(I have updated the item with comments below after the Post-Libertarianism blog responded).
I suppose it is inevitable that people who are unconvinced by a supposedly strong “consensus” in favour of CAGW are going to be branded as conspiracy theorists, putting them into the same category as 9/11 Truthers, Holocaust revisionists, and sundry other people of varying levels of delusion, looniness or nastiness. (There is even a person – anonymous and writing for the “Post-Libertarianism” blog, claiming to be a bit of a supporter of libertarianism who says he is appalled at how so many libertarians are skeptics. This blogger seems to write in a permanent state of rage.)
At the Adam Smith Institute blog, Chris Snowdon makes this point about the value, or otherwise, of surveys of opinions about such matters:
“That being said, it would come as no great surprise if free marketeers were more likely to be sceptical of climate change than left-wingers since many of the most prominent global warming advocates are on the left and many of the proposed solutions involve encroachments on economic or social liberties. There is, therefore, a greater motivation for them to seek out alternative hypotheses. Conversely, one might conclude that socialists are more likely to embrace the issue than right-wingers, and for the same reason, but since the study did not use a control group, we have no way of knowing if free marketeers are over-represented in the sceptic camp or if the numbers are what you would expect from a random sample of the population.”
“The (considerably weaker) relationship between climate change scepticism and conspiratorial thinking is more interesting and it made me wonder whether the study also found a link between free market beliefs and conspiracy theories. The researchers do not say—although they must have the data—and I would be surprised if such a link exists. One striking aspect of David Aaronovich’s excellent book Voodoo Histories is how many conspiracy theories are of the left. The two biggest conspiracy theories of the last century—the JFK assassination and the 9/11 ‘inside job’—surely do not correlate with free market beliefs. More likely, they correlate with the politics of Oliver Stone and Michael Moore, both of whom have managed to keep their careers on track despite publicly promoting some quite outrageous drivel.”
“I dare say that free market views would also not correlate with the belief that the invasion of Iraq was a ‘war for oil’ with Halliburton pulling the strings, or that Hilda Murrell, John Lennon, Martin Luther King, Robert Kennedy and David Kelly were murdered by the government, or that the 2000 US presidential election was rigged, or that the government blew up New Orleans’ levees during Hurricane Katrina, or, for that matter, that anyone who is sceptical about climate change is funded by the fossil fuel industry.”
On the subject of why people believe in conspiracies, Michael Shermer is usually very good on the subject. His demolition of Holocaust deniers is brilliant as an example of historiography and painstaking analysis.
Update: The blogger at Post-Libertarianism responded. He/she seems rather bemused by Samizdata and where we are coming from. I should have thought that the “who are we” segment on the top right hand corner of the homepage should provide a decent outline. Samizdata isn’t a sort of “hardcore” libertarian blog, by the way – there have, for example, been distinct differences of view by commentators about matters such as the 2003 Coalition overthrow of Saddam. Anyway, the blogger has elaborated on where he/she stands on the approach to CAGW. He/she argues that the word “skeptic” is inappropriate to describe people who, allegedly, are in total denial about whether any Man-made global warming of a potentially damaging nature is occurring. Fair enough. Personally, I think people who don’t sign up to the full CAGW point of view come in different flavours: some – like me, are skeptics because of how issues such as the “hockey stick” prediction have not only failed to materialise, but because some of the most prominent scientists involved seem to have a cavalier approach to evidence and criticism, as evidence by the University of East Anglia leaked emails issue, and other behaviours as recently chronicled by James Delingpole.
There is also no doubt, as Post-Libertarianism can see, that while it is perfect possible for a person to be concerned about CAGW and be a libertarian, favouring non-state measures to adapt to CAGW or prevent it, there is no doubt that in general, most people who are pressing the CAGW case are statists of various types, and are arguing for taxes, regulations and other coercive state measures to deal with it. There is, in other words, a natural inclination on the part of libertarians to treat CAGW as a version of a moral panic of the sort that have been used in the past to justify intrusive government actions down the centuries. The same applies to views about race, for example. While it is possible that some people who are interested in race and IQ might have benign intentions and wish to push the boundaries of knowledge and protect freedom, in my experience – and that of many others – most people who discuss such matters are often racial collectivists who are happy to use the power of the state to bring about outcomes they consider desirable.
One final point. Post-Libertarianism objects to my description of him as “a bit of a supporter of libertarianism”. Well, the writer says in this post: “My idea of post-libertarianism is that of a sane, philosophical, scholarly anarcho-capitalist libertarianism that has disengaged itself from the maniacs, sociopaths, and garden-variety crackpots of LRC, LvMI, ARI, LP, FEE, and other errorist organizations (except for ARI, which is a full-fledged terrorist organization).”
Well, leave aside whether all of the organisations mentioned deserve to be so described. The fact is that this person does, by his/her own words, appear to be a libertarian of sorts. I’d be interested to know who the author of that blog actually is. If you are going to throw rocks from the position of anonymity, it looks a bit slimy unless there are good, work-based or other professional reasons for doing so.
Another Update: Post-Libertarianism – I am now convinced the author is a he (you can just tell somehow) – is a regular charmer:
“As for your whining about my anonymity: if there is a need for you to know who I am, then please describe and explain that need. I don’t give a damn who you are; why should you give a damn who I am?”
Let me spell it out for him: unless there is a clear need for work reasons (some firms make it almost impossible for people to blog under their real names) it is surely best to say who you are, or, if you have a pen-name, develop it over a period of time so that one has a sort of track record (this is what I have done.) For a start, it encourages a basic level of civility. Also, if you are in the business of making harsh attacks on people about their academic qualifications (as PL does about some of the people involved at, say, George Mason University), or otherwise attacking the intelligence, objectivity or bias of people such as the late Thomas Szasz – as PL does – then it perhaps aids the credibility of such attacks if the attacker can explain who he or she is, what their own academic and professional qualifications are, and so on. This is not “whining”; rather, it is a call for a basic amount of civility and accountability. Of course, this person is free to continue blogging away anonymously. But I happen to think that this will hamper his efforts to clean up libertarianism effectively.
Anyway, enough of this. I actually like – mostly – what this person is trying to do.
Although I would not find it incredible to see some overlap between right wing conspiracism and climate scepticism, Lewandowsky’s survey does absolutely nothing to establish that link. Bishop Hill and friends are cutting that survey to ribbons.
He links to this post by “Australian Climate Madness that says that the headline finding about disbelief in the moon landings (a) was genned up from a whole TEN online responses, and (b) in any case, if the ten moon-landing-denying responders aren’t merely ten jokers but are telling the truth about their beliefs, there are more of them who are AGW believers than are not!
So much of social science seems to involve rubbish statistics and advocacy disguised as science.
Snowdon’s main point about the greater attractiveness of C-AGWism to statists is a good one.
Smited!
So many CAGW “believers” are so plainly engaged in rent-seeking that one has no choice but to receive their claims with skepticism.
Lefties are much more prone to conspiracy theories, because they are collectivists. If you believe in free markets, then you know that thousands of little individual decisions may result in grand movements of business and human enterprise. If instead you believe in central planning, but there is no obvious central planner to be seen – why then it must be a conspiracy!
This is why lefties think anti-AGW bloggers are all paid by some grand conspiracy, while they are in fact all individuals doing what they think is right. And also why the lefties think that rightwingers believe that AGW is a conspiracy. Rightwingers know that AGW is just a market/political phenomenon. But leftwingers cannot conceive of that on such a scale, so they call us conspiracy theorists, on the basis of what they would believe in the same situation.
The two biggest conspiracy theories of the last century—the JFK assassination and the 9/11 ‘inside job’—surely do not correlate with free market beliefs.
Well, I haven’t done a study to figure out which “side” is more prone to those, I’ve definitely seen non-Leftist free-market crazies promote conspiracy-crap around both of those. So at very least the crazy knows no hard boundaries of Us/Them.
(Did you know that the World Economic Elite want to kill most of the world’s population for reasons that don’t make any sense if you assess them critically or have any – even the vaguest – knowledge of actual economics?
Must be so, since some monument somewhere with some hand-wavey association with Bilderrothschildcomissiongrovers suggests that overpopulation is bad.
I wish I was making that up.)
I think agn hit the nail squarely on the head.
Did you know that the World Economic Elite want to kill most of the world’s population for reasons that don’t make any sense if you assess them critically or have any – even the vaguest – knowledge of actual economics
Oddly enough in the case of many on the left, this is actually true – just not in the way most people think. The old horror of eugenics never went away, they just took to dressing it up in different language. Margaret Sanger never made a secret of the fact that she wanted Negroes to stop “breeding”. Modern socialists hold opinions that are much the same, just phrased more delicately.
Why do you think it is that in Africa, with all of it’s multitude of problems, the #1 goal of Western charities is to encourage the use of birth control and to increase the availability of abortion? Bill Gates gave a fortune to charities in Africa. He could have spent it teaching peasants to farm. He could have spent it making peace between warring factions. He could have spent it improving drinking water. He spent it on encouraging the use of birth control.
The same is true amongst the underclass in Western nations as well. When coming into contact with a government representative, a female member of the lower classes will find that the number 1 item on the agenda is to stop her from reproducing further.
The ideology behind this is Fabian Socialism, which sounds very “pro-poor” but what a lot of the client state don’t realise is many of them (particularly the unproductive) are viewed as useful idiots in the early stages, and then something to be discarded later on.
I did used to wonder if there wasn’t something in the Birther theories, but was finally convinced there wasn’t by someone’s suggestion that if there was, Hillary Clinton’s henchmen would have turned it up.
I liked Aaronovitch’s book, but I felt there was a distinction to be made between theories born from a genuine belief, however daft (e.g. JFK theories), and theories born from deliberate malice (e.g. the Protocols, Stalin’s show trials). For a while in the chapter on Stalin I really wasn’t sure what the conspiracy actually was.
The distinction is blurred, of course. It’s hard to believe that Truthers, at least ones who went to school and can tie their own shoelaces, really believe what they’re saying and I’ve seen plenty of “evidence” put forward by moon landing hoaxers that are clearly malicious fabrications.
Manuel, well said. The Moon landing hoaxer obsessives seem, in my view, to be a good example of what Ayn Rand meant when she spoke of people who hate the good for being the good. Whatever one thinks of the cost to the taxpayer, the fact is that the achievement of sending men to the Moon and back was remarkable. And the cynicism of some people is so deep-rooted that they cannot accept that people do amazing things, such as space flight. They have to believe, given their shrivelled psychology, that it is all a sham, a cover-up, etc.
The sort of people who deny the reality of what Armstrong, Aldrin and Collins did are the same sort of people who prefer to focus on the fact of Titian’s private life than his art, who prefer to focus on how Isaac Newton had odd views on astrology, etc.
Such people love to be the turd in everyone’s punchbowl.
Oooo…two-fer.
On dialogue in movies:
On collectivist (journo-list?) scripts on conspiracy propaganda:
See: Idiocracy-The movie
See: They Live-The Movie
JD: not to detract from your main point, which I think has at least some merit – but didn’t Gates give money to all those other causes as well?
He may have Alisa,
My source is reading an article a few years ago about his first “big” donation when he decided he wanted to be a philanthropist. The first donation of the “new” Bill Gates was several hundred million dollars, and all of it went to trying to stop black people from reproducing.
I can’t say I’ve kept appraised of what he’s done since then, but I found his first port of call very telling.
Yep, here’s a sample:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6WQtRI7A064%26sns=em
Smited.
Yes, agn has it.
What I find telling is that you could accept the AGW theory, but then consider that the best way of minimising the cost of its negative consequences would be to boost economic growth in developing countries (since increased wealth = increased capacity to adapt), which might of course require more energy and C02 emissions. But no, lets not take the sensible approach; let just tax fossil fuels out of existence, condeming ourselves to poverty as well as the developing world! Totally immoral. I really don’t see how they live with themselves.
When it comes to the issue of global warming, those who are labelled as deniers by the faithful, don’t actually think what the faithful think they think.
I have the feeling that I am one of the people that would be labelled as a denier. However. I do not deny that the climate changes, it has been changing for millions of years. I do not deny that humans are adding CO2 to the atmosphere and that this is likely to have a warming effect. I do deny that anyone can know how much of recent warming is man made and how much is natural. I also deny that anyone can make predictions about the future climate based on computer models that contain more unknown variables than data.