We've got Ergas and Wilson having a whinge today. Funny thing about Wilson, but his spectacularly self congratulating on line bio has long stated that he's:
Currently completing a Graduate Diploma of Energy and the Environment (Climate Science and Global Warming) at Perth’s Murdoch University.which I always thought was kind of odd coming from someone willing to get paid by Australia's pre-eminent "think tank" devoted to convincing people that climate change either isn't real, isn't caused by humans if it is real, might be real but won't harm us - in fact it's probably a good thing, and if it is real and is dangerous, well it's too late to do anything about it, or if it isn't too late the only way to deal with it is to go for growth so you have plenty of money to aircondition every house on the planet (oh, and growth means reducing taxes.) At the IPA, every single road leads to lowering taxes and reducing regulation.
Looking at some opinion pieces that Wilson wrote while there, I think it's a fair guess that he follows closely the Lomborg lukerwarmer line - he doesn't talk much directly about the science, but devotes a hell of lot of effort to rubbishing any attempt to deal with climate as a political issue.
And that's why, of course, the government is happy to sponsor Lomborg. They know their climate policy setting is not going to work in the long run; they need to build up a supply of excuses which the likes of Lomborg and Wilson have made their speciality to churn out.
Anyhow, on Lomborg generally, Graham Readfearn wrote a good article a couple of weeks ago, and I'll link to that now.
John Quiggin's take on the whole Copenhagen Consensus project back in 2005 was worth reading too.
Update: Noticed on twitter:
A couple of points.
ReplyDeleteMy understnding is the proposed venture would have had little to do with writing about climate matters.
If you have a centre where the figurehead is front and centre then the said figure head needs to be of high quality.
A lot of people have written about the dearth of articles he has written for decent publications.
This is what was so damaging about the proposed venture
True, Homer. He reminds me a lot of Wilson, actually: seems to spend an inordinate amount of time on self promotion and comes with a shtick that is never going to change.
ReplyDeleteAlso, it's funny watching the anti-climate change action Right hale him as the greatest intellectual force since Einstein. But then again, these are the same mob who found Monckton convincing.
ReplyDelete