From Alan Moran at the Herald Sun:
IN The Wolf of Wall Street, Leonardo DiCaprio’s mentor says, “Nobody knows if the stocks will go up, down, sideways” and explains that the stockbroker’s job is to “Move the money from your client’s pocket into your pocket”.
There are similarities with the climate change game.
Nobody knows whether global temperatures will rise, fall or stay the same. But there are multitudes of political entrepreneurs trying to persuade us they will rise and do so at alarming rate. Among these entrepreneurs are political operators, including many scientists seeking grant monies from taxpayers. They also include wind farm and solar panel producers, needing special prices for otherwise uncompetitive products. And they have the support of agitators convinced that mankind’s prosperity, founded on cheap fossil fuels, can never be sustained.
…Pressures for taxes and regulations to reduce emissions however remain. But money moved out of the pockets of consumers and businesses in response to the climate change scare means reductions in real income levels.
Alan Moran is the Director, Deregulation at the Institute of Public Affairs, not a scientist. I agree that nobody knows for sure that temperatures are going to rise or fall. But it’s also the case that the vast majority of qualified scientists (some of whom will be rent-seekers, but far from all) have deduced that temperatures will rise owing to increasing greenhouse gases.
I submit to you that it is therefore prudent risk management to limit the increases in greenhouse gases, especially since early action on mitigation comes at relatively low cost and the price of Alan Moran being wrong is an increasingly inhospitable climate.
I insure my house against fire and theft. It means I’m a little less well off for other stuff but it’s worth it. Does Alan Moran have no home and contents insurance?
