I grow increasingly displeased with the low quality output from The Economist, especially its blog.

DEBATES over energy policy have an odd way of turning typical ideological stereotypes on their heads. This peculiar effect has recently been on display as the handful of conservative leaders and pundits who acknowledge the threat of warming have offered their policy prescriptions. Strikingly, given the source (remember Newt Gingrich?), conservative plans lean heavily on government funding for technology research, relying upon the wisdom of central planners to spot the most promising avenues for innovation. Wrong, cry liberal critics. We can only hope to halt warming through carbon pricing, which will slow energy demand growth and allow the market to find the best technological investments.

This is false. The ideologies are playing out as usual. Conservatives wish to keep the dead hand of government out of the market and statists want ever tighter control. Conservatives aren't against government. They have always been happy to see vast amounts spent on selected subjects such as defense and research.

In this spirit, many left-leaning bloggers have devoted recent links to this piece of research, a 2001 paper written by three Carnegie Mellon scholars examining the history of innovation for technologies limiting the emission of sulfur dioxide. SO2 was once a common industrial pollutant in North America as well as a contributor to acid rain.

This is local, not global, and short term rather than long term. It is nothing at all like the issue with GHGs and warming which deal with the whole world over centuries. It's a very bad analogy that leads to mistaken views.

This does suggest that output controls work well, which is not at all surprising to me. The report itself concludes that, "The existence of national government regulation stimulated inventive activity more than government research support alone."

National, not global. In a world with huge disparities between nations it isn't just a matter of scaling up national approaches.

the firms that successfully innovate and adapt to the new restrictions will likely enjoy a temporary boost within the marketplace relative to their competitors. Why is this important? Because any government intervention in the marketplace will alter competitive balance, harming some firms and benefitting others. With the conditions described by Michael Porter, the gains accrue to the innovators, the losses to companies lacking the means, foresight, or will to invest appropriately. If research funding or assistance is the primary method by which the government intervenes, then an entirely different set of characteristics will be rewarded--those with connections or influence, those with slick public relations men, those who donate most generously to the ruling party.

None of which is relevant to a global problem.

The world needs to be able to generate much, much more energy. Multiple coal fired plants are being built every week, and this trend will increase rather than decrease as population rises. That is, unless we develop alternative energy systems that are cheaper than coal, and make them available to the poorest most populous parts of the world, perhaps even funding them.

This is one of the reasons why the left in general is part of the problem set rather than the solution set as far as this issue is concerned, and why the world will regret giving them more power. They aren't mature enough for global issues. Their knee-jerk impulse to control and regulate is inappropriate for global issues, and this threatens even their national objectives. They need to rethink their ideology, upgrade and update it to world class levels.

This doesn't mean that conservatives have a lock on global thinking. Too often their minds are too small to embrace global thinking as well. But their knee-jerk impulses are less harmful right now than those of the left. The problem for both is that they can't improve themselves by converging in the middle since neither has a useful view.

Saying such things isn't a good way to make friends.