NYT columnist Paul Krugman is not happy with NASA climate scientist James Hansen for the latter’s op-ed attacking cap-and-trade and proposing a tax-based alternative (which I blogged about here). Such arguments are “unhelpful,” Krugman says, because they ignore the fact that in the theoretical world of transaction-cost free blackboard economics caps and taxes are the […]
Author Archive | Jonathan H. Adler
Sotomayor’s First
The Supreme Court’s newest justice, Sonia Sotomayor, authored the Court’s first signed majority opinion of the term, a unanimous opinion in Mohawk Industries v. Carpenter. (Justice Thomas wrote an opinion concurring in part and concurring in the judgment.) (HT: How Appealing)
“Mr Squiggles Is In the Clear”
Zhu Zhu pets are the hot Christmas toy this year (at least that’s what they tell me). Then a safety scare threatened to dampen the holiday fervor for these fury critters, after a web site claimed one Zhu Zhu model contained unsafe levels of antimony, a fire retardant linked to heart and lung problems. Turns […]
Here Come the Greenhouse Regs
This afternoon, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will announce that it has made a formal determination that, in the judgment of the EPA Administrator, the emission of greenhouse gases cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare. This is the so-called “endangerment finding” which will trigger […]
Hansen: Fee-and-Dividend not Cap-and-Trade
NASA’s James Hansen, one of the most prominent (and alarmist) climate scientists, argues against cap-and-trade plans in today’s NYT. While I don’t quite agree with every point in his analysis, I agree with his bottom line. Cap-and-trade is unlikely to produce meaningful emission reductions, but will require the creation of a massive regulatory bureaucracy and […]
OzoneGate and ClimateGate
In his post below, Eric Posner asks why ozone depletion and the phaseout of CFCs and other ozone-depleting substances did not produce the same degree of backlash as does global warming. Where were the Climate Skeptics back then? Or was ozonegate, like asteroidgate, a non-event because the climate is a “complex system” whereas, um…. Why […]
Threatening Reporters with the “Big Cutoff”
University of Illinois climate scientist Michael Schlesinger threatens the NYT‘s Andrew Revkin with “the Big Cutoff” because he quotes and interviews the wrong people. According to Schlesinger, this makes Revkin’s reporting “very worrisome to most climate scientists.” Revkin’s offenses? Noting that some Copenhagen prostitutes promised to give freebies to climate conference delegates (“gutter reportage”) and […]
ClimateGate Fallout Continues
Last week, Rajendra Pachauri, who heads the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told BBC Radio that there would be a full investigation of the revelations contained in e-mails and documents leaked from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit. This must have been done awfully quickly, as the IPCC’s Working Group I released […]
Sunday Song Lyric
There are lots of songs about movie stars; even more that make reference to them. But songs about somewhat-obscure movie characters? They’re fewer and farther between. For this reason, “Veronica Sawyer Smokes,” the title of a track on the new AFI album, Crash Love, caught my eye. Veronica Sawyer, ’80s teen flick afficianados may recall, […]
Attack of the Drones
The NYT reports that the Administration will increase the use of unmanned drones for targeted killings in Pakistan. The White House has authorized an expansion of the C.I.A.’s drone program in Pakistan’s lawless tribal areas, officials said this week, to parallel the president’s decision, announced Tuesday, to send 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan. American officials […]
DoJ’s Defense of Yoo
Dave Hoffman notes that the Justice Department has filed an interesting amicus brief in Padilla v. Yoo arguing against the availabiltiy of a Bivens action in the national security context. Here’s a brief excerpt: The threshold question presented by this case is whether a court should recognize a federal common-law damage action addressing the decisionmaking […]
IPCC’s Pachauri Should Shut His Mouth
The National Journal‘s Neil Munro has an interview with climatologist Judith Curry (featured in this, this, and this prior post). The interview is a must read for those interested in the ClimateGate story and the broader questions about the intersection of science and politics. There’s lots of good stuff in the interview — so you […]
Ineffective Ineffective Assistance of Counsel Decisions
This week, for the third time this term, the Supreme Court reversed a lower court’s handling of an ineffective assistance of counsel claim in a capital case with a per curiam opinion. In the first two cases, Bobby v. Van Hook (6th Circuit) and Wong v. Belmontes (9th Circuit), the Court vacated lower court decisions […]
Jon Stewart on ClimateGate
ABC, CBS and NBC have yet to air anything on the leaked e-mails and documents from the University of East Anglia’s Climate Research Unit, but The Daily Show did — and they got the story right.
Coins Designed by Q?
The AP reports on espionage fears stoked by commemorative Canadian coins.