engaging in false and misleading greenwashing campaigns"; and one for the API. The API one I think is dull; or at least, I don't care. The second count I also find uninteresting and not especially plausible. And for the sake of brevity-of-examples, I'm going to only consider Exxon. They're the Evilest, after all, aren't they?

But perhaps they have a case on their first grounds? This too seems dubious; indeed, surprisingly dubious. By which I mean that although they repeatedly say stuff like (p. 6) misrepresenting the climate impacts of various gasoline products sold at their branded service stations in the City. In a bid to reassure consumers that purchasing these products is good for the planet, ExxonMobil, Shell, and BP advertise them as “cleaner” and “emissions-reducing,” but fail to disclose their harmful effects on the climate, it isn't until p. 24 that we get the first example, ExxonMobil Synergy. And that seems to be about it. And Exxon's marketing sin is According to ExxonMobil, Synergy Supreme+ will enhance vehicle fuel economy in newer engines designed to meet tougher vehicle emissions standards. Or perhaps helps consumers “[r]educe emissions and burn cleaner,” and “was created to let you drive cleaner, smarter and longer”. Or We’re continually innovating to develop products that enable customers to reduce their energy use and CO2 emissions. But sadly for New York, these claims are arguably true. The suit does its rather feeble best to call them true-but-misleading (actually I don't think they can bring themselves to admit they're true, they just say misleading, meh) but that seems unlikely to fly to me.

Also, some idiot has taught them to say "tobacco" as often as they can, under the mistaken impression that this amounts to logical argument. Or am I wrong about that? This is all politically driven; they probably don't even understand the concept of logical argument. If anyone has lied to New York consumers, it's New York pols.

Conveniently, there are reports on this, so let's hear it from Shell: A spokeswoman for Shell told Changing America, "We are disappointed to see the City of New York file yet another climate change lawsuit after the Second Circuit affirmed the dismissal of what is functionally the same suit mere weeks ago. Tackling climate change is a significant challenge the world faces today; it requires smart policy from government supported by inclusive action from all business sectors, including ours, and from society as a whole. We intend to play a leading, transparent and collaborative role in helping society face this challenge." I think Shell have learnt to talk the talk better than new York has. I'm slightly doubtful that it is "functionally the same" but it's a good line to take, at least in public.

Refs

* #exxonlied

* Security Vulnerabilities in Cellebrite - Schneier

* 2020: Yet moah climate suing.

* 2019: Moah suing news.

* 2018: Yet more climate suing.

* Twit from ES: the role of climate scientists' work in legal action on climate change.

* 2024/04: Auntie: European court rules human rights violated by climate inaction - Switzerland

Equity Isn’t Just Ethical, It’s Stupid

Or, The latest Covid insights from former CDC Director Tom Frieden. I may have tweaked his headline just a little; but it is a common error, so don't think I'm attacking him in particular. I suppose I have to give you the correct headline to show you the error: Equity Isn’t Just Ethical, It’s Essential. But perhaps you prefer the body: Vaccine equity is imperative. Now the most important point of this article and the reason I wrote it this week after planning not to write one: equity, equity, equity. First of all, we're not going to get equity, obviously; so it is fortunate that it isn't imperative. The rich world is going to get vaccinated first - those bits of it that aren't too stupid to accept the vaccine, of course; or unfortunate enough to have idiot bureaucrats in charge. And within the rich world, the better off are going to do better; as they always do; it is, after all, part of the definition of "better off".

I should give him a chance to make his point, for the sake of fairness. It is 100 million people in the U.S. have received at least one dose of vaccine. But about 50 million people over age 50 (~37 million age 50–64 and ~13 million age 60+) haven’t been vaccinated at all. Vaccinating these people, who are disproportionately Black and Latinx, will prevent many more deaths than vaccinating young people. And it's kinda fair. But the problem is firstly that he has vastly over-egged it; and secondly that if you spend too much time being equitable, you've got less to spend on general coverage; if we're talking about vaccination; more generally, obsessing over income or wealth inequality makes less sense than worrying about absolute poverty. Thirdly, in relation to his In other words, a single well-targeted vaccination could save 10 times more lives, and prevent 100 times more cases, than vaccinating a low-risk person in a low-risk community, there's the problem of actually executing his strategy, which requires much knowledge and planning resources.

The more general point is one I've made before: per Smith, what is required is tolerable justice.

Pictured: the Claw of the Conciliator.

Refs

* An Ageless Hypothetical by Bryan Caplan

* How people get rich now - Paul Graham

* Prospectus On Próspera - A look at Próspera, the charter city taking shape in Honduras; SSC / ACT

* Democrats plan to unveil legislation to expand the US supreme court by four seats - although, since it's doomed, it is just posturing.

* Twit: Bezos trying to quantify how much value Amazon produced for different groups in 2020. Back of napkin math: $301 Billion of value created, of which shareholders see $21B. Amazon newsletter to shareholders.

* How I Became a Libertarian by Meir Kohn

* No, Really, Why Are So Many Christians In Colombia Converting To Orthodox Judaism? - SSC / ACT

* How inequality makes climate change worse... or A fairer economy would emit more CO2?

More weird shit from Mann

My earlier post refers. Today's outrage is Tech's 'Inactivism' on Climate Policy is a Big Problem. The arguement - they take a fair while to get to it - is As a counter-balance [to Evil Fossil Fuel Companies], we need influential tech companies that support climate-friendly policies to act like they're really in this fight.

To which I say: fuck off. Instead of arguing for pouring yet more lobbying money down pols - and perhaps some associated persons - throats, how about arguing for a less corrupt politics that doesn't require so much lubrication by dollars? Or - my preferred solution - just less politics, so there's less point lobbying it.

Hallelujah!  Biden plan eliminates billions in fossil fuel subsidies?

Speaking of weird shit... comes this Twit from Naomi Oreskes, pointing to an Arse article Biden plan eliminates billions in fossil fuel subsidies. Now NO is a busy person and probably didn't have time to read past the headline, always a fatal error as any fule kno. Because as the article makes clear, they haven't got even the tiniest clue as to which "subsidies" will be cut: The Biden administration hasn’t specified which tax credits or subsidies it would eliminate, and certain subsidies probably will be subject to horse trading in Congress.

Update: AMO and stadium wave

This is perhaps a good point to note that the recent de-invention of the AMO is... amusing. Curry isn't too amused, perhaps in a rug-pulled-out-from-under-feet sort of way. But what certainly does amuse further is to see her still plugging the long-dead stadium wave.

Refs

* A note on fossil fuel subsidies

* Immigration and Housing: The Meaning of Hsieh-Moretti by Bryan Caplan and Build, Baby, Build: Now Under Construction.

* The SAT and the ASEA - CIP

* Liberals want to blame rightwing 'misinformation' for our problems. Get real by Thomas Frank - in, gasp, the Graun

* Book review: Beasts / Foundation / Neuromancer / Swallows and Amazons / Madame Swann at Home / The Iron Dream

* Why are economists losing prestige? by Scott Sumner - makes, somewhat more politely, the point I made on Twatter.

* It looks like that fuckwit Biden is keeping Trump's tariffs on solar panels.

* I wish capitalism didn't just help the rich.

* Climate scientists and activists nervously eye Musk.

* The @GOP are such a pure form of evil - Mann abandons any idea of political neutrality.

* The cooling with elevation (lapse rate) can be derived from the ideal gas law combined with the first law of thermodynamics. It has nothing to do with convection - more from Mann. He is of course wrong.

City of New York v Chevron Corp, again

Big win for common sense: New York City Loses Appeal Seeking to Hold Oil Firms Liable “Global Warming” say the Watties (but don't worry, that's a safe archive.is link) and despite the poisson-d'Avril date, it appears to be true: Reuters have the same, or you can just read the judgement: 

The City of New York has sued five multinational oil companies under New York tort law seeking to recover damages for the harms caused by global warming. The district court (Keenan, J.) dismissed the complaint. We affirm for substantially the same reasons as those articulated in the district court’s opinion. First, global warming is a uniquely international concern that touches upon issues of federalism and foreign policy. As a result, it calls for the application of federal common law, not state law. Second, the Clean Air Act grants the Environmental Protection Agency – not federal courts – the authority to regulate domestic greenhouse gas emissions. Federal common law actions concerning such emissions are therefore displaced. Lastly, while the Clean Air Act has nothing to say about regulating foreign emissions, judicial caution and foreign policy concerns counsel against permitting such claims to proceed under federal common law absent congressional direction. And since no such permission exists, each of the City’s claims is barred and its complaint must be dismissed.

The case was, IMO stupid and rightly dismissed: grandstanding pols wasting taxpayers money in order to burnish their own credentials. That the appeal meets the same fate is hardly a surprise; and hopefully it will be obvious even to them that trying the Supremes is dumb-as-rocks.

The meninwigs note that Even though every single person who uses gas and electricity – whether in travelling by bus, cab, Uber, or jitney, or in receiving home deliveries via FedEx, Amazon, or UPS – contributes to global warming, the City asserts that its taxpayers should not have to shoulder the burden of financing the City’s preparations to mitigate the effects of global warming; and this I think is why NYC's - and similar - cases are morally bankrupt even laying aside the legal aspects. But I've said that many times before. They miss a trick, though: they write As the City sees it, the Producers have known for decades that their fossil fuel products pose a severe risk to the planet’s climate but they fail to point out that the City also knew this just as well, as did any moderately well-informed citizen.

And we have the Alsupian To permit this suit to proceed under state law would further risk upsetting the careful balance that has been struck between the prevention of global warming, a project that necessarily requires national standards and global participation, on the one hand, and energy production, economic growth, foreign policy, and national security, on the other.

The vague attempted novelty of this claim was to attempt to side-step the obvious problems by using the law of nuisance. But this gets short shrift: That Congress chose to preempt the federal common law of nuisance with a well-defined and robust statutory and regulatory scheme of environmental law is by no means surprising. Numerous courts have bemoaned the “often . . . ‘vague’ and ‘indeterminate’” standards attached to nuisance law. And so on.

Refs

* Climate change and state evolution - Giacomo Benati and Carmine Guerriero, PNAS

Reflecting Sunlight

AKA Solar Radiation Management (SRM) and the new NAS report. I think Michael Mann has a typical response: don't touch it with a bargepole, but I think his reasoning as well as his answer is wrong. His reasoning is mostly "geoengineering is hardly cheap—it comes with great potential harm". This is strictly invalid; the actual-cost as measured by how-much-it-costs-to-do-it is, I think, generally agreed to be "small", or at least likely-to-be-small; no-one has actually done it yet, so there aren't any good numbers. But the worry is that it might be cheap. And the cost ascribed to the harm is not really known; in the usual way, one should probably weight that potential harm by the unknown probability of it occurring. And yes I know that SRM doesn't deal with, e.g. ocean acidification

A useful presentation of the "two tribes" comes via ATTP's twit; the "where is the NAS report on nationalizing and rapidly shutting down the fossil fuel industry?" side (which I think is fuckwitted, obvs) is by Kevin Surprise; you can sense him salivating at the idea of "a massive, punitive-level wealth tax". By contrast, Matthias Honegger who - apart from talking to idiots - appears quite sane, represents the "we won't be able to meaningfully engage on questions of desirability unless there is meaningful research" side.

My own view is that while SRM has dangers, running screaming from it with drivel about "SG at best bolsters status-quo, at worst would further concentrate power" is wrongthink. In trying to "solve" GW we're trying to, errm, solve global warming; we're not trying For Great Justice and to use it as leverage for the revolt of the proles and a return to earthly paradise; though that is what some people (hello, Kevin!) are trying to use it for.

And the reply to "it comes with great potential harm" is "well, then it would be a good idea to do some research on it then". The reply to "but that might come with 'moral hazard' - people might stop trying to reduce CO2" is "calm down". A tiny (by comparison with other things) bit o' research isn't going to do harm.

[Update 2021/10: I see that as usual I've rather wrapped my own views up in responding to other people's. So to be clear: I'm advocating research on "geoengineering" broadly defined. And push-back against the fools opposing said research. See-also perhaps Climate Schlock.]

This has shades of "experts will lie to you sometimes" (notice the ATTP, badly IMO, twits that without indicating any opinion); but the underlying piece by Noah Smith is bad. And it seems to me it's the way that some "expert" opinion is headed on SRM: "you poor proles can't cope with complexity so let's just run away from it".

I should perhaps point out that I haven't actually read the NAS report. But here's the summary: Reflecting Sunlight: Recommendations for Solar Geoengineering Research and Research Governance Climate change is creating impacts that are widespread and severe for individuals, communities, economies, and ecosystems around the world. While efforts to reduce emissions and adapt to climate impacts are the first line of defense, researchers are exploring other options to reduce warming. Solar geoengineering strategies are designed to cool Earth either by adding small reflective particles to the upper atmosphere, by increasing reflective cloud cover in the lower atmosphere, or by thinning high-altitude clouds that can absorb heat. While such strategies have the potential to reduce global temperatures, they could also introduce an array of unknown or negative consequences. This report concludes that a strategic investment in research is needed to enhance policymakers' understanding of climate response options. The United States should develop a transdisciplinary research program, in collaboration with other nations, to advance understanding of solar geoengineering's technical feasibility and effectiveness, possible impacts on society and the environment, and social dimensions such as public perceptions, political and economic dynamics, and ethical and equity considerations. The program should operate under robust research governance that includes such elements as a research code of conduct, a public registry for research, permitting systems for outdoor experiments, guidance on intellectual property, and inclusive public and stakeholder engagement processes.

Update: 20 reasons why geoengineering may be a bad idea?

By Alan Robock via Aaron Thierry. TL;DR: not convincing; more of a hand-waving "there are issues" than any attempt to address them in any depth; and I'm doubtful he is being honest (or, if you prefer, impartial); see #8.

Let's look: 1. Effects on regional climate: true but GQ will also have effects on regional climate. 2. Continued ocean acidification: probably the best one. 3. Ozone depletion: potentially an issue; he provides zero detail, which is odd; if there is no detail, crying out for more research; 4. Effects on plants: again, research; 5. More acid deposition: doubtful, I think, as the effects would be small; he makes zero attempt to quantify it. 8. Less sun for solar power. Scientists estimate that as little as a 1.8 percent reduction in incoming solar radiation would compensate for a doubling of atmospheric carbon dioxide. Errm, but we're not suggesting nearly so much compensation. So, less than 1% effect on solar power in exchange for ~50% compensation? That would be a pretty good deal, not that you'd guess it from his words. 9. Environmental impacts of implementation. Any system that could inject aerosols into the stratosphere... would cause enormous environmental damage. Silly, I think. 10. Rapid warming if deployment stops: true, as I noted. 11. There’s no going back: untrue, I think. 13. Undermining emissions mitigation: not I think a valid argument against doing the research. 15. Commercial control of technology: meh. 16. Military use of the technology: ditto. And so on, to the usual hand-wringing.

Note I've skipped a couple that were dull, IMO. His #13: Undermining emissions mitigation. If humans perceive an easy technological fix to global warming that allows for “business as usual,” gathering

the national (particularly in the United States and China) and international will to change consumption patterns and energy infrastructure will be even more difficult.18 This is the oldest and most persistent argument against geoengineering is what I'm criticising: he doesn't want SRM to work, because he wants emissions reduction for its own sake - for changing lifestyles - and something else that would solve GW would be bad, for him, because his primary aim isn't solving GW. That, obviously, is a permissible idea, as long as you're open about it: but he isn't.

Update 2025: RP Jr

He's against it too. I feel like he is pandering to the nutters, though.

Refs

* US urged to invest in sun-dimming studies as climate warms: National academies report is most explicit call yet for a government research programme to explore the controversial field of solar geoengineering - Nurture.

* ATTP's take; and on Twatter.

* Possibly an unpopular opinion here, but I'm uneasy about some of the proposed research. Given the issues are far more related to the (im)possibility of sustainable governance, accelerated research into the physical science could lead to over-confidence about deployment says Big Gav.

* MM really really isn't happy.

* How many people should we produce? by Scott Sumner; see-also my Derek Parfit, Ex-Philosopher.

* Some not-very-interesting speculation from the Economist: Reaching for the sunshade: July 2030

What if geoengineering goes rogue? Efforts to cut greenhouse-gas emissions may fall short. Might some countries try to fix things a different way?

* Some say we can ‘solar-engineer’ ourselves out of the climate crisis. Don’t buy it - Ray Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann

* As you'd expect, there are loads of useless tossers opposed; or as Slate puts it Even Research Into Tinkering With the Sky to Fight Climate Change Needs Public Support.

* 2022/01: more dickheads: Scholars Float Political Intervention Against Solar Geoengineering.

* 2022/01: and someone sensible (gracious heavens!): A BAN ON SOLAR-GEOENGINEERING RESEARCH? by KEN CALDEIRA.

* 2022/01: ATTP does his best to sit on the fence.

* We're now at the doing-research-into-research stage of navel-gazing: "The RESILIENCER project seeks to investigate how research and experimentation into SRM could impact the risk of human extinction..."

* 2024/05: Hansen isn't very happy with the screachers either.

* 2024/08: RS: Here's what Revelle and other NAS members had to say back in the day...

* 2025/01: Sabine: Climate Engineering Is Coming, But Not Like You Think (I doubt her logic though).

* 2025/03: More bad thinking: The UK’s gamble on solar geoengineering is like using aspirin for cancer by Raymond Pierrehumbert and Michael Mann.

Warren vows to fight against being heckled by snotty tweets

Elizabeth Warren vows to "fight to break up Big Tech so you’re not powerful enough to heckle senators with snotty tweets". Seriously. I didn't make that up. She really said it. What gratuitous abuse of power. And of course she is lying: she isn't being "heckled"; the tweet from Amazon was entirely reasonable.

I think this is part of a generic rule-of-law failure on the part of populist pols like Warren: she genuinely but incorrectly believes that the law should be whatever she wants it to be, not what is written. In this particular case, the Yanqui tax code is unquestionably bad law, because it is so enormous that it is inevitably full of loopholes. And why is it enormous? Because of people like Warren. And how will Warren try to fix this? Partly, as we see, by intimidation. But also no doubt by making the tax law even bigger. Idiot.

Another in-the-news example is the EU, where the pols are trying to direct private business for their own political ends. Again, it's a mix of gangster-like intimidation and threatened extra "rules", which aren't really rules, being so opaque and value-ridden that they would amount to arbitrary rule.

Meanwhile, in the garden: fasciation (sure 'nuff) on my Forsythia. More pix. Don't miss the rhubarb emerging.

Refs

* So roughly speaking, the richest Americans in 1982 had inherited money made from extracting natural resources, and those in 2020 had made money creating new technology - Paul Graham.

* Carter The Unstoppable Sex Machine, The Only Living Boy In New Cross (1992) - 143.

A Bankruptcy Judge Lets Blackjewel Shed Coal Mine Responsibilities in a Case With National Implications

From InsideClimateNews:

The Blackjewel coal mining company can walk away from cleaning up and reclaiming coal mines covered by more than 30 permits in Kentucky under a liquidation agreement that was reached Friday in federal bankruptcy court in Charleston, West Virginia, attorneys participating in the case said. About 170 other Blackjewel permits in Kentucky, Tennessee, Virginia and West Virginia will be placed into legal limbo for six months while Blackjewel attempts to sell them to other coal mining companies, the attorneys said. Any permits that are unable to be transferred can then also be abandoned by the company, once the nation’s sixth-largest coal producer. 

Interesting, though I think not a new concept; I can't recall commenting earlier so I will now.

Looking at Top twenty-three coal-mining companies in the United States, 2018 on wiki, bankruptcy is hardly a surprise; and more can be expected; coal production in the US in the not-particularly-long term is doomed. The emotive language about "walk away from" doesn't add very much; they're bankrupt, so however much you might like the CEO to go out there with a shovel and tidy things up, not much will come of it. There are, it would seem, supposed to be bonds to cover remediation, but, surprise! Both the state and the companies that issued bonds guaranteeing clean-up and reclamation of the dynamite-blasted landscapes had warned in court proceedings that there might not be enough money to do all the required work. So, over-friendly regulation by the state, I suspect, which didn't want to force the miners to post large enough bonds since that would probably just have bankrupted them earlier.

How do I fit this into my Great Political Scheme? After all, this is a clear example of the State needing to step in to regulate the industry better, or clean up afterwards. But I think not. the state routinely screws up regulation, as it would appear to have done in this case, and trying to fix that is hard work. Instead, I think I'd just recognise that dying industries tend to leave junk behind them; not all problems have neat solutions. By their very nature, dying industries tend to be financially small, so I think there is easily enough money floating around the US to fix things up, if anyone wants to: in other words, sell off the carcass to the highest bidder.

Refs

* Review by Brad DeLong of James Scott (1998), Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed.

* Fairness > equality by Tyler Cowen

Doughnut Economics

Tom asked about "Doughnut Economics"; I'm very tempted to just reach for the W-word, but since he was also kind enough to ask for more posts, I'll post on it. 

We need to begin by working out what this stuff is. They offer The Doughnut offers a vision of what it means for humanity to thrive in the 21st century - and Doughnut Economics explores the mindset and ways of thinking needed to get us there and the economic thinking needed. So I deduce it is a way of thinking; a way of thinking about economics. However The Doughnut's holistic scope and visual simplicity, coupled with its scientific grounding, has turned it into a convening space for big conversations about reimagining and remaking the future is really very off-putting and I feel the W-word looming. You have been warned.

The idea is to change the goal from endless GDP growth to thriving. Well, I've heard that one before, of course. So first of all her terminology is wrong: the present-day aim of GDP growth is a political, not economic goal. This indicates muddled thinking on her part, but may not be fatal. As any fule kno, Economics is the social science that studies how people interact with value; in particular, the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services. Complaining that when she says econ she really means pol would be mere semantics; but the unanswered question at this point is whether a new goal, which we will choose and use econ thinking to work out how to achieve - this would require no new econ, merely pol; or whether she has some substantive criticism of existing economics, not politics, - errors in existing anaylsis, important previously-ignored components - that will force us to revise our economic analysis. That she is unable to state the question clearly isn't encouraging.

Initially, it looks very much like pol: her very first idea it to change the goal, from increasing GDP, to "the Doughnut". An immediate objection is that GDP is at least clear, whereas her alternative is vague. Another objection is that "increasing GDP" isn't many people's goal. It isn't mine, and it isn't yours. It is the sort of thing that govts tend to claim to do, because people tend to like increasing prosperity. But I think she is somewhat confusing emergent properties with goals; like those funny denialists who insist that climate models have set sensitivities. Items 2-7 are so wanky (damn! I finally said it out loud) that I can't comment without looking deeper.

But there doesn't seem to be much depth. Take, for example "peace and justice" (sadly, there's isn't a "motherhood and apple pie" element). So, I'm sure we'd all agree that Peace and Justice are excellent things, though quite likely we'd disagree on exactly what Justice means. How will DE get us there? I've no idea.

So as far as I can tell DE reduces to "(a) it would be nice if no-one were poor or sad; and (b) using more resources than we actually have isn't sustainable in the long term; and (c) I have no real idea how to get there". Is there anything new in this, other than an infographic? You can tell, I'm pretty sure, that I'm unconvinced; if  missed the depth of analysis, do please point me to it. I tried the original 2012 report, which says thing things like  Income: Ending income poverty for the 21 per cent of the global population who live on less than $1.25 a day would require just 0.2 per cent of global income. And this it true... or at least it was then; since global poverty has fallen in the past 9 years and global income risen, it would now require even less. But to write it in those term completely misses the point. Most dreadfully poor people are so because their govt is crap, not because of any inherent limitations.

Refs

* Praise is due to all who respect justice more than their position compels them to do

* History in the (re)making? - JA

* 2025/07: Throw the Doughnut away.

* The Hole in the Doughnut: Formalizing and Testing a Key Model of Degrowth.

Global 'elite' will need to slash high-carbon lifestyles?

Climate change: Global 'elite' will need to slash high-carbon lifestyles sayeth Aunty; or World's richest 1% cause double CO2 emissions of poorest 50%, says Oxfam from the Graun; and my excuse for re-hashing 2020's olde newes was that this was back on Twatter recently. 

The underlying idea is that rich people have more money and so emit-or-cause-to-be-emitted more CO2 than poor people (brilliant work, Carruthers, I'd never have thought of that for myself). And we also know - have known for quite some time - that the "average" for a sustainable level is well below the current rich-country level.

Being idiots, neither the Beeb nor the Graun link to the report in question. There's a UN Emissions Gap Report 2020, but that's fuck all use because whilst it contains the said numbers, it contains no source for said numbers. Ah, but that's just the Exec Summary; Execs, clearly, are not to be bothered with sources. The Full Report (fig 6.1) points me to "Oxfam and SEI (2020)" which gets me to the SEI report.

Before I go on to quibble the figures, of which I am dubious, let's draw out another point, by quoting some fuller numbers. For the moment, let us take these as at least ballpark:

* The richest 10% of humanity (c.630 million people) accounted for 52% of the cumulative emissions, depleting the global carbon budget for 1.5C by nearly a third (31%);

* The richest 1% (c.63 million people) alone accounted for over 15% of the cumulative emissions, using up 9% of the carbon budget: more than twice the poorest 50% (c.3.1 billion people), or more than the entire cumulative emissions of citizens in the EU;

* The 40% of humanity in the global middle class (c.2.5 billion people) accounted for 41% of the cumulative emissions, and 25% of the carbon budget, while the poorest 50% accounted for just 7% of cumulative emissions, and a mere 4% of the budget.

So we notice that both Aunty and the darling Graun have tailored their messages to their audiences: the evil demons who must slash their emissions are the top 1%, from which I - and, I assume, most of my readers - are safely absent. But the very rich, being very few - well, being 1% - , "only" emit 15%; whereas the darling 10%, being many - about 630 million - account for 52%. You and I, dear reader, are in that 10%. We need to slash our emissions. See-also XR.

Having said that, let's move on to the emissions estimates. These are based on income data, which are available, not emission data, which aren't. How do they do it? Oxfam and SEI's approach to estimating how global carbon emissions can be attributed to individuals based on their consumption... start with national consumption emissions data for 117 countries from 1990 to 2015 period... allocate national consumption emissions to individuals within each country based on a functional relationship between income and emissions, drawing on new income distribution datasets. We assume, based on numerous studies at national, regional and global levels, that emissions rise in proportion to income, above a minimum emissions floor and to a maximum emissions ceiling. What does that functional relationship look like? We assume that between the upper and lower bounds discussed above, emissions rise monotonically with income, and that the relationship can be expressed as an elasticity of emissions with respect to income. Depending on income-dependent consumption behaviour in a given country, emissions may grow faster than income (elasticity >1), in proportion to income (e=1), or more slowly than income (elasticity <1). It also turns out (fig 4) that "elasticity" varies per country, from about 0.7 (UK) to around 1.5 (Finland) with no discernable sorting by income... at which point they kinda give up and use elasticity=1. Maybe; I got tired of wading through the fine print.

But the end result, is that I'm dubious that emissions go up linearly with income at the 1% end of things. Not having waded through all their papers, I can't really justify that or claim to have convincingly demonstrated it; I'd be curious if anyone else has seen any analysis of these results.

Update

Oxfam serves up a lot of dodgy statistics; Their numbers are more polemic than informative by Noah Smith makes much the same points, but better.

Refs

* No relation to Private planes, mansions and superyachts: What gives billionaires like Musk and Abramovich such a massive carbon footprint I think.

* The Damage Yet to Come from the "Stimulus" by David Henderson

* FUTURE LOOKS BRIGHT FOR CARBON BLACK DOWN UNDER

Coronavirus days: Happy Anniversary

My first wildly exciting Coronavirus post wasn't; and don't expect this special anniversary edition to be any more exciting. But it is now a full year since March 17th 2020... how are things going?

Personally, they are fine. I'm working from home; so is my wife; so, now, is my son (for Darktrace, since you ask). The slightly eccentric several-small-rooms design of our house has facilitated this. My daughter is off at university, but since terms are short she is now back at home. Work is remarkably unchanged; being at home makes little difference. Some things are a bit annoying - swapping kit around for example - but that happens rarely. Talking to others, casually, is hard; so collaboration is down a bit. But we have regular meetings, so we all stay in touch. Overall I think that in terms of the work I get done, it's a net positive; and in terms of my work-life definitely better. I save an hour commuting each day, so gain that time, though I also lose that exercise. And since I'm at home I get to do useful things, or nice things like sit in the garden, in the odd 10-minute breaks; instead of just moodily slouching around the work kitchen wishing there was somewhere nice to go. And no-one cares if I wear shoes or not (spoiler: I don't).

On a more personal level I miss the coffee shops, and I miss rowing⁴, but not much else has gone. I missed going to Scotland this New Year, too. Hopefully the idiot EU will sort themselves out by summer time.

Just yesterday I got vaccinated, with AZ³. This being NHS-mediated, I wasn't given a choice, but then again, I didn't want one. The idiot EU folk, not content with having badly fucked up their vaccine roll-out, are doing their best to stuff it up even further and flailing around; and now out of an excess of caution are killing their own citizens². Meanwhile the selfish Yankees are holding on to 10M doses of AZ that they won't use but won't give away; so much for Biden being the good guy¹. I get my Daily Dose of Death via JA on Twatter - inlined - and the steady decline is good to see; deaths are now ~below 100/day.

David Spiegelhalter says There's no proof the Oxford vaccine causes blood clots. So why are people worried? The answer, of course, as far as ordinary people are concerned, is because their idiot authorities have paused vaccinations; and since, we're constantly told to "trust the experts" these experts must have some good reason for doing so? Of course the answer is that they don't; they are idiots; but DS isn't brave enough to say so.

You're only as good as your last crisis, so our glorious govt's comparative failure a year ago compared to the EU will effectively be forgotten; meanwhile history is being rewritten under our feet, but people have memories like goldfish so that will probably work. The loud voices that told us a year ago that the UK and USA were doomed because capitalists can't cope with plagues have gone rather quiet now that France, Spain, Germany, Italy all have higher death rates than the UK does⁵. Take that, lefties.

Notes

1. Spoiler: he isn't: he's a pol. Update: and to be fair, the Yanquis are starting to get their act in order: U.S. to Send Millions of Vaccine Doses to Mexico and Canada, though they haven't actually done it yet, and only 4M out of "tens of millions". I await further updates.

2. To be fair, the EMA appears to be sane. Update: and has now told the EUdiots once again that it's all fine, and it seems they might listen this time. But, gloriously, the Frogs have stuffed it up again.

Flailing continues: AstraZeneca plant inspected by Italian police at EU's request. I'm doubtful that the EU really believes in the rule of law at all.

3. And this morning I felt distinctly sub-par. But I think I'm back now.

4. Lents didn't happen but hopefully Mays will; and we're hoping to run the Head of the Cam in late April.

5. As long as you remember to look at present rates, rather than cumulative. See previous comments re goldfish.

Refs

* a liberal democracy is characterized not by “popular rule” but by various devices providing for “an intermittent, sometimes random, even perverse, popular veto” which “has at least the potential of preventing tyranny and rendering officials responsive.”
* The EU's AstraZeneca vaccine stance will cost lives, here in Spain and all over Europe by A. Spaniard.
* Covid: Arrests during anti-lockdown protests in London
* Thank You AstraZeneca says JA (no, not that JA).
* How the beach 'super-spreader' myth can inform UK's future Covid response via PW.
* Science in the Time of COVID-19 - ATTP.
* Boris Johnson's two cheers for capitalism by Alberto Mingardi.
* AZ vaccine: we, too, are fuckwits.
* Suicide trends in the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic: an interrupted time-series analysis of preliminary data from 21 countries: no evidence of a significant increase in risk of suicide since the pandemic began in any country or area (which when you think about it is surprising, given the number of series they had...) from the Lancet.
* Doughnut Economics.

More wank about science as a social construct

Every now and again there is a minor flare-up in the "science is a social construct" war¹. Real Scientists, of course, ignore this stuff and get on with doing science, because that is what scientists do. I don't think I've got anything new to say, so this post is mostly for my own benefit. I wrote about Science in 2014².

And then Carl T. Bergstrom offers Here’s a short explanation of why the socially constructed nature of science matters. But does he deliver? I think not. He asserts Yet science is not the inevitable One True Path to knowledge about the material world. Rather, science operates via a set of norms and institutions jury-rigged to operate atop the evolved psychology of one particular species of ape. If bees did science, I suspect it would look altogether different but that is but an assertion, and his personal opinion. Whilst it is true - and indeed little better than the bleedin' obvious - that science in everyday use and practice is part of human culture, and hence contingent and shaped by our biases, it isn't at all clear that the output of science in terms of understanding of the world is so shaped. By science, of course, I'm excluding all the wiffly social-science stuff, whose output is inevitably part of and shaped by human culture.

Indeed, arguably - and I do so argue - Science is all the bits that aren't contingent and human-shaped; Science works, bitches; things that don't work aren't; and things that do work get absorbed into it.

I suppose I should make it clear that I'm not arguing that all writing about science is worthless; The Structure of Scientific Revolutions isn't, for example.

Refs

* Is Bruno Latour a useless ponce?
* THE ACCIDENTAL CLIMATOLOGIST Of OLD ALGIERS (the first title was the best).
* LORD MONCKTON FEARED LOST IN THE MANDLEBROT SET (and again)
* The social construction of science - ATTP gets it wrong

* [the writings of Jean-Jacques Rousseau] displayed just the right mixture of noble sentiment, lofty rhetoric, muddled thinking, and disregard for reality to attract those intellectuals who, like him, refused to “tolerate the world as it is - Richard Pipes, Property and Freedom.

* Renaissance Science – V

* Trapped Priors As A Basic Problem Of Rationality - SSC/AST - not quite correct I think (it assumes everyone remembers everything; instead, we have filters which reject stuff we don't like, so no updating occurs) but interesting.

* Canceling Is Powerless by Freddie deBoer - discussed by EconLib.

* Who gains under non-price rationing?

Notes

1. For example, that naughty Dawkins says "Science is not a social construct. Science’s truths were true before there were societies; will still be true after all philosophers are dead"; some idiot pops up to say "what's "objective reality""; and someone else will say "science is able to uncover information about whatever is being studied that can allow us to develop an understanding that could converge towards something that we accept as being essentially true (even if absolute truth isn't possible)".

2. Note the quote at the end of that. Another defn of Science - I say because I'm fond of linking to this post - might be "the thing that advances one funeral at a time".

Shamima Begum cannot return to UK, Supreme Court rules

Not the real supreme court, of course, just the UK one. From the Beeb:

It did not give the home secretary's assessment the respect which it should have received, given that it is the home secretary who has been charged by Parliament with responsibility for making such assessments, and who is democratically accountable to Parliament for the discharge of that responsibility... The Court of Appeal mistakenly believed that, when an individual's right to have a fair hearing... came into conflict with <something else>, her right to a fair hearing must prevail.

I find stripping someone of their citizenship dubious, and the home secretary's rational for refusing entry ditto, but those aren't the issues I'm interested in here, rather it is... primarily, just how much money-aka-resources should we fling at men-in-wigs?

And this is in regard to Adam Smith's acute

Little else is requisite to carry a state to the highest degree of opulence from the lowest barbarism, but peace, easy taxes, and a tolerable administration of justice; all the rest being brought about by the natural course of things. All governments which thwart this natural course, which force things into another channel, or which endeavour to arrest the progress of society at a particular point, are unnatural, and to support themselves are obliged to be oppressive and tyrannical.

Searching around for that quote, I find Timmy saying roughly what I want to say, and indeed what I've said before: that we should take "tolerable" seriously; that flinging too many resources at abstract justice isn't a good idea. Sadly that wasn't any basis for today's ruling - well, it's not the kind of thing you expect meninwigs to say.

Secondarily, there's an issue of the balance between executive and judicial branches. Which I personally feel has tilted too far in the direction of excessive judicial review recently, so I think did not give the home secretary's assessment the respect which it should have received is good.

You might say, where is my sympathy for SB? I have little-to-none. Functionally, none. If I was going to be sympathetic to poor folks abroad, I'd put the poor sods in Yemen, Somalia, Syria all suffering through no fault of their own waaay above SB. And I'd rather use all these judicial resources more fruitfully in the UK, where any number of cases are disgracefully delayed.

Refs

* When can governments revoke citizenship? - The Economist

* Losing the sky - ATTP

* Ilhan Omar's fascist behavior - Timmy

* The Theory and Practice of Oligarchical Collectivism Book Club: Final Thoughts by Bryan Caplan

* From page 208 of Lord Acton’s late-1890s lecture “The Influence of America,” as this lecture appears in Essays in the History of Liberty: Selected Essays of Lord Acton, Vol. 1.

Rush

Another one bites the dust: Rush Limbaugh, from lung cancer, which is surely how he'd have wanted to go. Not everyone is sad; Emily "who?" Atkin isn't; and nor it would seem are the Watties, who have ignored this world-shaking event.

I only know RL as a right-wing-shock-jock-global-warming-denying-nutter; if you doubt the latter, RS provides a delightful example of his crass ignorance and willingness to fall for anything that leant his way. But "environmental issues" is only a small part of his Wiki article, so clearly I've seen only one facet.

However we can tell he's not really famous, because I never troubled with him here on this blog; I think in GW terms he has long been a has-been; he got more mentions in sci.env days, perhaps.

The best defence I can find from vaguely reliable sources is he was the quintessential American entertainer by Dominc Pino. That article doesn't really even attempt to defend what he said in any serious terms, and just regards it as entertainment. Which is probably correct: as the RS example shows, he was lamentably ignorant of science, and I've no particular reason to think he was any better informed on anything else; but that didn't matter to his large audience, because people want to be entertained. In the end, if forced to defend him - which I'm not, so I won't - I'd blame Dumb America. You get the right-wing-global-warming-denying-nutters you pay for.

Refs

* Science advances one funeral at a time

* Another funeral advances science

* Mistah Morner – he dead

* #WATN

* What do prime-age ‘NILF’ men do all day? A cautionary on universal basic income

* Rush Limbaugh galvanised and embodied the modern American right - The Economist doesn't mention GW either.

* How the Feds Gave a Competitive Advantage to Conservative Radio by David Henderson

* Myth or Measurement: What Does the New Minimum Wage Research Say about Minimum Wages and Job Loss in the United States?

* Terence Kealey on the British ARPA by Alberto Mingardi

* One hundred years of solitude by Scott Sumner

* What I worked on - Paul Graham

* STOAT RESURRECTION RAISES COVID TIME WARP FEARS

* WATN: "ice age now" (pardon?) Robert "who?" Felix stiff (h/t WUWT)