Warming

I've been generally skeptical about global warming hysteria, but I don't think Easterbrook is hysterical in the op-ed piece Finally Feeling the Heat, which seems to me to take about the right position. The important thing is to be pragmatic, and not to be stampeded by the axe-grinders and hysterics into unworkable, grandiose bureaucratic nonsense like the Kyoto Treaty. Cost-benefit analysis has to be the focus; for example, what measures that cut economic growth could mean for the world's poor and their chances to become non-poor. It's possible that the best approach in the long run might be to maximize rates of economic growth in those countries, even though that would mean more pollution in the short run. History demonstrates beyond any question that as populations become more affluent they become increasingly concerned about environmental quality. The anti-capitalist agenda of some who have latched onto the global warming issue can't be allowed to determine the parameters of the debate, or their ideological commitments to determine in advance what acceptable policies must look like.

Byron