AGW -- It Isn’t That Hard

Yes, I know the title is the sort of phrase Michael Scott of The Office would read and immediately exclaim: “That’s what she said!” But I’m keeping it anyway.

There’s a book called Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. Wonderful book written quite some time ago, but chock full of sense. Here’s a link to a free .pdf version. Everyone should read it, particularly in these economically irresponsible times.

http://www.hacer.org/pdf/Hazlitt00.pdf

One of the key lessons, perhaps the key point of the book, is that the rules you need to use to keep your own house in economic order do not disappear when “your house” is the government. In short, even national economics isn’t that hard.

I don’t want to talk about economics, but I do want to point out that the general principle of “what you know from your everyday life” does not change when you expand your vista to include famous people who live far away, be they celebrities, scientists, politicians, etc. Indeed, if you examine your own behavior, you can usually generalize from that to issues “out there.”

Tiger Woods is an easy example. The first night we all wondered, “What happened?” But you could ask yourself how you might get into that situation. If I was cheating on my wife and it was exposed, I can see how I’d wind up leaving home in a hurry at 2:00 a.m. (although I still wouldn’t crash into anything). I said easy example because pretty much everyone came to that conclusion within 24 hours.

When it comes to our own bad behavior, we all know when we’re being bad, otherwise we wouldn’t try to hide it, or minimize it, or pretend it was justified, or make out like it was something else. The guys implicated by their own e-mails in Climategate have tried this tact, but it doesn’t wash. I’ve been a scientist. I’ve e-mailed other scientists. I’ve never suggested to anyone that another guy’s research should be suppressed because I didn’t like it. I would never tell a journal editor that he’ll lose my support if he publishes papers that disagree with mine. I would reply to the paper in question when it came out. I might think a scientist who disagreed with me was an asshole, but I wouldn’t think calling him an asshole constituted a valid argument against what he says.

In Tiger’s case, you can bet he didn’t say to his wife, “Yeah, I’ve been sleeping with her. She’s great! Can’t wait until the next time.” So far I have yet to hear any “explanations” from the Climategate guys to explain exactly what they said and what they meant. “Oh, ‘trick’ just meant a clever thing to do,” Jones has said. But... "Really? And why were you doing that particular clever thing? What was it for? Why was it necessary? When other people examine the trick it looks like it was used to perpetuate a sham, Mr. Jones. I want an explanation for that."

When you’re caught at something, with the first words out of your mouth (if you realize a bald-faced lie isn’t going to cut it) you try to minimize your offense. “It’s not the way it looks!” and then will follow a load of half-truths, smaller lies, and deflections. All the same things children say adults say as well when caught. “I didn’t do it.” “I didn’t know it was wrong.” “It just happened by itself.” “Everyone else is doing it.” “Yes, I was there, but I didn’t do it too, and I didn’t think it was right that the other people were doing it.” “I did it but (you, he, she, they) made me do it.” “I wouldn’t have done it except for…” “That’s what happened, but that’s not what was supposed to happen.” (I must admit though that Bill Clinton’s “It depends on your definition of ‘is’” was unique in the annals of creative prevarication.)

So whenever you see the high and mighty in the news, listen to their explanations and translate them into the words your kids might say and judge accordingly. I don’t care how important they are, how rich they are, or how popular they are, the rules remain the same and you can figure out the truth just as well as any pundit or journalist.

It isn’t that hard.