Climate/Energy Exchange with Jody Freeman (Harvard University)

“If you are so sure that your views are correct, why not have a robust climate debate at Harvard. You know and I know that such an event would not come off well for the alarmists/forced energy transformationists.”

Jody Freeman, Professor of Law at Harvard Law School, posted on LinkedIn [she blocked me–maybe you can open her links]:

Sobering assessment of our climate risk trajectory and how rising temperatures could overtake insurance markets, and lead to a credit crunch, among a cascade of other financial consequences. Watch the insurance industry. It is serious about climate change. And the canary in the coal mine.

Her link was to Joe Romm’s report of a Guardian article, “Climate crisis on track to destroy capitalism, warns top insurer,” subtitled “Action urgently needed to save the conditions under which markets – and civilisation itself – can operate, says senior Allianz figure.”

PLEASE REPOST: Top insurer warns we’re on track for 3°C (5.4F) warming where insurance and finance ‘cease to function’ and we can’t ‘adapt.’ But the solutions are here.

A Guardian story has elevated a must-read LinkedIn post by a top insurer who is warning that “we are fast approaching temperature levels—1.5°C, 2°C, 3°C—where insurers will no longer be able to offer coverage for” risks like floods, fires, extreme heat and other extreme events.

I commented, and the exchange began.

Bradley: This is very exaggerated–as it was back in the 1980s, if not before, with climate change.

Freeman: Sorry, what’s your evidence?

Bradley: On exaggeration? How about your colleague John Holdren back in the 1980s predicting as many as one billion deaths might occur from climate change by 2000.

Freeman: Maybe you will find something to agree with in this thoughtful interview with my colleague Dan Schrag who is not afraid to be a little contrarian but who takes the risks associated with climate change seriously and believes that it is worth investing now to avoid some of the worst consequences. That always sounds to me like an eminently reasonable thing to do: invest in steps now to avoid larger costs later. No one is saying they know precisely how and at what rate the anticipated impacts will land, and there is always a band of uncertainty in every credible professional report or study. All they are saying is that the pace of warming creates serious risks that prudent countries should be concerned about. Give it a read!

Bradley: The ‘insurance’ policy is less than persuasive because the premium is so high and there is no known redemption value. The world demands fossil fuels whether the US likes it or not, and the world is not cooperating with the Paris Accord.

The insurance argument becomes less persuasive over time because 1) we are adapting to the changes already (internalizing the ‘costs’, as you see it) and 2) the saturation effect of CO2 forcing (diminishing returns, log-over-linear).

The best climate policy is wealth and adaptation without government propping up bad (dilute, intermittent, fragile, government-dependent) energies and adding to budget deficits. Government failure, if you will.

Freeman: Well, I don’t agree with you not surprisingly, and recommend for those who are interested, this approach by Marty Weitzman.

[Bradley: My rebuttal is now blocked. My comment was that Weitzman’s piece is out of date and the IPCC has moderated its ‘fat tail’ worse case scenarios. And the IPCC’s RCP 8.5 model scenario was not in good standing.]

Freeman: We host debates and conversations all the time! You should come and attend some of our classes and offerings! Weitzman’s theory is entirely sound as a generalized approach which simply boils down to being prudent in the face of very serious risks. I am not recommending abandoning cost benefit analysis but simply properly accounting for risk and consequence. Shifting to a cleaner global energy supply has many benefits separate from mitigating climate change. But Rob, I assume based on your consistently negative (and sometimes I must say bordering on hostile and dismissive) comments on my posts, that we won’t agree. And that is just fine! Cheers!

Bradley: Thank you for engaging. “… attending some of our classes and offerings” is not exactly respectful, is it? I will put my academic fare up against any of your professors in the social sciences, ranging from political economy to business history.

Instead, there needs to be a campus-side debate where a prominent critic sits in a chair next to you or Professor Weitzman with a moderator to debate the hard questions, from physical science to realistic economics/political economy to public policy. I think the students would benefit greatly.

Bradley: ” …a generalized approach which simply boils down to being prudent in the face of very serious risks.” You are assuming what is in debate, hiding behind high-sensitivity climate model projections that are simply speculative. CO2 science is far more established that climatology.

“… a cleaner global energy supply” is vague and debatable. Fossil fuels are now environmental products in state-of-the-art facilities, and the dilute, intermittent, fragile, government-dependent energies are ecologically unsound. Don’t assume. Open your mind to new ideas. The mitigation crusade is dying, and the saturation effect makes the effort ever more futile.

Freeman: Ah!! Now I see. You are a fan of Alex Epstein. This explains a lot. So, as it turns out, I took apart his book step by step in an article I published years ago when his book was making the rounds of the oil and gas industry. I took him seriously and then explained in detail, and with facts and evidence, how misleading and flawed his arguments are.

Bradley: Your critique was superficial and one-sided, and you disengaged with Epstein after he rebutted your review. So why not have a debate with him at Harvard? He wants to do it–you do not. His ideas are driving Chris Wright of US DOE–why ignore him now?

Freeman: In response to comments claiming that I and others are overreacting about the risks posed by rising global temperatures, and embracing the arguments of people like Lomborg and Epstein, the best thing I can do is to suggest the following readings, which explain in detail why these folks are not credible.

(It saddens me to have to do this at this stage of our understanding, but it also seems like someone has to do it.)

These articles are illustrative of other similar critiques. So if you want to attack these authors as lunatic leftists or dismiss the outlets where they publish as biased or call us all brainwashed elitists, fine, but just to say, there is more where this came from.

The pieces below try to show in detail, and with examples, why Lomborg and Epstein’s arguments are deeply flawed, even if they start with or contain elements of fact or truth. Lomborg and Epstein’s claims are shown to be deeply misleading; to mischaracterize and cherry pick evidence; to set up straw men; and to commit many other sins of omission, miscalculation, overstatement, and logical error that are characteristic of unserious scholarship.

But don’t take my word for it (although the last article is mine, so you can take my word for it on Epstein).

Read this set of pieces as a start, and then read the original works themselves if you have the time and interest, and draw your own conclusions.

I won’t return to this topic again soon because there is so much other very serious and urgent stuff to address (e.g., democracy), and honestly, it exhausts me that this is still necessary. But I felt it was worth a long post to provide some resources.

About Lomborg’s article, “Follow The Science” Leads To Ruin: https://lnkd.in/g8Vp28mU

About his book, False Alarm: https://lnkd.in/gtdufUWU

About his article on the Paris agreement: https://lnkd.in/gZ_QAnus

About his earlier book, The Skeptical Environmentalist: https://lnkd.in/gxzfzCwe

And finally, my response to Alex Epstein’s book, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels: https://lnkd.in/gAUUpp8S

Bradley: Why don’t you offer up the rebuttals to each of your above links just to show that you are keeping up with both sides? Are you?

The “It saddens me to have to do this at this stage of our understanding, but it also seems like someone has to do it” is petty and condescending.

If you are so sure that your views are correct, why not have a robust climate debate at Harvard. You know and I know that such an event would not come off well for the alarmists/forced energy transformationists.

Do note that the political bubble of wind, solar, and batteries is losing air. Check out solar and wind stocks versus the competition. No hiding that fact as the recent CERA conference with Dan Yergin showed.

At this point she blocked me. More hit-and-run behavior by a Harvard climate alarmist who wants to assume, not debate. And mock their opponents as intellectually inferior and having ulterior motives. Jody Freeman is “in denial”, as they say. Too bad her students cannot learn from the best on politicized issues.

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