Kevin Drum - November, 2009

As near as I can tell, ClimateGate is almost entirely a tempest in a teacup.  Among the stash of emails recently hacked from computers at the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, one mentioned a "trick" for producing a nice looking graph, but the word "trick" was plainly used in the sense of "technique," not chicanery.  There's nothing questionable there.  Another bunch of emails shows that when scientists are communicating privately they can be as catty and nasty as anyone else.  It's good gossip fodder, but nothing more.  Another set of emails deals with outraged reaction to a particular journal article, but this isn't news.  It was an entirely public incident when it happened a few years ago, and half the board of the journal resigned in protest.  The emailers were determined not to have shoddy science published in peer-reviewed journals, and there's nothing wrong with that.

Then there are some emails about which research should and shouldn't be included in the next IPCC report, which, again, is entirely normal.  Every scientist who worked on the IPCC report surely had opinions about which research was on point and which was shoddy.  Finally, there's the revelation that CRU has destroyed some raw temperature data, but this happened back in the 1980s, before global warming was even on anyone's radar screen, and was obviously motivated by space considerations (they were paper records), not any kind of coverup.  What's more, the raw data is still available from the original sources that provided it to CRU anyway.

Unfortunately, there are also a couple of messages that suggest an effort to destroy emails that might have been subject to a Freedom of Information request.  That's a genuine problem, though it's not clear to me just how big a problem it is.

So on a substantive level, there's really very little to this.  Certainly nothing that changes the actual science of climate change even a little.  The earth is still warming and disaster is still highly likely if we sit around and do nothing.  But George Monbiot thinks we lefties have our heads in the sand if we think that makes any difference:

I have seldom felt so alone. Confronted with crisis, most of the environmentalists I know have gone into denial. The emails hacked from the Climatic Research Unit (CRU) at the University of East Anglia, they say, are a storm in a tea cup, no big deal, exaggerated out of all recognition. It is true that climate change deniers have made wild claims which the material can't possibly support (the end of global warming, the death of climate science). But it is also true that the emails are very damaging.

....The crisis has been exacerbated by the university's handling of it, which has been a total trainwreck: a textbook example of how not to respond....When the emails hit the news on Friday morning, the university appeared completely unprepared. There was no statement, no position, no one to interview. Reporters kept being fobbed off while CRU's opponents landed blow upon blow on it. When a journalist I know finally managed to track down Phil Jones, he snapped "no comment" and put down the phone. This response is generally taken by the media to mean "guilty as charged".

....The handling of this crisis suggests that nothing has been learnt by climate scientists in this country from 20 years of assaults on their discipline. They appear to have no idea what they're up against or how to confront it. Their opponents might be scumbags, but their media strategy is exemplary.

It's hard to argue with this.  Climate change skeptics have gotten fantastic mileage out of this affair, but that's only partly because technical explanations of facially damaging statements are never very convincing to the general public.  An even bigger part of the problem is that a lot of the scientists involved haven't even been providing the technical explanations, leaving that up to others who are trying to get a handle on what's going on.  From a PR standpoint, it's been a disaster so far.

For years the CRU has resisted public release of its underlying datasets, partly for the understandable reason that they're tired of dealing with amateurs who comb though raw data looking for ways to pretend that warming isn't really happening, and partly because they don't have the authority to release it all.  Still, science is all about transparency, and annoying or not, the data should be available.  Now it probably will be, and under the worst possible circumstances.  It's going to be rough sledding for the next couple of years against the fever swamp crowd, aided and abetted by the coal industry.  Buckle up.

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I think I published an earlier version of this, but here's the latest analysis of the Senate healthcare bill from MIT economist Jonathan Gruber:

Analysis of the non-partisan information from the CBO suggests that for those facing purchase in the non-group market, the [Senate] bill will deliver savings ranging from $200 for singles to $500 for families in today’s dollars — even without subsidies. The savings are much larger for lower income populations that receive premium credits. This is in addition to the higher quality benefits that those in the exchange will receive, with actuarial values for low income populations well above what is typical in the non-group market today. It is also in addition to all the other benefits that this legislation will deliver to those consumers — in particular the guarantee, unavailable in most states, that prices would not be raised or the policy revoked if they became ill.

There are three important things to note about this.  First, the Senate bill lowers the premiums for low-cost plans across the board.  Second, in addition to this reduction, the Senate bill provides subsidies to low- and middle-income familes that makes health insurance even less expensive.  Third, it does this for a plan that covers about 70% of all medical expenses, compared to a non-reform plan that covers only about 60% of all expenses.  On an apples-to-apples basis, the Senate bill lowers premiums by about 20% and then subsidizes that lower price to reduce the cost of coverage even more.

I hardly need to mention what an enormous boon this would be for millions and millions of real flesh-and-blood people, do I?

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No more minarets in Switzerland:

Swiss voters have supported a referendum proposal to ban the building of minarets, official results show. More than 57% of voters and 22 out of 26 cantons — or provinces — voted in favour of the ban.

The proposal had been put forward by the Swiss People's Party, (SVP), the largest party in parliament, which says minarets are a sign of Islamisation.

Is this a sign of the resurgence of hard-right anti-immigrant sentiment in Europe, or is it just an exceptional result from an exceptional country?  Switzerland is a very socially conservative place (its famous multilingual tolerance notwithstanding), so in one sense it's not a surprise that this referendum passed.  Still, it was polling at only 37% support a week ago and ended up winning with 57% of the vote.  That's a big swing from just a few final days of campaigning,¹ and it suggests that it would hardly be impossible for other European countries to follow suit.²

¹Unless, of course, Swiss voters have a tendency to lie to pollsters on sensitive questions like this, as they seem to in America.

²If they had referendums, that is.  Which most of them don't.  But obviously a referendum isn't the only way to accomplish something like this.

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John Judis a few days ago on the possible fallout from the Dubai World crisis:

You have to remember that the Great Depression only became “great,” that is, global, when an obscure Austrian bank went under in 1931, and set off a massive financial explosion around Europe.  Capitalism is an irrational system that is often full of unpleasant surprises. The collapse of Dubai World may turn out to be nothing.  But it could also turn out be one of those unpleasant surprises.

Hopefully not.  But this has always been my biggest concern.  A slow jobless recovery seems all but certain at this point, but I also think we'll be lucky if that's as bad as it gets.  The nightmare scenario is that something like Dubai World panics investors and sends them fleeing back to quality; Eastern Europe can't roll over its debt; Brazil goes kaboom as hot money suddenly stops flowing; Western European banks start to fail; etc.  You can fill in the rest.  I was unpleasantly reminded of all this by the lead to this story in the Washington Post today:

DUBAI CRISIS IS WAKE-UP CALL
Investors weigh risks in emerging economies

Global markets were jolted in recent days following the threat by a state-owned company in Dubai to default on its debt, as investors reawakened to the risks posed by mammoth debts in developing economies.

After the credit collapse of 2008, financial folks rushed to tell us that they had learned their lesson.  But a lot of us were skeptical: sure, maybe they'd learned their lesson for a few years while the wounds were still fresh, but what about five years from now?  Ten?

In the end, though, it didn't take five or ten years.  It took one.  Twelve months after the catastrophe of September 2008, hot money is racing around the globe, the carry trade is as big as ever, Wall Street profits are at record highs, and the chase for supposedly risk-free returns seems to be as widespread as it's ever been.  That combination didn't end well even when it took place against the background of a strong economy, so how's it likely to end against the background of a weak and fragile one now that investors are "reawakening"?

Beats me.  I sure hope I'm just a worrywart.

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