British Climate Change Skeptics

...at the Institute of Economic Affairs have put out an 87 page booklet -- "Climate Change Policy: Challenging the Activists" in which they question the conventional wisdom and the policies under consideration:

Certainly, the public pronouncements of politicians and the detailed central planning and regulations that they propose seem predicated upon the belief that politicians, their advisers and their regulators have limitless knowledge about the science and economics of climate change, energy use and the environment.

Or perhaps the political class does not have such knowledge, but nevertheless the precautionary principle demands that something must be done. That is the asymmetric precautionary principle, which demands precaution against the risk that today’s freedoms may harm future generations more than they benefit present generations, but opposes precaution against the risk that today’s constraints may harm present generations more than they benefit future generations.

[snip]

According to Bertrand Russell, "the whole problem with the world is that fools and fanatics are always so certain of themselves, but wiser people so full of doubts." Unfortunately, we expect our politicians to have all the answers, and our politicians expect likewise from their advisers. So we get the policies we deserve, prescribed by fools and fanatics. Fortunately, there are still a few wise people engaged in the policy debate, and the views of several of them are collected here.

They conclude by recommending a tax on the largest sources of carbon (carbon-based fuels and cement) and setting that money aside to mitigate damage from climate change -- should damage materialize.

Bottom Line: This is a good review of the skeptic's perspective. Although I think that climate change IS happening and WILL have disastrous effects, I cannot argue with the flexibility of a tax system that can be cranked up/down as events unfold.