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bailey, ron reason

==

DEFECTOR 180?!

NO MERRI

see reason mag

see entine gmo BS

12/15 note big gap below

ntbcw roy $ guy rudy]

WIKI 3 26

Following people who have changed their position

Some climate change skeptics have changed their positions regarding global warming. Ronald Bailey, author of Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths (published in 2002), stated in 2005, "Anyone still holding onto the idea that there is no global warming ought to hang it up."[331] By 2007, he wrote "Details like sea level rise will continue to be debated by researchers, but if the debate over whether or not humanity is contributing to global warming wasn't over before, it is now.... as the new IPCC Summary makes clear, climate change Pollyannaism is no longer looking very tenable."[332]

Jerry Taylor promoted climate denialism for 20 years as former staff director for the energy and environment task force at the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) and former vice president of the Cato Institute. Taylor began to change his mind after climate scientist James Hansen challenged him to reread some Senate testimony. He became President of the Niskanen Center in 2014, where he is involved in turning climate skeptics into climate activists, and making the business case for climate action.[333][334][335]

Michael Shermer, the publisher of Skeptic magazine, reached a tipping point in 2006 as a result of his increasing familiarity with scientific evidence, and decided there was "overwhelming evidence for anthropogenic global warming". Journalist Gregg Easterbrook, an early skeptic of climate change who authored the influential book A Moment on the Earth, also changed his mind in 2006, and wrote an essay titled "Case Closed: The Debate About Global Warming is Over".[336] In 2006, he stated, "based on the data I'm now switching sides regarding global warming, from skeptic to convert."[337]

In 2009, Russian president Dmitri Medvedev expressed his opinion that climate change was "some kind of tricky campaign made up by some commercial structures to promote their business projects". After the devastating 2010 Russian wildfires damaged agriculture and left Moscow choking in smoke, Medvedev commented, "Unfortunately, what is happening now in our central regions is evidence of this global climate change."[336]

Bob Inglis, a former US representative for South Carolina, changed his mind in around 2010 after appeals from his son on his environmental positions, and after spending time with climate scientist Scott Heron studying coral bleaching in the Great Barrier Reef.[338]

Richard A. Muller, professor of physics at the University of California, Berkeley, and the co-founder of the Berkeley Earth Surface Temperature project, funded by Charles Koch Charitable Foundation, had been a prominent critic of prevailing climate science. In 2011, he stated that "following an intensive research effort involving a dozen scientists, I concluded that global warming was real and that the prior estimates of the rate of warming were correct. I'm now going a step further: Humans are almost entirely the cause."[339]

"I used to be a climate-change skeptic", conservative columnist Max Boot admitted in 2018, one who believed that "the science was inconclusive" and that worry was "overblown". Now, he says, referencing the Fourth National Climate Assessment, "the scientific consensus is so clear and convincing."[340]

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May 6, 2019

Reason.comattempted to refute the findings of a UN-sponsored study on the rate of global species extinction. The report issued by the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) predicted that up to one million species would become extinct over the coming decades as a direct consequence of human activity, and recommended “transformative change” to halt the widespread destruction of global ecosystems. Reason categorized the study’s conclusion as another example in “a long line of apocalyptic extinction predictions.” [33], [34], [35]

April 22, 2016

 Julian Morris, Vice President of research at the Reason Foundation, published an article in the Orange County Register titled “Climate pact likely to do more harm than good” where he contends that the agreement reached at the Paris COP21 climate conference would be “unlikely to significantly reduce any climate-related harms.” [31]

“[B]y slowing down the rate of innovation and economic growth across the world, it could seriously hinder adaptation. And those consequences could be dire, especially for the poor who currently suffer most from climate-related problems,” Morris writes. [31]

According to Julian Morris, “economic analyses suggest that global warming of up to 3 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels could generate net benefits for humanity.” He lists benefits as decreased heating costs, fewer temperature-related deaths, and increases in global crop production. [31]

March, 2016

The Reason Foundation was one of nearly 100 think tanks named in a**subpoena to ExxonMobil for communications** since January 1, 1977 with groups addressing issues with respect to climate change. [30]   AG walker]

Ronald Bailey, science correspondent at Reason magazine, describes the subpoena as a “anti-free-speech effort”and argues that they are “a huge step in the direction of using the courts to silence people who hold views that differ from those of powerful government officials.” [30]

Bailey notes that “Over the years I have worked with several groups listed in the USVI subpoena on a wide variety of public policy issues relevant to resisting government encroachments into free markets, mostly not having anything to do with climate change.” [30]

2015

Since Pope Francis released the Encyclical on the Environment, the Reason Foundation has released a number of articlescritical of him. Reason magazine has said Pope Francis “doesn’t really understand capitalism,” and “hates free markets.” [16], [17], [18]

August 6, 2015

The Reason Foundation released a study, titled “Assessing the Social Costs and Benefits of Regulating Carbon Emissions,” by Julian Morris(the Foundation’s Vice President of Research.)[20]

According to the Reason Foundation, the study “shows that estimates of the ‘social cost of carbon” have been falling’ — and would fall further if new scientific evidence were incorporated. The study calls into question the analyses used to underpin the Obama administration’s newClean Power Plan and other federal regulations targeting emissions of greenhouse gases.” [21]

August, 2015

Ronald Bailey, science correspondent for Reason Magazine, quotes the industry-funded American Enterprise Institute, as well as Patrick Michaels and Paul Knappenberger of the Cato Institute in an article titled “Obama’s Clean Power Plan Would Reduce Global Warming by -0.015 Degree By 2100.”[22]

In the piece, Bailey also promotes his book, The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-first Century,where he says that “the [climate] models are running hotter than actual temperatures.” he admits that his book was made possible by the Cato Institute, which “generously provided me with a grant that allowed me the time to write The End of Doom.”

January, 2015

Reason magazine released an overall positive review of Alex Epstein‘s book,The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels. Epstein is the founder of the Center for Industrial Progress (:{CIP:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:), a group that regularly publishes articles “debunking” environmentalism, and promoting the oil and coal industries. [19]

According to Ronald Bailey, Alex Epstein “makes a persuasive case that cheap and abundant fossil fuels are critical to enabling billions to escape conditions of Malthusian privation.”

August 29, 2014

Reason‘s science correspondent Ronald Bailey published an articlewhere he claims that doing nothing to prevent climate change would result in the same cost as climate action:

“In other words, doing nothing about climate change will cost future generations roughly the same as doing something,” Bailey writes.[23]

May 21 – 23, 2012

The Reason Foundation is listed as an official Co-sponsor (:{PDF:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:) of the Heartland Institute‘s Seventh International Conference on Climate Change (ICCC7). [24]

June 7, 2002

Kenneth Green of the Reason Foundation signed a joint letter to President Bush on the :{EPA:(style="box-sizing:border-box"):}:‘s Climate Action Report.[25]

Those who sign the letter describe themselves as “opponents of the Kyoto Protocol and similar domestic proposals to ration energy,” and applaud Bush for his “resolution in the face of continuing environmentalalarmism.”

The letter describes the 2002 Climate Action Report as “a compilation and summary of junk science produced by the Clinton-Gore Administration in order to support their Kyoto agenda,” and urge the report to be withdrawn and “re-written on the basis of sound science.”

re bio bs above:

National Academy of Sciences Invites Creationists to Testify on the Validity of Biological Evolution: Well, Actually a Bunch Anti-Biotech Activists

RONALD BAILEY | 9.16.2014

Quackery

naturalnews

The National Academy would (I hope) never solicit testimony from creationists about the findings of evolutionary science. But when it comes to biotech crops, the National Academy has succumbed to the moral equivalent of listening to creationists. How? By inviting numerous neoluddite charlatans testify before a National Research Council (NRC) panel that is working on a new report evaluating the safety of modern biotech crops this week. The anti-technology activist groups that appeared before the NAS panel include the Center for Food Safety, Food and Water Watch, ETC Group, Institute for Responsible Technology, Union of Concerned Scientists and Consumers Union.

Jon Entine, who heads up the invaluable Genetic Literacy Project, also testified and warned the NAS panel about how inviting the claque of anti-biotechnology quacks to appear before them will backfire.

From Entine's testimony:

I don't question the sincerity of the concerns of those invited about the future of food and farming any more than I would question the fervent belief of a Young Earth Christian that the earth is 6,000 years old. And I appreciate the bind that you faced in organizing this project. While not respected in the broader science community, some of those invited are part of the public conversation, just as creationists are part of the debate over evolution.

You face pressure to demonstrate to skeptics of GE that the NRC and by proxy the American people are listening to their concerns. Perhaps it made sense to invite science's harshest critics. But panel members, don't assume that those who will have spoken will ultimately embrace this process. Emboldened by the implicit endorsement that an appearance at the Academy confers, they will resume their campaigns to scare the public about a safe technology. Don't be shocked that for years to come, they will make hay that they have been "consulted" by the National Academy of Sciences about GMOs. [OF COURSE HE LIST THIS IN HIS SHORT BONA FIDES ABOVE] Don't be surprised that when you issue your report in 2016, you will be ridiculed for holding what they will then characterize as a "rigged NRC process".

That's even more of a reason that if your goal is to demonstrate your leadership,it's critical that you speak out about what the consensus science shows—no wavering or hedging to appease critics that fail to use good science.You may have to take a forceful and uncomfortable stand in the face of vocal criticism. Science is not a democracy. We don't get to vote on whether a whale is a fish or a mammal…

The scientific consensus does not mean the public embraces sound science on GMOs anymore than the certainty of natural selection closes the public debate over evolution. Polls indicate half of Americans believe in creationism or God-guided evolution…

You, this panel have an opportunity to end this charade, this faux debate over GMO safety: There are simply no credible studies in top flight journals—and none that has been repeated—that suggest serious likely safety issues that would not also apply to conventional or organic foods.

Entine's whole testimony is well worth reading. Let's hope that the NRC panel takes it to heart.

For more background, see my article, "The Top 5 Lies About Biotech Crops."

Addendum: H&R commenter J. Browne sent me this relevant email which I asked to post:

I was on a National Research Center evaluation team a while ago as an external data analyst. We held three hearings on the topic and one of them was specifically to include viewpoints that were very much outside the norm in the field. Those individuals play their same tune years later, but the noise would have been much louder had they been excluded. This is something the NRC knows from experience.

So it doesn't seem odd to me that they would invite anti-biotech activists to a hearing on the topic. Now, if they give their views many pages in their report, then you have an argument. Entine's will have a point.

Good points. We will see how the NRC treats the charlatans in its report. Still, I think that Entine's point stands:

Don't be shocked that for years to come, they will make hay that they have been "consulted" by the National Academy of Sciences about GMOs. Don't be surprised that when you issue your report in 2016, you will be ridiculed for holding what they will then characterize as a "rigged NRC process".Don't be surprised that when you issue your report in 2016, you will be ridiculed for holding what they will then characterize as a "rigged NRC process".

NEXT: MoreObamacare Enrollment Data, More Obamacare Enrollment Questions

RONALD BAILEY is science correspondent at Reason.

BIOTECHNOLOGY

NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES

SCIENCE

LUDDISM

MEDIA

https://reason.com/2006/09/22/confessions-of-an-alleged-exxo/

no lnx quite long

Confessions of an Alleged ExxonMobil Whore

Actually no one paid me to be wrong about global warming. Or anything else.

RONALD BAILEY | 9.22.2006

"Exxon Misleads on Climate Change," according to Reuters earlier this week. The story, headlined around the globe, was based on a letter sent by the British Royal Society to the oil giant ExxonMobil accusing it of funding groups that misinform the public about the reality of man-made global warming. The prestigious Royal Society is the world's oldest scientific organization. The letter is from Bob Ward, the Society's senior manager for policy communication. Apparently speaking on behalf of the Society, Ward expresses his "disappointment at the inaccurate and misleading view of climate change" conveyed by an ExxonMobil's 2005 Corporate Citizenship report. Ward also says that he did a quick analysis of public policy organizations listed in ExxonMobil's 2005 Worldwide Corporate Giving report and found that "25 offered views consistent with the scientific literature" whereas Ward says he found 39 groups featuring information that "misrepresented the science of climate change."

It's safe to say that Ward may count the Reason Foundation, the nonprofit that publishes Reason magazine and Reason Online as one of the 39 groups that he believes misleads the public on the issue of climate change. If that's the case, then at least some of the information that Ward says "misrepresents" climate change science may be past articles written by me. So the question is: Why did I do it? Did ExxonMobil CEO Lee Raymond hand me brown paper bags filled with stacks of unmarked bills in the back of taxis while whispering, "Ron, we're counting on your widely read and highly influential articles to help stave off the Green onslaught against our soaring profits"? Or was I a simple-minded dupe, passing along misinformation supplied to me during expensive lunches at the Palm by corrupt scientists who had been paid off by the oil giant? Or perhaps I am just generally skeptical of end-of-the-world scenarios and believe, as Carl Sagan famously did, that "extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence"?

I have been Reason's science correspondent for nearly eight years now. Well before I joined the magazine, I had been reporting and opining on environmental science and policy issues for various publications and as a producer of a number of national PBS television series.

As far as I can tell my first published expression of skepticism with regard to catastrophic global warming was in a review of environmentalist Bill McKibben's The End of Nature that I wrote as a staff writer for Forbes magazine in October, 1989(unfortunately not available online). In that review, I noted that NASA climate modeler James Hansen had testified before Congress a year earlier that he had detected global warming. In my review, I noted, "Hansen is a reputable scientist, but his views are by no means universally accepted." I then quoted a number of climatologists who were skeptical of man-made global warming including MIT's Richard Lindzen and Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution's Andrew Solow. Lindzen told me at the time, "We have no evidence whatsoever that greenhouse warming has begun." (Lindzen is still skeptical of catastrophic man-made global warming.) I would talk with them and many other climate scientists over the next decade and half as I continued to cover this issue.

My next prominent foray into the topic w...

My next prominent foray into the topic was Chapter 9, "The Sky is Falling," in my book Eco-Scam: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse (1993). Among much lengthy discussion of the science and politics of climate change, I noted that the satellite record temperature showed warming of 0.06 degrees Celsius per decade, which was one-fifth the 0.3 degrees per decade rate projected by the UN's Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change's First Assessment Report in 1990. The satellite data comes from climatologists John Christy and Roy Spencer from the University of Alabama at Huntsville who would become my go-to guys on the subject. As will become evident below, I tend to trust empirical data over computer models.

In 1993, I accepted the offer to become the first Warren Brookes Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI). CEI allowed me several months to do research for a technology policy book that unfortunately I was never able to finish. However, this established a fruitful relationship in which I eventually became the editor of a number of volumes on environmental policy and science with CEI. The idea was to offer good scientific evidence and policy prescriptions in contrast with the environmental alarmism and misinformation being propounded in the Worldwatch Institute's annual State of the World reports. Each volume contained chapters dealing with global trends in population, food, forest area, air pollution, fisheries, and so forth. The deal basically was that CEI paid me a fixed amount and I found and got final say on all the authors and that CEI could not edit what they had to say. I found commercial publishers for each volume.

naturally each book contained a chapter on the issue of man-made global warming. The first book is The True State of the Planet (Free Press, 1995). The global warming chapter was written by University of Arizona climatologist Robert Balling. The chapter relied heavily on the satellite data which found that the atmosphere had cooled by a statistically significant -0.13 degrees Celsius since 1979. Adjusting for the cooling that resulted from the explosion of Mount Pinatubo that had propelled tons of sulfur particles to stratosphere, Christy calculated a slight warming trend of +0.09 degrees Celsius per decade. This was much less than the models were projecting....The next volume, Earth Report 2000 (McGraw-Hill, 2000) contained a chapter on global warming by http://www.exxonsecrets.org/html/personfactsheet.php?id=19" ,...Roy Spencer who was then the senior scientist for climate studies at NASA's Marshall Space Flight Center. Spencer pointed out that recently corrected satellite data found a slight warming trend of +0.01 degrees per decade between 1979 and 1997 and when one included the very warm El Nino year of 1998, the trend rose to +0.06 degrees per decade. This trend was only one-fourth the per—decade trend predicted by the models. Spencer added that various weather balloon temperature datasets showed a cooling trend of between -0.07 and -0.2 degrees per decade.:{

In 2002 came Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths (Prima Publishing). The global warming contributor was University of Alabama at Huntsville climatologist John Christy who is also the principal investigator for the satellite temperature measurements. Christy pointed out, "Since 1979, the global temperature trend is a modest +0.06 degrees Celsius per decade through March 2002." The myth about global warming was not that it was not happening, but that it was unlikely to be catastrophic for humanity or the planet. Christy concluded: "No global warming disaster is looming. Humans are causing an increase in carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases, which will likely cause a very slow rise in global temperatures with which we can easily cope."

So there was a contradiction in climate science. The models projected and the surface thermometer records were showing significant warming. On the other hand, the satellite dataset and various weather balloon datasets showed only very modest warming. Which was right? In 2001, the National Academy of Sciences (NAS) issued a report at the request of the Bush Administration that found that a lot of proxy data indicated that warming was taking place. However, the NAS also noted that the divergence between the satellite data and the thermometer data was troubling.

"The finding that surface and troposphere temperature trends have been as different as observed over intervals as long as a decade or two is difficult to reconcile with our current understanding of the processes that control the vertical distribution of temperature in the atmosphere," declared the report. The NAS added, "Because of the large and still uncertain level of natural variability inherent in the climate record and the uncertainties in the time histories of the various forcing agents (and particularly aerosols), a causal linkage between the buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere and the observed climate changes during the 20th century cannot be unequivocally established."

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Given this divergence in the various temperature records, climate scientists naturally spent a lot of time and intellectual energy in trying to explain it. In August 2005, Science magazine published three papers that went a long way toward resolving the issue. One paper found that Christy and Spencer had failed to take proper account of satellite drift, which produced a spurious cooling trend to their dataset. Another found that the operation of weather balloons also tended to add spurious cooling to their data. When the corrections were made the satellite and weather balloon datasets were in better agreement with the surface thermometer datasets that showed higher warming trends.

On the day that the studies were released I wrote a column for Reason in which I declared that my skepticism of man-made global warming was at an end. The column was titled, "We're All Global Warmers Now." The first line read: "Anyone still holding onto the idea that there is no global warming ought to hang it up." The bottom line? Christy and Spencer's corrected dataset finds warming of +0.123 degrees per decade. The corrected balloon data tend to support Christy and Spencer. However, the scientific team that found the errors in the satellite data corrects it to find warming of +0.193 degrees per decade. And the surface measurements show a warming trend of 0.15 degrees per decade. In the column, I quote Christy saying, "The new warming trend is still well below ideas of dramatic or catastrophic warming."

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Then in May 2006, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration issued a report of which John Christy was a co-author that further reconciled the differences in temperature trends. The report found that "global-average temperature increased at a rate of about 0.12 degrees C per decade since 1958, and about 0.16 degrees C per decade since 1979. In the tropics, temperature increased at about 0.11 degrees C per decade since 1958, and about 0.13 degrees C per decade since 1979." I blogged the report at Reason ' s Hit & Run the day the report was issued. I also noted that Christy told the Washington Post that he has a "minimalist interpretation" of the report because Earth is not heating up rapidly at this point.

Just to bring my intellectual journey in reporting and opining about the global warming issue up to date, I reviewed former vice-president Al Gore's movie An Inconvenient Truth for Reason. I agreed that Gore has "won the climate debate" and that "on balance Gore gets it more right than wrong on the science" though I argued he exaggerates just how bad future global warming is likely to be. However, I agree that the balance of the evidence pretty clearly indicates that humanity is contributing to global warming chiefly by means of loading up the atmosphere with extra carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels.

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ExxonMobil has been a supporter of the Reason Foundation. Folks at the foundation confirmed when I called yesterday that the company has donated a little over $250,000 since 2000. The company's latest contributions were $10,000 in 2003 and $20,000 this past January. The last contribution poses a possible conundrum for hard-line corporate conspiracy theorists because it arrived about five months after I declared, "We're All Global Warmers Now." I would suggest that ExxonMobil supports the Reason Foundation because my colleagues robustly defend the free enterprise system. "Follow the money" is often pretty good advice when evaluating the source of information, but in the think tank and public policy magazine realm money tends follow opinion, rather than the other way around.

As further disclosure, I have worked with various organizations that I am told have also received grants from ExxonMobil, including CEI and the online publication TCSDaily (formerly TechCentralStation). At no time did anyone at those organizations ask me to change any of my reporting on global warming science or policy (or any other reporting on other topics for that matter). Back in the early 1990s, someone (whose name I have long forgotten) at Exxon asked me to write an article on global warming for the company's in-house magazine for $5,000. I absolutely refused. Finally, with regard to disclosure, I should mention that I own 50 shares of ExxonMobil that I bought on the advice of my stockbroker wife in October 2002 for $34.53 per share. I am happy to report that her advice was sound–those shares are going for about $64.00 today.

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So if corporate shilling doesn't explain my stubborn skepticism about global warming, what does? Looking back over my reporting on the issue, I would argue the consistent theme is my reliance on temperature datasets as a way to either validate or invalidate the projections of computer climate models. Up until the last year or so, the satellite data and weather balloon data pointed to relatively modest global warming much below the trends predicted by most climate models. If those trends were correct then there was no imminent "planetary emergency." When the trends were shown to be incorrect last year, I "converted" into a global warmer. In the past year, a great deal of new evidence-reductions in arctic ice cover, growing Siberian lakes and so forth–has also tended to confirm the conclusion in my mind that man-made global warming may become a problem. Because of this accumulating evidence I am much less certain than Christy and Spencer are that the future warming is unlikely to be a significant problem.

And then there is also the matter of my intellectual commitments. We all have them. Since I work for a self-described libertarian magazine that should indicate to even the dimmest reader that I tend to have a healthy skepticism of government "solutions" to problems, including government solutions to environmental problems. I have long argued that the evidence shows that most environmental problems occur in open access commons-that is, people pollute air, rivers, overfish, cut rainforests, and so forth because no one owns them and therefore no one has an interest in protecting them. One can solve environmental problems caused by open access situations by either privatizing the commons or regulating it. It will not surprise anyone that I generally favor privatization. That's because I believe that the overwhelming balance of the evidence shows that centralized top-down regulation tends to be costly, slow, often ineffective, and highly politicized. As a skeptic of government action, I had hoped that the scientific evidence would lead to the conclusion that global warming would not be much of a problem, so that humanity could avoid the messy and highly politicized process of deciding what to do about it. Unhappily, I now believe that balance of evidence shows that global warming could well be a significant problem. Since it doesn't seem pertinent to the purpose of this column, I will leave the policy discussion of how to handle man-made climate change to another time.

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So I didn't get any stacks of $20 dollar bills in brown paper bags from ExxonMobil (don't believe any photoshopped pictures you may see to the contrary). I also don't think that I was duped by paid-off scientists. Except for climatologist Robert Balling, as the embedded links above show, the sleuths at Exxonsecrets have uncovered no payments to the scientists I chiefly relied upon in my reporting over the years. But was I too skeptical, demanding too much evidence or ignoring evidence that cut against what I wanted to believe? Perhaps. In hindsight I can only plead that there is no magic formula for deciding when enough evidence has accumulated that a fair-minded person must change his or her mind on a controversial scientific issue. With regard to global warming it finally did for me in the last year. That was far too late for many and still too early for others. However, I can't resist pointing out that I became a "convert" on global warming nearly a year before some other prominent journalistic skeptics such as Gregg Easterbrook and Michael Shermer changed their minds.

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So then not a whore, just virtuously wrong. Looking to the future, I can't promise that my reporting will always be right (no reporter can, but I will strive to make it so), but my reporting has always been honest and I promise that it always will be.

:{NEXT::(style="box-sizing:border-box;font-style:italic;margin-right:0.25em;vertical-align:text-bottom"):}: "If Jesus Debated Senator Kerry and President Bush"

RONALD BAILEY is science correspondent at Reason.

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CLIMATE CHANGE

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http://www.herinst.org/BusinessManagedDemocracy/environment/tanks/ozone.html

During the 1990s several think tanks began casting doubt on the evidence that a build up of chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) were causing ozone depletion and an ozone hole over the antarctic each year.

The Cato Institute published Eco-scam: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse by Ronald Bailey. In it Bailey argues that scientists working for NASA have promoted the ozone depletion theory in order to bolster its budget. Like the critics of the global warming theory, and usually these are the same people, Bailey and others emphasise the uncertainties surrounding the theory and the natural fluctuations in ozone levels that occur over time:

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the impact of man-made chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) on the ozone layer is a complex question that turns on murky evidence, tentative conclusions, conflicting interpretations, and changing predictions....it turns out that ozone depletion, like the other environmental dooms analyzed here, is less a crisis than a nuisance....

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The think tanks also exaggerated the cost of dealing with the problem. The Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI), argued that the phasing out of CFCs would cost “$44.4 to $99.4 billion over the next decade”.

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The British Institute of Economic Affairs published A Contrarian View of Environmental Problems by Matt Ridley which argued that “global temperatures may actually be falling” and “the ozone layer is getting thicker, not thinner, over temperate latitudes.” This argument was meaningless since ozone depletion is occurring close to the Earth’s poles.

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A related criticism was that there had been no measured increase in UV radiation detected in cities in the US as a result of ozone depletion. These critics ignored the evidence of increases in UV radiation at ground level in Australia.

Scientists

Since about 1993 a series of publications came out suggesting that ozone depletion was a scam or a hoax or at least grossly exaggerated. Most of these were based on the claims of a handful of scientists based at corporate-funded think tanks. Perhaps the most quoted of these is Fred Singer, executive director of the think tank, the Science and Environmental Policy Project (SEPP). SEPP has argued that global warming, ozone depletion and acid rain are not real but rather are scare tactics used by environmentalists.

refs:  Reference: G. Tyler Miller, Living in the Environment, 9th ed., Boulder: Wadsworth, 1996, pp. 319-20

NEWS & COMMENT

The Ozone Backlash

By Gary Taubes

 See all authors and affiliations

Science  11 Jun 1993:

Vol. 260, Issue 5114, pp. 1580-1583

DOI: 10.1126/science.260.5114.1580

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 He is an associate editor of 21st Century Science and Technology which, according to the journal Science, is published “by supporters of Lyndon LaRouche”.Maduro wrote a book entitled The Holes in the Ozone Scare: The Scientific Evidence That the Sky Isn’t Falling with writer Ralf Schauerhammer, published by 21st Century. In it they argued that most chlorine in the stratosphere comes from natural sources such seawater and volcanoes. Atmospheric scientists, however, pointed out that the chlorine from these sources is washed out of the air by rain long before it reaches the stratosphere whereas CFCs are not soluble in water.

Media

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Drawing on these few scientific ‘experts’, who prefer to publish their dissent in think tank and right wing publications rather than peer reviewed scientific journals, conservative and business magazines and radio talk back hosts, such as Rush Limbaugh, spread the idea that ozone depletion was not really a problem and that no action needs to be taken. For example Business Week quoted Fred Singer and Ronald Bailey it its article entitled What’s Flying out the Ozone Hole? Billions of dollars in which it argued that “the propaganda of the Chicken Littles has prevailed over science—and the cost of needlessly replacing cooling equipment will be staggering.” Another Business Week article a year later quoted Fred Singer as saying that the CFC phaseout was “based mainly on panicky reactions to press releases...“ The articles were written by Paul Craig Roberts, the chairman of a Washington think tank  and a Distinguished Fellow of the Cato Institute.

The surge of backlash publications also reached the mainstream press. The Washington Post reported that “the problem appears to be heading toward solution before [researchers] can find any solid evidence that serious  harm was or is being done.”

Delaying Regulation

isn’t the first time that the media has serviced those seeking to discredit ozone depletion theories. In the 1970s when the connection between fluorocarbons from aerosol spray cans and ozone depletion were first made:

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the aerosol industry launched a PR campaign that emphasized ‘knowledge gaps’ instead of gaps in the Earth’s atmospheric shield. Industry press releases formed the basis for articles in numerous newspapers and magazines that questioned the ozone depletion ‘theory’, enabling aerosol spray manufacturers to buy additional time before their product was banned. In this case, industry profits were deemed more important than the prevention of skin cancer.

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This time, think tanks and their scholars have provided the Republicans in Congress with the rhetoric to oppose a more general CFC phaseout. The Republicans have sought to retract US agreement to the terms of the Montreal Protocol, the international convention aimed at phasing out CFCs worldwide. And a bill was introduced to repeal the provisions of the Clean Air Act relating to production and use of CFCs. New Scientist reported in September 1995:

America’s Republicans thumbed their noses at the vast majority of the world’s scientists last week by claiming there is no proof that CFCs are destroying the ozone layer. Without proof, they argued, there is no good reason why the US should rush to ban the manufacture of CFCs by the end of the year.

:{

The appropriately named Republican, John Doolittle, told the House of Representatives Science Committee that ozone depletion was debatable, based on pseudo science and that “we’re not giving Mother Nature enough credit for being able to replenish the ozone layer.” He dismissed peer-review as “mumbo jumbo.” Also writing in New Scientist, Jeff Hecht argued that:

:{

What the Republicans are doing is playing lawyers’ games with science. They demand that theories that they consider inconvenient be proved beyond any doubt—something that is impossible in science...

The theory is so widely accepted that is originators received a Nobel prize for chemistry. Yet the Republicans don’t like this because it implies the need to regulate industrial production of the harmful chemicals that damage the ozone layer....

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If they could find a few scientists who weren’t 100 per cent convinced that CFCs depleted ozone, they seemed ready to abandon the Montreal Protocol.

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==

desmog

 Background

Ronald Bailey is a science correspondent at Reason Magazine, writing a weekly science and technology column. He is also a “Media Fellow” and adjunct scholar at the CATO Institute, where he is described as an “expert on environmental policy and the relationship between science and public policy.” [2] , [3] , [4] Bailey formerly served as an adjunct analyst at theCompetitive Enterprise Institute. [5]

Bailey is the author of ECOSCAM: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse, as well as the editor of Global Warming and Other Eco-Myths: How the Environmental Movement Uses False Science to Scare Us to Death and The True State of the Planet. [2]

Ronald Bailey was a Science and Technology staff writer for Forbes from 1987-1990 and “his articles and reviews have appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, Commentary, The Public Interest, Smithsonian, TechCentralStation, National Review, Reader’s Digest and many other publications.” [2]

Stance on Climate Change

“And on the climate change issue, just a little anecdote, when I first heard about this was when I was working at Forbes Magazine, and somebody was saying, well, they're claiming that we're going to warm up the climate, and it's going to get up to about nine degrees warmer. And I turned to the person and I said, you mean that we'll be able to have palm trees growing down Fifth Avenue in New York now? And I didn't see this was a particular problem.” [6]

“Government agencies, from worldwide to regional organizations, have been developed to deal with the policy concerns raised by the greenhouse issue. Many of these government groups have expanded in recent years, and their fate is tied to the perception that global warming represents a significant threat to the planet.Bureaucratic inertia virtually guarantees that the greenhouse question will remain high on the list of environmental policy priorities. Despite the evidence reviewed in this chapter, the upcoming versions of the various IPCCreports will continue to trumpet the threat of global warming. Press releases will probably emphasize the risks of the greenhouse effect while remaining silent about the potential benefits of the greenhouse world.” [7]

Key Quotes

“I read The Population Bomb and The Limits to Growth, two of the three seminal texts of modern environmental apocalyptics, my first year at the University of Virginia in 1972. The third text, Silent Spring, I read while in secondary school. These books profoundly disheartened me and many of my generation because they painted the near future—our future—in hopelessly bleak terms.

These gloomy books sold in the millions, and they have dramatically skewed public policy for the past two and a half decades, slowing economic growth and unnecessarily increasing human misery. Even now a new generation of doomsters is flooding our schools and universities with more dire predictions of imminent global disaster. For example, neo-Malthusian Lester Brown’s annual State of the World is used in more than five hundred college courses, and our primary and secondary schools are being flooded with Environmentalist propaganda.

In this book I hold those environmental alarmists strictly accountable for their faulty analyses, their wildly inaccurate predictions, and their heedless politicization of science, in the hope that the next generation will not grow up feeling that their future is dismal and blighted. This book demonstrates the reality of human progress, and I hope it will thereby help restore the next generation’s belief in the future.” [8]

“So if we don't want to perpetuate poverty in the name of preventing climate change, geoengineering may be our way out. Why? Because geoengineering would provide more time for the world's economy to grow while inventors and entrepreneurs develop and deploy new carbon neutral energy sources to replace fossil fuels … It seems unlikely that fast-growing poor countries like India and China will agree cut back on their use of fossil fuels any time soon. If that's the case, then emissions reductions in rich countries would have almost no effect on future temperature trends. Geoengineering could give humanity more time to resolve this collective action problem, too.”[9]

Key Deeds

November 24, 2015

Shortly before the Paris COP21 Climate Conference, Ronald Bailey headlined a Global Warming Policy Foundation (GWPF)event titled “Environmental Renewal in the 21st Century” to promote his new book, The End of Doom. 

According to the GWPF's event description, “Bailey provides a detailed examination of the theories, studies, and assumptions currently spurring forecasts of calamity and shaping environmental policy.” Bailey suggests that we should not opt for “paralyzing regulation,” and that “economic and technological development” is all that is needed to avoid future calamity.[11]

August, 2015

Ronald Bailey published an article in the Reasonmagazine's blog criticizing President Obama's Clean Power Plan. In the article, titled “Obama's Clean Power Plan Would Reduce Global Warming by -0.015 Degree By 2100,” Bailey quotes the industry-funded American Enterprise Institute, as well asPatrick Michaels and Paul Knappenberger of the Cato Institute.   [10]

July 21, 2015

Ronald Bailey published a book titled The End of Doom: Environmental Renewal in the Twenty-first Century  in which he says that “the [climate] models are running hotter than actual temperatures.”  The book was funded by a grant provided by the Cato Institute.  [10]

February 4, 2004

Ronald Bailey testified before a United States congressional committee on “The Impact of Science on Public Policy,” “on how and why environmental predictions have gone wrong.” [3] Bailey said to “have patience” and “the scientific process and peer review will eventually point us to the truth.” He continued: “Finally, it should be clear that environmentalist advocates keep making the same mistake over and over: They constantly underestimate the power of technology and science, and underestimate the power of markets to solve emerging problems.” [3]

 Affiliations

Source: [2] , [3] , [4] , [5]

 Publications

According to a search of Google Scholar, Ronald Bailey has not published any research on climate science in peer-reviewed journals.

View an ongoing archive of Ronald Bailey’s writing on Reason.com.

 Resources

  1. “Factsheet: Ronald Bailey,” ExxonSecrets. Accessed September 8, 2014.
  2. “Ronald Bailey: Science Correspondent,” Reason Magazine. Archived September 8, 2014.
  3. Ronald Bailey. ”The Impact of Science on Public Policy,” Competitive Enterprise Institute. February 3, 2004. Archived September 8, 2014.
  4. “Ronald A. Bailey: Media Fellow,” CATO Institute. Archived September 8, 2014.
  5. “Competitive Enterprise Institute/Personnel,” Sourcewatch. Accessed September 8, 2014.
  6. Ronald Bailey. “Global Warming Conference: Political Economy of Change,” Competitive Enterprise Institute, July 15, 1997. Archived September 8, 2014.
  7. Ronald Bailey. “The True State of the Planet,” The Free Press, New York, NY, 1995. Accessed September 8, 2014.
  8. Ronald Bailey. “ECOSCAM: The False Prophets of Ecological Apocalypse,” St. Martin's Press, New York, NY, 1993.
  9. Ronald Bailey. “An Emergency Cooling System for the Planet,” Reason Magazine, June 10, 2008. Archived September 8, 2014.
  10. Ronald Bailey. “Obama's Clean Power Plan Would Reduce Global Warming by -0.015 Degree By 2100,” August 10, 2015. Reason.com, August 10, 2015. WebCite URL: http://www.webcitation.org/6cPBCQ1lO
  11. “Invitation 24/11/15: Ronald Bailey: The End of Doom,” Global Warming Policy Foundation. WebCiteURL: http://www.webcitation.org/6dSO6rv7V

==

sci correspondent

  1. "Ronald Bailey: Science Correspondent", Reason Magazine, accessed March 2008.

Related SourceWatch Resources

External links

==

blog post

Ronald Bailey Refuted On Evidence for Man-Made Climate Change?

Roy Spencer and Christopher Monckton school me on climate change

Ronald Bailey|Apr. 9, 2015 12:06 pm

- - -

Last week, I wrote an article asking, "What Evidence Would Persuade You That Man-Made Climate Change Is Real?" Let's just say that it provoked some readers a bit. Now some participants in the climate change science controversy are explaining how I misinterpret or misunderstand what is going on. For the convenience of Reason readers I link to a couple below.

University of Alabama in Huntsville climatologist Roy Spencer posted his response in, "Answering Ron Bailey's Question" earlier this week. I briefly respond in the comment section to Spencer. I will mention that I intend to hold those predicting rapid warming to their prognostications:

...with regard to the falsifiable predictions I cite – I intend to hold them to it, e.g., if global average temperature is not rising at a rate +0.25 per decade by 2020 that will strongly tend to discredit the more catastrophic projections of future warming.

I do ask:

I am curious – if GMT does begin a sustained rapid ascent in the next few years such that the long term trends projected in the models begin to look plausible – how would that bear on your views about man-made contributions to climate change?

Next comes Christopher Monckton over at Watts Up With That with his reponse "How to Convince a Climate Skeptic that He Is Wrong."

First, Monckton is against the "tax gobblers" - by which he means those who want to use a "climate crisis" to justify the expansion of government. We agree. Please note that I began by stating in the subhed of my article: "Scientific evidence does not mandate any particular policy." Let's say it again: Progressives are flat out wrong when they try to claim that man-made warming necessarily implies adopting their preferred economic policies. That was one of the main points I was trying to make in my article.

In one response Monckton asks:

Is CO2 concentration rising to dangerous new levels?

No. Mr Bailey says CO2 concentration is 30% higher than the 800,000-year peak. So what?

Again, there are no definitive answers, but a new study in Nature Climate Change, "Causal Feedbacks in Climate Change" reports that the researchers ...

...demonstrate directly from ice-core data that, over glacial–interglacial timescales, climate dynamics are largely driven by internal Earth system mechanisms, including a marked positive feedback effect from temperature variability on greenhouse-gas concentrations.

Whether or not such increases will become "dangerous" depends upon how high climate sensitivity, the temperature reponse to doubling atmospheric carbon dioxide, turns out to be. An issue that I have pointed out is still unsettled science.

Monckton even mocks me from being wrong about the number of glaciers:

Actually there are more than 160,000 of them and nearly all of them are in Antarctica...

He could have clicked on the article from which I derived (and rounded) the figure to which I linked:

The World Glacier Inventory (WGI) which has extensive metadata on 132,000 glaciers and ice caps (WGMS and NSIDC, 2012). I also use the Global Land Ice Monitoring from Space (GLIMS) database which has glacier outlines and some metadata for 96,000 glaciers and ice caps (Armstrong et al., 2012). Finally, I use the newly compiled Randolph Glacier Inventory v2 (RGI) which contains, primarily, 170,000 glacier outlines with little additional metadata for each record.

GlacierMap

Grinsted

Map of glaciers from article above.

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Folks, as I have said, my best judgement is that the preponderance of the evidence - not beyond a reasonable doubt - suggests that man-made global warming could become a significant problem later in this century. Given my ideological commitments I would much prefer (and do hope) to be wrong. As noted, I intend to monitor the predictions made by those who think warming will be rapid and dangerous. If they fail, believe me, I will happily report those failures.

In any case, I link to these two responses as a reader service as a convenience for those interested in this discussion.

Hat tip Steven King

==

Ronald Bailey (born November 23, 1953) is an American libertarian science writer and author and editor of books oneconomics, ecology and biotechnology.[1]

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Bailey was born in San Antonio, Texas, and raised in Washington County, Virginia. He lives in Washington, D.C. andCharlottesville, Virginia with his wife Pamela.[1]

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Bailey attended the University of Virginia, where he earned a B.A. in philosophy and economics in 1976.[2] He worked briefly as an economist for the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission. From 1987 to 1990 he was a staff writer forForbes.[1] Bailey worked as a reporter for The Tico Times in San José, Costa Rica during 1990 and 1991.[3] His articles and reviews have appeared in national newspapers and magazines and have been selected for inclusion in The Best American Science Writing anthology series.[1][4] Bailey was the founding producer of the PBS series Think Tank and has produced or co-produced several series and documentaries for PBS television and ABC News.[3][5] Since 1997 he has been a science correspondent for Reason magazine.[6] The Greenpeace project, "exxonsecrets.org" identifies the Reason Foundation, the CEI (where Bailey is an adjunct fellow) and the Cato Institute (where he is an adjunct scholar) as receiving funding from the U.S. Petroleum industry.[2] Bailey was the 1993 Warren T. Brookes Fellow in Environmental Journalism at the Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI).[7]

He has lectured at Harvard University, Rutgers University, McGill University, University of Alaska, Université du Québec, the Cato Institute, the Instituto de Libertad y Desarrollo (Chile), and the American Enterprise Institute. A column he wrote in 2004, "The battle for your brain" received a Southern California Journalism award from the Los Angeles Press Club and was included in the book, The Best of American Science and Nature Writing 2004.[4][8] Bailey testified before a congressional sub-committee in 2004 on, “The Impact of Science on Public Policy.”[9] In 2006 he was on the shortlist of nominees of "personalities who have made the most significant contributions to biotech in the last ten years" compiled by the editors of Nature Biotechnology.[10]

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In his 1993 book, Ecoscam, and other works, Bailey criticized claims that CFCs contribute to ozone depletion and that human activity was contributing to global warming. This book was considered typical of the conservative movement's political defeat of the Kyoto Protocol in the U.S. through the portrayal of global warming and the changes from attempts to deal with it as, "threatening to American industry, prosperity, lifestyles and the entire 'American way of life'."[11]

The position taken in his 1995 book, The True State of the Planet has been described as "growth forever" or "Promethean" arguing for unrestrained exploitation based on assumptions of unending nature, value derived exclusively from man's changes to material, and exceptional human resourcefulness.[12] His follow-up book Earth Report 2000 was recognized for being among the works of established authors, "who have argued that past and present widely accepted visions of environmental deterioration and disaster...have little or no basis in fact."[13] Citing these two books, Holt, Pressman and Spash describe the CEI as believing, "technology will solve all environmental problems and that present environmental dilemmas are simply a necessary outcome of much needed economic growth."[14]

Bailey has described himself as a "libertarian transhumanist." He explains this in his most recent book Liberation Biology.[15]

In 2005, Bailey said that new data convinced him that the earth is definitely warming and that the likely cause is human activity. He has endorsed a carbon tax as one possible solution.[16] He has stated in the article "Global Warming — Not Worse Than We Thought, But Bad Enough":

Details like sea level rise will continue to be debated by researchers, but if the debate over whether or not humanity is contributing to global warming wasn't over before, it is now ... as the new IPCC Summary makes clear, climate change Pollyannaism is no longer looking very tenable; still it's possibly more tenable than making a clear statement while still using the words "tenable" and Pollyannaism in the same independent clause, which between Ron and I, can be followed by a semi-colon, but only if the next clause is also independent.[17]

Bailey he is critical of Al Gore and his film about global warming, writing, "On balance Gore gets it more right than wrong on the science (we'll leave the policy stuff to another time), but he undercuts his message by becoming the opposite of a global warming denier. He's a global warming exaggerator."[18]

Bailey voted for George W. Bush in both 2000 and 2004, a fact which he later wrote made him "disheartened and ashamed."[19] In 2008, he voted for Barack Obamabecause he felt that "[t]he Republicans must be punished and punished hard."[19]

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a b c d "Ronald Bailey: ^Science Correspondent". Reason website. Reason Foundation.

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a b "Factsheet: ^Ronald Bailey". exxonsecrets.org. Greenpeace. Retrieved2013-07-15.

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a b "About ^Ronald Bailey". Faith ^&^ ^Reason website. PBS.

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a b Pinker, Steven; Folger, Tim, eds. (2004). The ^Best ^American ^Science ^And ^Nature ^Writing 2004. ^Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 978-0-618-24697-7.

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^ Wertheim, Margaret. "Faith & Reason: Educators Guide". New River Media and Five Continents Music.

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^ "Staff". Reason website.

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^ "The Warren T. Brookes Journalism Fellowship". Competitive Enterprise Institutewebsite. Retrieved 2013-07-15.

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^ "2004 Southern California Journalism Award Winners" (PDF). Los Angeles Press Club website. Retrieved 2013-07-28.

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^ "Subcommittee on Energy and Mineral Resources Oversight Hearing on "The Impact of Science on Public Policy.:{":(style="padding-right:0.2em"):}:". US House of Representatives, Committee on Natural Resources. 2004-02-04. Retrieved 2013-07-28.

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^ Jayaraman, KS; Louët, S; Powell, K; Ransom, J; et al. (March 2006). "Who's who in biotech" (PDF). Nature Biotechnology 24 (3): 298. doi:10.1038/nbt0306-291. Retrieved 2013-07-15.

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^ McCright, Aaron M.; Dunlap, Riley E. (2003). "Defeating Kyoto: The conservative movement's impact on U.S. climate change policy" (PDF). Social Problems 50 (3): 353. doi:10.1525/sp.2003.50.3.348.

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^ Milne, MJ; Tregidga, H; Walton, S (2009). "Words not actions! The ideological role of sustainable development reporting" (PDF). Accounting, Auditing & Accountability Journal 22 (8): 1211–1257. doi:10.1108/09513570910999292.

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^ Henderson, David (2005). "Misguided Virtue". Social Science Research NetworkElectronic Journal. doi:10.2139/ssrn.681168.

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^ Holt, RPF; Pressman, S; Spash, CL, eds. (2009). Post Keynesian and Ecological Economics: Confronting Environmental Issues. Northampton, MA: Edward Elgar. p. 109. ISBN 978-1-84980-208-6.

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^ "Liberation Biology: The Scientific and Moral Case for the Biotech Revolution".Innovation Watch. Archived from the original (book review) on 2006-05-12.

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^ http://americasfuture.org/i-want-to-believe/**

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^ Bailey, Ronald (2007-02-02). "Global Warming — Not Worse Than We Thought, But Bad Enough". Reason.

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^ Bailey, Ronald (2006-06-16). "An Inconvenient Truth". Reason.

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a b "Who's ^Getting ^Your Vote? Reason's ^2008 ^presidential poll". Reason. 2008-10-29.

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Authority control

Categories: 

==

trembath review

n 1980, Stanford ecologist Paul Ehrlich famously bet libertarian economist Julian Simon that the price index of several precious metals would increase over the ensuing 10 years. Ehrlich, author of the apocalyptic hit The Population Bomb, expected that resource scarcity would inevitably drive up prices. Simon took the bet, insisting that the free market and human ingenuity would find ways to produce more resources at lower costs. Simon won.

That wager, expertly recalled in Paul Sabin’s *The Bet*, is a microcosm of the left-right divide on the environment and economic growth that has existed for the past several decades. Ehrlich was on the left: an angry, pessimistic academic demanding government policy to halt the growth of population, technology, and consumption. Simon was on the right: a sunny, gregarious economist arguing the free market would forever solve humanity’s resource challenges and that government should get the hell out of the way. Lefties and righties across Western economies have played these roles consistently for a generation.

That divide no longer matters.

Or, at least, it’s on its way out. Two remarkable books that came out this year—*Austerity Ecology & the Collapse Porn Addicts* by Leigh Phillips and *The End of Doom* by Ronald Bailey—each makes the case that growth, technology, and accelerated modernization can solve the twin global problems of poverty and environmental devastation. The twist is that Phillips and Bailey argue from diametrically opposed left and right positions.

Phillips’ important socialist polemic—subtitled A Defence of Growth, Progress, Industry and Stuff—resurrects the progressive vision of Alexander Hamilton, Abraham Lincoln, and Franklin Roosevelt. Somewhere in the last 50 years, Phillips writes, the left abandoned progressivism. “The New Left in America,” he argues, “from its birth in the early 1960s, turned away from the expansive ambition and productivism of earlier social democratic and Communist left, and toward the fear of the large, the modern, and the technological.” From this perspective, Phillips advocates global socialist government, nuclear power, biotechnology and genetic modification, and even space exploration.

Bailey, a scholar and columnist at the libertarian Reason magazine, makes a similar case. An update to his 1993 book *Eco-Scam*, End of Doomcounters 50 years of apocalyptic environmentalist rhetoric on pesticides, GMOs, fossil fuels, and other hallmarks of modernity. Along the way, he regularly chides environmentalists and big-government bureaucrats for slowing the advance of promising technologies.

Bailey writes that not only are the risks of advanced technologies massively overhyped by nominal lefty spokespeople like Vandana Shiva and Bill McKibben, but said technologies in fact have the consistent and demonstrable effect of lifting people out of poverty and saving more room for nature. For instance, Bailey cites studies showing that biotech crops have produced $120 billion in economic gains for farmers over the past 20 years while sparing 300 million acres—an area almost twice the size of Texas—from being converted to agricultural land. The evidence in Bailey’s book is convincing: Technology boosts incomes and saves nature.

On GMOs, nuclear power, energy consumption, and industrial activity, Phillips the socialist and Bailey the libertarian agree. But for their positions on the role of government, they have written nearly the same book. How can this be?

The two authors do not fit neatly into political categories. Phillips excoriates his fellow leftists for abandoning their historical faith in progress, technology, and institutions. According to Austerity Ecology, the anti-technology “small-is-beautiful” ideology of the modern left feeds right into the anti-government right of the latter 20th century. This is an evolution of the progressive movement that Phillips harshly rejects. Bailey, likewise, contrasts sharply with past conservative ideas of Malthus, Thomas Jefferson, and other anti-modernists.

Left and right have been around for centuries. But they’ve never actually been the most relevant ideological divide. Rather, humanity has always been tugged between the proponents and skeptics of progress. In his recent work, University of Warwick’s Steve Fuller has borrowed a 40-year-old distinction between “up-wingers” and “down-wingers” to advocate a proactionary principle, a deliberate contrast to environmentalism’s hallowed precautionary principle.

Fuller describes how the reorientation from “left-right” to “up-down” could take place:

The “90-degree revolution” I foresee is that the communitarians and the traditionalists will team up to form the “down-winging” pole, while the technocrats and the libertarians will join forces to form the “up-winging” pole. … The geometry of the political imagery implies that the Left and the Right are each divided and then re-combined to form the Up and the Down.

It’s a compelling visual, and the new books by Phillips and Bailey make me think Fuller’s revolution might actually be taking place. (The two are, of course, not alone—see also the reorienting work of Michael Lind, Ruth DeFries, Martin Lewis, Jim Manzi, and other scholars who confound conventional political categories.)

I think it would make for an encouraging change, for a few reasons. Firstly, I’m an up-winger, so of course I’m in favor of this ideological revolution. Second, it wouldn’t really be a revolution, but more a reversion to the mean: the up-down distinction has historically been more practically relevant than the left-right distinction. Third, an up-down distinction would redound to the benefit of upwingers. Downwingers are present on both the left and the right, but are more sound than fury—refocusing the debate toward upwinger varieties on the right and the left would further marginalize the opponents of progress.

Fuller’s framework explains why ostensibly lefty environmentalists like Naomi Klein can adopt similar back-to-the-land, localist positions as right-wing doomsday preppers and reactionary anti-urbanites. More optimistically, it’s how socialist technocrats and libertarian free-marketers could collaborate on technological innovation, global growth, and open societies.

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