The University of East Anglia mail server was hacked earlier in the week and a string of private correspondences between esteemed climate scientists were published.  In addition to some juicy internecine gossip becoming embarrassingly public, a few of the messages seem to reveal doubts about the evidence for global warming and at least one refers to a statistical “trick” being used to hide lower-than-predicted surface temperatures in recent years.  James Delingpole dubs this “Climategate” and pronounces it “the final nail in the coffin of ‘Anthropogenic Global Warming.’”  Andrew Bolt calls it evidence of a scandal involving most of the most prominent scientists pushing the man-made warming theory – a scandal that is one of the greatest in modern science.  Michelle Malkin terms it “The global warming scandal of the century.”

Andrew Revkin of the NYT — himself a subject of some of the emails in question — summarizes the controversy:

The e-mail messages, attributed to prominent American and British climate researchers, include discussions of scientific data and whether it should be released, exchanges about how best to combat the arguments of skeptics, and casual comments — in some cases derisive — about specific people known for their skeptical views. Drafts of scientific papers and a photo collage that portrays climate skeptics on an ice floe were also among the hacked data, some of which dates back 13 years.

In one e-mail exchange, a scientist writes of using a statistical “trick” in a chart illustrating a recent sharp warming trend. In another, a scientist refers to climate skeptics as “idiots.”

Some skeptics asserted Friday that the correspondence revealed an effort to withhold scientific information. “This is not a smoking gun; this is a mushroom cloud,” said Patrick J. Michaels, a climatologist who has long faulted evidence pointing to human-driven warming and is criticized in the documents.

Some of the correspondence portrays the scientists as feeling under siege by the skeptics’ camp and worried that any stray comment or data glitch could be turned against them.

The evidence pointing to a growing human contribution to global warming is so widely accepted that the hacked material is unlikely to erode the overall argument. However, the documents will undoubtedly raise questions about the quality of research on some specific questions and the actions of some scientists.

In several e-mail exchanges, Kevin Trenberth, a climatologist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research, and other scientists discuss gaps in understanding of recent variations in temperature. Skeptic Web sites pointed out one line in particular: “The fact is that we can’t account for the lack of warming at the moment and it is a travesty that we can’t,” Dr. Trenberth wrote.

Ronald Bailey, though, warns, “Before jumping to conclusions, remember that many of us write private emails that we might not want to see publicly distributed.”

Indeed, an unsigned post at the RealClimate blog (which I presume was written by NASA’s  Gavin Schmidt, given parallels with the Revkin story) argues,

Since emails are normally intended to be private, people writing them are, shall we say, somewhat freer in expressing themselves than they would in a public statement. For instance, we are sure it comes as no shock to know that many scientists do not hold Steve McIntyre in high regard. Nor that a large group of them thought that the Soon and Baliunas (2003), Douglass et al (2008) or McClean et al (2009) papers were not very good (to say the least) and should not have been published. These sentiments have been made abundantly clear in the literature (though possibly less bluntly).

More interesting is what is not contained in the emails. There is no evidence of any worldwide conspiracy, no mention of George Soros nefariously funding climate research, no grand plan to ‘get rid of the MWP’, no admission that global warming is a hoax, no evidence of the falsifying of data, and no ‘marching orders’ from our socialist/communist/vegetarian overlords. The truly paranoid will put this down to the hackers also being in on the plot though.

Instead, there is a peek into how scientists actually interact and the conflicts show that the community is a far cry from the monolith that is sometimes imagined. People working constructively to improve joint publications; scientists who are friendly and agree on many of the big picture issues, disagreeing at times about details and engaging in ‘robust’ discussions; Scientists expressing frustration at the misrepresentation of their work in politicized arenas and complaining when media reports get it wrong; Scientists resenting the time they have to take out of their research to deal with over-hyped nonsense. None of this should be shocking.

It’s obvious that the noise-generating components of the blogosphere will generate a lot of noise about this. but it’s important to remember that science doesn’t work because people are polite at all times. Gravity isn’t a useful theory because Newton was a nice person. QED isn’t powerful because Feynman was respectful of other people around him. Science works because different groups go about trying to find the best approximations of the truth, and are generally very competitive about that. That the same scientists can still all agree on the wording of an IPCC chapter for instance is thus even more remarkable.

No doubt, instances of cherry-picked and poorly-worded “gotcha” phrases will be pulled out of context. One example is worth mentioning quickly. Phil Jones in discussing the presentation of temperature reconstructions stated that “I’ve just completed Mike’s Nature trick of adding in the real temps to each series for the last 20 years (ie from 1981 onwards) and from 1961 for Keith’s to hide the decline.” The paper in question is the Mann, Bradley and Hughes (1998) Nature paper on the original multiproxy temperature reconstruction, and the ‘trick’ is just to plot the instrumental records along with reconstruction so that the context of the recent warming is clear. Scientists often use the term “trick” to refer to a “a good way to deal with a problem”, rather than something that is “secret”, and so there is nothing problematic in this at all. As for the ‘decline’, it is well known that Keith Briffa’s maximum latewood tree ring density proxy diverges from the temperature records after 1960 (this is more commonly known as the “divergence problem”–see e.g. the recent discussion in this paper) and has been discussed in the literature since Briffa et al in Nature in 1998 (Nature, 391, 678-682). Those authors have always recommend not using the post 1960 part of their reconstruction, and so while ‘hiding’ is probably a poor choice of words (since it is ‘hidden’ in plain sight), not using the data in the plot is completely appropriate, as is further research to understand why this happens.

Given what I know about academia, research, and science, this strikes me as eminently plausible.

Ed Morrissey sees evidence in the emails that the scientists in question are rejecting data that goes against the prevailing consensus and concludes, “That’s not science; it’s religious belief.”   But producing research findings that conclusively shatters the prevailing wisdom is the gold standard of science.  It’s the stuff of Nobel Prizes and eternal fame.  That’s how the handful of scientists known to every schoolboy (Galileo, Newton, Einstein, etc.) got there.

But one doesn’t want to publish findings claiming to shatter the consensus only to have one’s work revealed as shoddy.  So, scientists having a Eureka! finding are likely to test and test again before going public.  And, sadly for them, they’ll likely find that their novel finding was a not so novel error.

Climate change, while an important topic, is one that I follow only at the periphery.  Frankly, it’s an incredibly specialized field and I lack the time to keep up with the literature, the training to understand it, and the motivation to change either of those facts.   My biases and general impressions on the matter, however, are as follows:

• There’s overwhelming consensus among the experts on this subject

• Conspiracies involving hundreds of people over several decades are next to impossible to pull off

• There’s next to zero incentive to perpetrate this conspiracy on the part of scientists

• There are enormous incentives for people wanting to influence government to leap from the scientific data to grandiose public policy solutions

Because of the above and biases that spring from my academic training and political ideology,

• I tend to believe the vast preponderance of scientists who say the climate is changing and that human technology is a significant variable in said change

• I tend to be skeptical of radical government-mandated fixes

Story links via memeorandum.  Graphic via Green Irene.

Michael Barone (via Glenn Reynolds) argues that elites are “out of touch” on climate change and gun control:

Many years ago, political scientists came up with a theory that elites lead public opinion. And on some issues, they clearly do. But on some issues, they don’t. Two examples of the latter phenomenon are conspicuous at a time when Barack Obama enjoys the approval of more than 60 percent of Americans and Democrats have won thumping majorities in two elections in a row. One is global warming. The other is gun control. On both issues, the elites of academe, the media and big business have been solidly on one side for years. But on both, the American public has been moving in the other direction.

One could argue that these are cases where counter-elites are exceedingly well organized and have fought back with counter-propaganda. Regardless, they’re obviously cases where the elites have failed to dominate the debate.

Over the past decade, the Gallup organization has been asking Americans whether the seriousness of global warming is generally exaggerated or generally correct. From 1998 to 2007, except for the run-up to the 2004 election, they said it was generally serious by roughly a 2-1 margin — 66 to 30 percent in 2006, for example. But in March 2009, that margin slipped to only 57 to 41 percent, with two-thirds of Republicans and nearly half of independents saying concern is exaggerated.

Actually, this is a rather bizarre cherry picking of the data. What the March poll tells us is that people are more concerned about the economy than they are about the environment during the worst economic crisis in generations.  Indeed, Frank Newport’s report is titled “Americans: Economy Takes Precedence Over Environment – First time majority has supported economy in 25 years of asking question.”

Still, as Newport’s April 2008 report makes clear, the overall concern about global warming has been essentially static for two decades.

This, not the bogus comparison in relative intensity, is a much better indication that the elites have failed to win this battle.  On the other hand, a related question shows the people who think global warming “will pose a serious threat to you or your way of life in your lifetime” has increased from 25 percent to 40 percent over that period.

The difference is even more stark on guns, as Gallup’s various trendlines show.  The most relevant question has seen a steady decline since 1991:

Furthermore, gun ownership has fluctuated considerably since 1960, starting from a high of 49 percent, going as low as 34 percent in 2000, but is back to 42 percent today.

A reader sends along a recent Survey USA poll question:

The city of Berkeley is considering a law that would require all homes to be audited to be sure they meet strict energy standards in the city’s plan to fight global warming. This would mean new double-paned windows, attic insulation, a new white roof that reflects heat, a forced-air furnace and high-efficiency appliances. Do you think this law is a good idea? Or a bad idea?

The survey, asked of 500 Berkeley, California adults, had a plurality of 46 percent Yes responses, 44 percent No, and 10 percent Not sure.  Indeed, 46 percent of self-identified Republicans and 40 percent of self-identified conservatives responded Yes.

Oy.

Image source

The Washington Post company continues its consolidation of the media universe with the hire of Ezra Klein.   Politico’s Michael Calderone breaks the news:

The American Prospect’s Ezra Klein, one of the top bloggers on politics and policy, is heading to the Washington Post.

Rumors about Klein’s upcoming move spread on Wednesday night during a reception thrown by The Nation magazine in honor of D.C. bureau chief Chris Hayes.

A Post spokesperson confirmed to POLITICO this morning that Klein was hired as a blogger at washingtonpost.com and is expected to start in about a month.

Klein, a 24-year-old associate editor at the Prospect, writes frequently on health care issues. And he also runs JournoList, an off-the-record listserv of mostly left-of-center bloggers and academics, along with nonpartisan reporters.

Matt Yglesias offers his congratulations, which I second.  I also concur with Matt’s praise for recent acquisitions at the Post, most notably the superb revamping of ForeignPolicy.com into a blog megaverse.

Matt is, however, a bit leery:

After all, one thing all decent progressive blogs do is point out semi-regularly that the Washington Post opinion section is a pretty rotten operation. You have liars like Charles Krauthammer and George Will penning regular columns, alongside less-egregious but still pretty pernicious stuff like David Ignatius’ apologia for war crimes and so forth. [...] People don’t go after their bosses with hatchets. So while hiring Ezra makes the Post less hatchet-worthy, it also means that we’re down a hatchet-wielder. That’s the dark lining in my silver cloud.

The Washington Post is a newspaper, not an ideological journal like TAP.  Ignatius is a highly respected moderate-left commentator who, in this instance, has written something that many on the Left (and a few of us on the Right) disagree with. So?

As to Will and Krauthammer, the criticism is largely overblown.  Will has repeated some dubious assertions about global warming and written some silly things about denim; he’s nonetheless a Pulitzer Prize winning columnist and still pens more excellent pieces than bad ones.  Krauthammer has written some truly brilliant pieces over the years along with some junk.  Again, so?

Will Ezra be doing a lot of anti-WaPo blogging while on WaPo’s dime?  Likely not.  But WaPo’s editors aren’t likely to log into his account and write embarrassing disclaimers, either.  Life is trade-offs and the Post gives Ezra a much bigger megaphone to write about health care and other issues he cares about.  If that means we’re denied the incredibly rare Ezra Klein anti-WaPo rant, the world will go on.

Photo by Flickr user electoralmath, used under Creative Commons license.

Timothy Sandefur is embarrassed:

So I was watching this insane video of Christopher Hitchens and Salman Rushdie discussing the War on Terrorism with Mos Def. And it’s amusing to laugh at the utterly hapless ignorance of “Mr. Def,” as he is repeatedly called—until you stop and wonder. Why is the black community not outraged by this? Bill Maher hosts a talk show to discuss the threat of Islamic terrorism and the Middle East, and he invites two world-renowned white male intellectuals and Mos Def? If this show had been choreographed by the Ku Klux Klan it could not have been more infuriating. Did Maher not have the phone number of a black intellectual? Were Colin Powell, Condoleeza Rice, Orlando Patterson, Julian Bond, Walter Williams, Thomas Sowell, Shelby Steele, John McWhorter all busy?

Here’s the video:

While I agree entirely that this is an absurd pairing, it’s most definitely not a racist one.  Sandefur has apparently never seen “Real Time with Bill Maher.”  The premise of the show, from its inception more than six years ago, has been to pair politicos and pop culture figures in discussion.  (Whether the point of the exercise was to demonstrate that the latter are morons or that their opinions are equally valid, I could never determine.)

Here are the seven season openers.

February 21, 2003. Guests: Author Ann Coulter, actor Larry Miller, writer, radio host and professor Michael Eric Dyson, comedian Sarah Silverman, comedian Chris Rock.  Topics: The UN, Affirmative Action.

January 16, 2004. Guests: Ret. Gen. Wesley Clark, artist Moby, Rev. Al Sharpton, actor Ron Silver, Rep. Darrell Issa. Topics: American values, Iraq, MoveOn.org, environment.

February 18, 2005. Guests: Correspondent Lesley Stahl, actor Robin Williams, former H&HS Sec. Tommy Thompson, Sen. Joe Biden, and actor Don Cheadle. Topics: On protecting sources, Jeff Gannon, on Interrogating prisoners, Iraq elections, Darfur.

February 17, 2006. Guests: Sen. Russ Feingold, commentator Fred Barnes, actor Eddie Griffin, reporter Helen Thomas, Iraq advisor Dan Senor. Topics: Cheney shooting, on the Patriot Act, Bush, Mohammad cartoons.

February 16, 2007. Guests: Fmr Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, fmr Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina, TV host Craig Ferguson; via satellite, fmr Sen. John Edwards and basketball player John Amaechi. Topics: Developments in North Korea, Iran, and Iraq; global warming; Mitt Romney and Mormonism; Al Franken Senate campaign.

January 11, 2008. Guests: Entrepreneur Mark Cuban, fmr Court TV anchor Catherine Crier, fmr Bush Press Secy Tony Snow, Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi (election correspondent); via satellite, humorist P.J. O’Rourke. Topics: New Hampshire primary, electronic voting machines, Iraq troop surge, subprime lending and prospects for economic recession.

February 20, 2009. Guests: Financial Times editor Chrystia Freeland, journalist Tina Brown, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-CA); via satellite, Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), journalist Brigitte Gabriel The economy, President Obama’s first month in office.

See the Wikipedia episode guide if you fear the season openers are not representative.

The pairings are, in most if not all cases, patently absurd. They include plenty of famous white guys who would, on the face of things, seem to be woefully out of their elements and plenty of black guys who would seemingly mop of the floor with the competition.

For what it’s worth, Mr. Def was really good in this week’s “House.”

Paul Waldman fleshes out a theme that many observers have made in passing: The young voters who helped propel Barack Obama to the presidency could create a “permanent” realignment in American politics.

In 1984, 59 percent of the nation’s Alex P. Keatons voted for Reagan, an extraordinary percentage for a Republican (and just over his proportion of the popular vote as a whole). What was going on? As E.J. Dionne, then a reporter for The New York Times, wrote near the end of Reagan’s tenure in the fall of 1988, “Academics and political consultants who have studied the youth vote have many explanations for their movement toward the Republicans, but the most powerful is the simplest: Young Americans have known only Mr. Reagan and Mr. Carter as President, and Mr. Reagan is the overwhelming favorite. Similarly, many people who first voted in the Depression still see politics in terms of the Democratic President Roosevelt and the Republican President Hoover.”

It was a remarkable shift, and one that helped shape politics for the ensuing two decades. Currently, we are beginning an even more dramatic turn. Today’s young people — often called the millennial generation — could pull American politics even further to the left, and for a longer time, than the Reagan generation pulled our politics to the right.

Start with the obvious: 67 percent of voters under 29 cast their ballot for Barack Obama, a result unequalled since exit polling began. (If you’re interested, exit-poll data dating back to 1976 can be found at the Roper Center.) Despite periodic proclamations that young conservatives are poised for a comeback (see, for instance, this lengthy portrait in The New York Times Magazine only six years ago of the “Young Hipublicans” who were ready to take the country by storm), young people aren’t finding much to like about today’s GOP. And as a pair of new reports from the Center for American Progress on the present and future of American ideology show, those feelings are likely to run much deeper than a single election or a single candidate.

While they cover a great deal of ground, the reports contain some particularly interesting points about the millennial generation. In “State of American Political Ideology, 2009,”, we learn that young people are the most progressive age group overall and the most progressive on social issues, which might not be surprising. But they are also the most progressive age group in their opinions about the role of government, which might be. And as the other report, “New Progressive America,” points out, this generation’s share of the voting population will increase every year until 2020, when they will represent nearly 40 percent of the electorate.

[...]

To paint with a broad brush for a moment: They know plenty of gay people, don’t find anything particularly notable about people of different races dating, and see the traditional family setup (a two-parent heterosexual couple in which Dad works outside the home and Mom doesn’t) as the exception rather than the rule. This may not be true for all of them, but it is true for enough of them that it has become their generational norm.

This is simply a fact of life that even most under-50 conservative intellectuals are coming to terms with.  Indeed, even some of the older set.  George Will recently remarked on a “This Week” roundtable that, for this generation, being gay was about as remarkable as being left-handed.

The fictional Alex P. Keaton was my contemporary; indeed, we both graduated high school in 1984.  I’m now older than Michael Gross, who played dad Steven Keaton, was when the show started.  So, it’s perfectly natural that today’s teens have different political views than I do.  (For that matter, I’m much less socially conservative now, at 43, than I was when the show first aired 27 years ago.)

Waldman anticipated my ready rejoinder to his thesis:

But how much the generation of which she is a part will continue voting for Democrats, and whether her social progressivism will be joined to similar views on economics and foreign affairs, depends on how things go over the next four or eight years. Just as the views of the Reagan generation were shaped by the seemingly ineffectual Carter presidency and the seemingly successful Reagan presidency, the current generation will be shaped by the Bush and Obama presidencies — one an unmitigated disaster, the other a story still being written.

Of course, this presidency could be a disaster as well; who knows what crises await tomorrow or next month or next year. But if Obama accomplishes his grand goals — pulling the nation through the economic crisis, reforming health care, confronting global warming, transforming our relationship with the world — the millennial generation will belong to him and his ideological heirs. And conservatives will find themselves in a very deep hole for many years to come.

That’s quite right.  But, frankly, even if Obama is a miserable failure, the country’s social mores will have evolved in four or eight years.  Further, American politics will naturally evolve along with the American public, just as it always has.  Presumably, the Republican Party will eventually do so as well — just as it always has.

We’ll always have a strong “conservative” movement.  It’s just that Ronald Reagan and Alex P. Keaton wouldn’t quite recognize it.

UPDATE: See my follow-up post, “Democrats Can’t Win for Losing.”

On the night before CPAC, Senator James M. Inhofe’s staff reached out to me to see if I would be interested in interviewing him.  I was, indeed, but Inhofe never made it to CPAC Thursday because of a series of unscheduled votes, so it became an email exchange instead.

Because Inhofe is the second ranking Republican on Armed Services Committee and is a former chairman of (and now ranking Republican on) the Environment and Public Works Committee, I decided to focus on issues of interest to the New Atlanticist audience:  Israel, Gauntanamo, NATO, energy, and climate.   The result is “5 Questions for Jim Inhofe.”

Inhofe’s prominence and issue stances illustrate a recurring theme of mine on transatlantic relations: We simply have very different views of the world.  To be sure, we have a common heritage and substantial overlapping values and interests.  But how do you come to agreement on, say, the Kyoto accords when a substantial number of prominent American leaders doubt the science behind global warming?

WaPo federal beat reporter Ed O’Keefe helpfully notes that,

Washington, D.C.-area federal offices will operate today under “liberal leave” or “unscheduled leave” and delayed arrival status, meaning employees who cannot make it to work can request off, or should otherwise arrive to work no more than two hours later than normal, according to the Office of Personnel Management.

In addition to perennially spawing jokes about liberals leaving (not to mention “They’re protesting global warming in a snowstorm”) this practice has perplexed me since my move to the area a few years back.

I understand, say, deciding to open offices at 10 am on the theory that the temperatures will have warmed up sufficiently by then to thaw the ice.  Instead, though, they want people in “no more than two hours later than normal.”  Since federal workers are typically on flex schedules, that means some people will be expected to be in at 8 rather than 6 while others will be expected to be in at 11 instead of 9 or 1 instead of 11.

What sense does that make?

UPDATE:   After reading through the comments, the answer is “It depends.”   The policy makes sense if:

1. It’s read as “take your time coming in” rather than “report at your normal time plus two hours.”

2. One presumes that the weather will cause even more people than normal to rely on public transit.

3. It’s viewed as a CYA measure rather than a transportation plan.

And, really, all those points have merit.

Photo by Flickr user brownpau under Creative Commons license.

Kevin Drum seconds my concerns about conservative public intellectuals and offers two example where the Right isn’t offering useful policy alternatives.

Conservatives on Global Warming

Take global warming. Here’s the rough conservative reaction to it starting in the early 90s:

1. It doesn’t exist.
2. It exists but it isn’t manmade.
3. It’s manmade, but it’s too expensive to do anything about.

Even this is a generous assessment. A lot of conservatives are still stuck at #2, and sizeable chunk at #1. What this means is that they’re basically shut out of the conversation entirely. Which is too bad, because I’d actually be sort of interested to hear a conservative take on how to address global warming that accepts both its reality and the necessity of doing something about it. If we really are facing a global environmental catastrophe, what shape would a conservative solution take? I don’t think anyone knows.

On the first, I’d note that John McCain made quite a bit of noise about being a Teddy Roosevelt Republican and the need to do something about the problem.  He launched a set of policies he dubbed the “Lexington Initiative” and mentioned it quite frequently.  It was, however, not at all a centerpiece of his campaign.  Newt Gingrich has been touting the need to adopt a sensible strategy on global warming for nearly two years now and included some interesting market-based suggestions in his book A Contract with the Earth.  There was even a group blog called Terra Rossa, to which I was a very occasional contributor, that tried to suss out a center-right approach to energy and climate issues.

None of these initiatives took off.

In my own case, it’s just not a topic I’m particularly interested in at a wonkish level.  I’m pretty sure global warming is happening and that human technology is a contributor to it and even think we’ll need government — indeed, intergovernmental — solutions.   I just don’t have the scientific interest to get excited beyond the margins.

More generally, though, I think conservatives were skeptical of the motives of the environmental movement and this particular aspect of it and always viewed it as a backdoor attack on business and progress.  That, combined with a general conservative faith in free markets to solve problems and lack of same in government, explains the general dearth of useful discussion of the issue on right-of-center blogs.

Presumably, though, there are conservatives who take the issue seriously.  Presumably, too, their solutions involve market-based incentives.  What are they?  Who’s talking about these issues?  Why am I not seeing it on the center-right blogs?

Conservatives on Wage Inequality

Kevin continues:

Likewise, conservative reaction to wage stagnation and growing income inequality has gone down a similar road:

1. It doesn’t exist.
2. It exists, but consumption inequality is what really matters.
3. ???

Again, conservatives are dubious of motives here, as well as means.  The Left generally hasn’t been helpful here, framing the problem as one of a handful of rich people making obscene amounts of money (Why, the CEO of Acme Corporation makes 10 gazillion times what the guy who mops the floors in the executive washrooms makes.  It’s an outrage!) rather than figuring out to make people at the low end of the wage scale more competitive.

Second, most of us do in fact think absolute living standards matter much more than the distribution of income.   Bill Gates’ lifestyle is of little interest to me; that of me and my family is of great interest.   If our real purchasing power goes up a third and his triples, I’m pretty pleased.

That said, it’s important for a variety of reasons that there be a huge middle class rather than a division of haves and have-nots.   We’ve still got that — we live in bigger houses and have more stuff than our parents did at comparable points in their lives — but it’s taking two incomes, constantly changing jobs, and 24/7 connection to the office to do it.

What’s the solution to that?   The hackneyed consensus solution for decades has been “Education!”  I’m not sure that’s sustainable anymore as an answer, given the diminishing returns on college degrees.  If it takes an MBA to get a job flipping burgers, we’re not making much progress.

Just as surely, though, the answer isn’t some sort of salary cap on what executives can make — although I’m amenable to reforms on how executive compensation is set, given the incestuousness of corporate governance — or an arbitrary minimum wage that’s not related to a worker’s value to the firm.

I don’t have the answer.  What are the smart folks on the center-right who actually focus on these issues (one presumes there are in fact people who fit that description)offering up as solutions?

An interesting meme is developing among smart commenters from across the political spectrum that the House’s failure to pass the bailout bill demonstrates the soft underbelly of our political system itself.

Ezra Klein:

Above all, though, this is a failure of politics. Like with global warming, with health care, with the national debt, with immigration. It is further proof that we have a calcified political system incapable of responding to either long-term threats or short-term crises. The electoral and partisan incentives have made actual action too dangerous and rendered obstruction everyone’s easy second choice. The Republicans killed this bill. Without their cover, the Democrats refused to save it, rather than take ownership of it.

It’s easy enough to imagine a society running atop a stable economy even when it has an unhealthy politics. And it’s simple enough to see how an unstable economy can be calmed through concerted action by an effective political structure. But an economy in chaos and a political system in paralysis? What happens then?

Megan McArdle:

I didn’t think it was possible to be more disgusted with politicians than I usually am, but I find it impossible to express the seething contempt that I feel at this kind of opportunism.  I don’t mind when they screw with the normal operation of the economy for venal personal gain.  But risking a recession in order to get a cut in the capital gains tax?  Letting it tank because you can always blame it on the Republicans?

Dan Drezner:

[T]he idea of the package was to prevent a financial mewltdown.  But here’s the thing — no one gets credit for stopping a meltdown if it doesn’t happen.  To use a security analogy, think about what would have happened if either the Bush or Clinton administrations had killed the leadership of Al Qaeda and the Taliban prior to June of 2001.  Even if they had claimed that they were foiling a terrorist plot against the United States, no one would have known about it, and it would have been pretty easy to attack either administration for belligerent unilateralism.  In other words, it was only after 9/11 that the American public was ready to take the actions that would have prevented 9/11.

Maybe letting the representatives of the people, assembled in Congress, vote on such important issues — especially five weeks before their political futures are on the line — is asking too much.  After all, even those of us who read the newspapers voraciously don’t really understand this mess; certainly, Joe Sixpack doesn’t.

Then again, I’m not at all convinced that anybody truly understands what’s going on here, let alone that there’s an expert consensus on what the impacts of the compromise legislation arrived at some 24 hours ago will have on the economy.  That some action needs to be taken and soon seems to be a given.  This action?  Right now?  That’s hardly settled.

It may be true that when forced to eat a crap sandwich, the thing to do is to take big bites.  But it’s not unreasonable to first take another look in the pantry to see if there’s a more palatable option.

UPDATE (Dave Schuler)

See my update to the post below for my thoughts on the likelihood of a plan more palatable to the Republicans being brought up before the election. Voting down a bill whose original form was proposed by a Republican administration and which had bipartisan support effectively indemnifies Democrats against blame for the fallout and, as noted above, nobody will get the credit for anything that doesn’t happen.

It seems that the leading man-made cause of global warming is environmentalism; specifically, efforts to improve air quality by reducing pollution, New Scientist reports.

Since 1980, average air temperatures in Europe have risen 1 °C: much more than expected from greenhouse-gas warming alone. Christian Ruckstuhl of the Institute for Atmospheric and Climate Science in Switzerland and colleagues took aerosol concentrations from six locations in northern Europe, measured between 1986 and 2005, and compared them with solar-radiation measurements over the same period. Aerosol concentrations dropped by up to 60 per cent over the 29-year period, while solar radiation rose by around 1 watt per square metre (Geophysical Research Letters, DOI: 10.1029/2008GL034228). “The decrease in aerosols probably accounts for at least half of the warming over Europe in the last 30 years,” says Rolf Philipona, a co-author of the study at MeteoSwiss, Switzerland’s national weather service.

Say Anything’s Piligrim finds this terrifically amusing:  “Well now, there’s a moral dilemna for you. If we go back to eating roots and berries and living in pre-industrial all natural bliss, one with nature and all that, we might end up with a warmer planet than if we just went ahead and enjoyed ourselves.”

Of course, clean air is a good thing in and of itself.  I was, however, under the impression that the rationale for getting rid of aerosols (or, more accurately, the hydroflourocarbons that propelled them) was because we thought they were destroying the ozone layer and thereby increasing harmful ultraviolet rays from the sun.  It would be quite odd, indeed, if our solution to the problem yielded the same results in a different way.

UPDATE:  Commenters tell me that, in this case, aerosols have nothing to do with aerosol spray cans but simply particulates in the air.  Oddly, the report in New Scientist Environment is entitled “Cleaner skies explain surprise rate of warming” and the linked abstract is unhelpful. Is the Web headline misrepresenting the article itself?

I’ve updated the headline and illustration to eliminate confusion, although I remain somewhat confused as to what the study actually reports.

UPDATE II: A reader has sent me a PDF copy of the entire journal article which I’ve uploaded here.  I’ve made a quick scan and, frankly, still don’t understand it.

Illustration:  NASA Earth Observatory

Ezra Klein believes a recent NYT Magazine profile of Rush Limbaugh is a “puff piece.” He lists, for example, Rush’s “presidential platform” as published:

1. Open the continental shelf to drilling. Ditto the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge.

2. Establish a 17 percent flat tax.

3. Privatize Social Security.

4. Give parents school vouchers to break the monopoly of public education.

5. Revoke Jimmy Carter’s passport while he is out of the country.

6. Abandon all government policies based on the hoax of man-made global warming.

Ezra’s analysis:

If liberalish conservative intellectuals seek a Sam’s Club Conservatism, then #2 and #3 are the more traditional variant: Mercede’s conservatism. #4 is a bad public policy idea, but it is a public policy idea. But #1 #5, and #6 speak of a largely bankrupt movement: They’re pure resentment politics, mixed with a toxic distaste for empiricism. The stereotypical liberal loves the environment, so Limbaugh will drill up the shelf, a policy that won’t do much to increase the oil supply, but will presumably piss off Al Gore. And you know what will really piss off Al Gore? Doing nothing about global warming. Denying its very existence. Oh, and for good measure, screw Jimmy Carter.

I was an avid listener to Rush’s show once upon a time but hardly ever catch it these days owing to a combination of scheduling and the fact that I grew tired of the schtick some years back.  Still, this “platform” shows quite well why Rush is so popular with middle America.  And, no, it’s no ressentiment.

#1 and #6 have nothing to do with poking liberals in general or Al Gore in particular in the eye.  Rather, it’s a much more basic populist appeal:  “You’re paying four bucks a gallon for gas and these liberal do-gooders are more worried about the spotted owl than your ability to take care of your family!”

#2 and #3 aren’t about making the rich richer.  Frankly, while that would be great for Rush, he of the recent $400 million contract extension, you don’t get 20 million listeners by appealing to the top one percent of income earners.  Most Americans hate the tax code and, especially, the burden of keeping records and filing their taxes every year.  Pretty much everyone thinks it’s way too complicated and nobody knows whether they’re paying “their fair share” or not.  Indeed, most everyone suspects People like me are getting screwed while everyone who makes less or more than they do is getting over.  Social Security?  Most people support the idea behind the system — making sure granny can feed herself and keep the lights on — but they resent the huge amount withheld from their paycheck combined with a growing (if almost certainly incorrect) sense that they’ll never actually see any retirement dividends from the system.

#4 is about culture more than about education.  Middle America thinks the schools are brainwashing their kids to reject parental values rather than teaching the so-called “Three R’s.”  Beyond that, there’s a real sense that schools aren’t very good and that having to teach to the lowest common denominator is robbing their own kids (all of whom are above average) of a decent education.

#5 is a joke.  Rush doesn’t actually want to deport Jimmy Carter, he just enjoys poking fun at him. Republicans of a certain age find Jimmy Carter very funny.

Limbaugh’s appeal is that he’s simultaneously Everyman, expressing the values and frustrations of Regular People who believe their values and way of life are under assault from elites in Hollywood, the news media, higher education, and inside the dreaded Beltway as well as a very bright, humorous, entertaining fellow.  People enjoy spending parts of the three hours a day he’s on listening to him.  Whether they are giving him mega-dittos, shaking their head in disbelief, or screaming at the radio, they’re not bored.  Rush is more engaging than Sean Hannity, more comfortable than Michael Savage, funnier than Gordon Liddy, and less preachy than Laura Schlessinger.

His act wears thin if you’re an intellectual.  But he can afford to lose a few hundred people.

Photo: Nigel Parry for The New York Times

Two articles cited in today’s Small Wars Journal roundup have almost nothing to do with wars, small or otherwise, but are nonetheless interesting in showing the state of flux of some key international institutions.

Steven Erlanger reports on a bold attempt to forge a “Union of the Mediterranean” which would be something of a minor league for the European Union.

Perhaps the grandest new idea of France’s president, Nicolas Sarkozy, looking to give his presidency of the European Union a lasting stamp, is the Union of the Mediterranean. An effort to bind the 17 nations bordering the Mediterranean Sea with the European Union around regional projects, the new union will be inaugurated next week at a Paris summit meeting.

But as with some of Mr. Sarkozy’s other ideas, the execution has been haphazard. The Union of the Mediterranean has created resistance among vital allies, like the Germans and the Spanish, and confusion within his own government. The result may be more show than substance.

Peter Alford reports on the emergence of what would be a radical transformation of the G8.

The largest, most expensive gathering of world leaders under the G8 banner convenes today confronted by an awesome array of problems, from runaway oil prices and scarce food to flaring inflation and global warming, but with little prospect of real breakthroughs on any front. Failure this year could call seriously into question the viability of the Group of Eight industrialised nations, a 33-year-old gathering originally of the top Western powers, struggling now for relevance against huge shifts in the world’s political and economic geography.

That shift will be underlined when the “Plus 5″ developing nations issue for the first time their own communique after meeting the G8 leaders on Wednesday at the Windsor Hotel, the luxurious and now heavily-secured summit site on Lake Toya, in Toyako, near here.

Since the 2005 Gleneagles summit, China, Brazil, India, Mexico and South Africa have met annually as the “G8 plus 5″ with the chief summiteers, the leaders of the US, Japan, Britain, Germany, France, Italy, Canada and Russia. But because of their rising economic power, their huge hunger for energy and food and their critical role in deciding a new climate change regime – or not – after the Kyoto Protocol expires in 2012, the Plus 5 communique will carry as much weight as G8 statements.

The summit situation also gives force to calls from France’s Nicolas Sarkozy and Britain’s Gordon Brown, lately joined by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper, for the eight to be expanded to a G13 with the emerging powers as full partners. This idea is strongly resisted by Washington and Tokyo, the Japanese apparently fearing further dilution of their claims to Asian leadership if China gains a seat.

The addition of Russia, a major regional actor but an economic lightweight, to the group in the 1990s opened a Pandora’s box that may be impossible to close. Certainly, China, Brazil and India have stronger claims to membership in the elite economic club than Russia although, I must confess, what Mexico and South Africa are doing on the list eludes me.

Both of these developments — potential breakthroughs in long emerging trends — point to the continual reshuffling of the world order. Attempting to confine major international institutions to its charter members excludes those who now merit membership and who could contribute the the organization’s goals. Opening the window for new members, however, threatens the interests of existing powers in the institution whose ability to steer policy would be diluted.

That’s how Instapundit refers to James Hansen, apparently the most intemperate of the global warming alarmists (yes, he’s worse than Gore because he’s Gore’s science advisor). Here’s Hansen’s latest proposal:

James Hansen, one of the world’s leading climate scientists, will today call for the chief executives of large fossil fuel companies to be put on trial for high crimes against humanity and nature, accusing them of actively spreading doubt about global warming in the same way that tobacco companies blurred the links between smoking and cancer.

Hansen will use the symbolically charged 20th anniversary of his groundbreaking speech (pdf) to the US Congress – in which he was among the first to sound the alarm over the reality of global warming – to argue that radical steps need to be taken immediately if the “perfect storm” of irreversible climate change is not to become inevitable.

Speaking before Congress again, he will accuse the chief executive officers of companies such as ExxonMobil and Peabody Energy of being fully aware of the disinformation about climate change they are spreading.

Hansen isn’t clear as to which court would have jurisdiction, nor is he very specific on any other details. Frankly, any attempt to prosecute people for their opinions like this strikes me as authoritarian and something that should be avoided. In addition, when scientists become activists I find it pretty alarming; they’re supposed to be dispassionate about their conclusions and should be aiming for the truth. Maybe they are, but episodes like this make me question their objectivity.

It’s a shame it comes down to something like this as well. As a non-scientist I am forced to trust people who do understand these things to make informed judgments of my own. It’s difficult to trust their conclusions when they put someone like Hansen front-and-center and he makes statements like this. I suspect it does more harm to their cause than good.

For my own part, I’m content to go with what the scientists say on this issue, mostly. One very basic item would make it much easier to go along with the scientists unequivocally. In all I’ve read about climate change in the popular press, I haven’t seen that they even have a model that can predict the earth’s average temperature from one year to the next, much less decades into the future (if anyone can point me to an example of this, please put it in the comments). Hopefully this is something they took care of long ago.

Also, whether climate change is true or not, that doesn’t tell us what, if anything, needs to be done about it. My personal preference would be a revenue neutral, distribution neutral carbon tax.

John McCain has proposed offering a $300 million dollar prize to the developer of “breakthrough battery technology.”

Senator John McCain on Monday proposed the creation of a $300 million prize for anyone who developed breakthrough car-battery technology and he recommended greater tax incentives for buyers of nonpolluting autos, saying that only a combination of increased oil production, conservation measures and ingenuity could ease the fuel crisis and slow global warming.

[...]

Perhaps McCain’s most striking proposal was the $300 million prize “for the development of a battery package that has the size, capacity, cost and power to leapfrog the commercially available plug-in hybrids or electric cars.”

That’s not a bad idea, assuming that the prize conditions are well defined. I’ve always preferred the incentive approach to research as opposed to direct subsidies. Plus, if the car battery principles can be applied to other energy storage, it might help boost the transition to fluctuating power sources such as solar and wind.

(link via Balloon Juice)