I read a lot of crack pot arguments on the net, as do you. It's the net. Still, I'm surprised and disappointed at how many of them come from supposedly educated folks of supposedly more than average intelligence. Education and intelligence aren't much help it seems, except in getting a gig. See this supposed rebuttal to the brain dead ideas of Steven Levitt that driving is better than walking, from an environmental perspective, since food is more harmful than fossil fuels.

One would not expect a man of Mr Levitt's analytical ability to buy this argument, delightfully counterintuitive as it is. It seems to assume an awful lot: that the distance traveled is neither too short or too long, that the calories are entirely replaced, that the replacement calories come from animal products, that the car gets greater than 24 miles to the gallon, that the car does not contribute to congestion, thereby slowing other drivers and increasing emissions, that the construction of a store parking lot does not encourage other drivers to come to the store from greater distances. Just to name a few.

But of course, Mr Levitt's biggest error is his failure to wax Pigovian. Were we to price or tax carbon emissions, then we needn't concern ourselves with minutiae such as this. The social cost of carbon would be included in the price of the car, the price of the milk, the price of the gasoline, and so on. Because those prices would be embedded in all the products and services we'd use, the normal course of decision making would provide an efficient reduction in emissions. It's an elegant solution to a difficult problem.

We cannot diddle the price of carbon emissions in any useful way. It's a global issue; there's only one atmosphere. There are no political approaches to the issue. It's a technological problem made more difficult by poverty. We need energy systems that are clean and affordable by even the poorest.

Update:

Related, in an even harsher way. Facts matter.

Facts matter because they're the only guides you have in making proximate decisions. Conclusions will differ between people because of different interests and alternative normative frames, but an agreemant on known background facts is essential for elevating the level of discussion above that of two blind people discussing the merits of Monet vs. Picasso (no offense to the blind readers of this weblog!). I don't really mind differences of conclusion based on varied norms or self-interest; but the casual pig-ignorance of very smart people on topics which they feel qualified to offer an opinion on irritates me because mitigation of a dearth of facts is relatively easy if you have the marginal time. My own experience is that the denser the network of facts the easier retention becomes. At a particular density threshold I suspect there is an increase of the marginal value of the fact in terms of discerning patterns and trends, though diminishing returns kicks in once we've attained all the perceptual power the human mind can expect.

Many times I've criticized people for using a very weak analogy, or relying on fallacious background facts. These are critiques of process, and I can tell people get frustrated by this, they want to get to the conclusions and argue over the ends instead of the means. I think this is totally wrong-headed; imagine if someone wanted to discuss particle physics without taking the prerequisite mathematical & science courses (you encounter such retards regularly actually). Personally I would much rather listen to a well argued case or position at variance with my own than a weak case which buttressed a personally held opinion (my favorite form of masturbation is sexual). It is ultimately a game where we need to look beyond individual battles, and focus on the war. The long forever war to understand the world around us predicated on good faith and particular principles which keep the ecology relatively clean. For an appropriate equilibrium to be maintained cheaters must be punished lest they invade the ecosystem.

The facts of the global carbon cycle, ignored by the dimonimists, make their debates meaningless. Worse, we don't have all the facts. We know a lot, but there are still many unsolved mysteries - enough to cast doubt on everything we think we know.