Not if our behavior is economically idiotic and immoral. Right now we are demanding to have the marginal costs of our emissions to be socialized – we demand that the rest of the world pay for the effects of emissions we are responsible for.

Effectively, Westerners are enjoying global socialism, because the costs of our pollution is subsidized. Only the governments can force us to be abstemious and philosophically honest. We can't enjoy the fruits of a liberalized, globalized economic system while asking third-world people to bear the effects of our behavior, akin to a socialized system. It can't work that way.

Problem: Profiteers want profit today, while the scientific cost-benefit model uses a more extensive time scale.

Like I said – the market is very good at achieving efficiency and technology and progress etc. However, they do this because we want them to. Right now, we want cheap gas and we want the cost of our pollution to be socialized by other, non-Western people. The market is happy to oblige – it takes a government to punish producers and consumers if they don't curb their emissions. I have nothing against Western corporations – I love their products and what they bring society, simply by being egotistical and creative. But, my loyalty to third-world people take precedence – if the market doesn't bring the changes quickly enough, the government must step in.

Actually, the profit incentive is a beneficial aspect of capitalism, which spurs technological innnovations that are, in turn, beneficial to the human/natural environment. You have it backwards: the environment only gets green under a system that rewards individual initiative and innovation. The more things we expect the government to "deliver us," the worse the environment will fare (not to mention all the other negative impacts from advanced-dependency Social Democracy).

The market will always keep up much better than (human) central economic planners, environmental regulators, etc.

I have no problem leaving it up to the market, but the market only gets green if it profitable for it. Some people can't wait for your entrepreneurs to deliver us.

So, we should step away from the markets, that makes sense. But if the market can't keep up, we must protect the people in the third world – that might require government oversight, taxation and might hinder our growth, but I'm not yet so old that the only thing I care about is a few numbers here and there.

By all means, the government should play an active role in R&D and when the "alternative" technologies actually become real breakthroughs, then they will be "green," but no sooner. If you really want to "go green," you should support classical liberal policies.

The best thing for the environment is entrepreneurial, (relatively) free market capitalism (and I don't mean crony corporatism, "progressive" corporatism, or mixture thereof, although certain levels of these are unavoidable). Vibrant, free economies spur innovations and new efficiencies, which – in the grand scheme of things – are the best things that can happen for the environment, provided that they are harnessed by free societies.

Well, yes. In a sense, I completely missed your general gist, and sort of sidelined the actual issue, which is that Hayes is better with words than he is with coherence.

I actually think it's possible that he could be right and wrong at the same time – considering transparency and trust don't correlate in the case of the catholic church or for corporations, it could be said Hayes is wrong when explaining the lack of trust in the same with their lack of transparency.

However, considering how the transparency of corporations and the Catholic organization have revealed a *sub-layer* of unmeritocratic concentration of power, money and influence, it could be said that the reason transparency and trust don't correlate is because the transparency only went far enough to reveal a deeper, still sinister layer of unaccountability.

That, and perhaps attitudes towards anti-secular, regressive and sanctimonious political pushing and increasingly ephemeral and careless profit-hunting is just seen for what it is and disliked, no matter the transparency. that, however, is an unrelated development which I privately hope could be taking place.

Things change in 10-15 years. The science has become far more settled – anthropogenic CO2 is now a global economic externality, and the most prurient and economic way of dealing with such a phenomenon is a global commitment to force ourselves to pay more to pollute (so we pollute less).

I still find the idea of not just reclining and waiting for the markets to dictate progress to be the best one. Yes, we have money and growth to lose – if we do things stupidly. With efficiency and a lack of ideological trappings, greening our economies could be beneficial from a cost-benefit POV (this is just excluding the fact that Westerners are morally obliged to stop harming other societies with CO2 pollution and its effects, but that is another matter here).

I was too young to participate in the debate 10-15 years ago. I don't have a history in any left-wing movement or party either – I am for imposing global penalties on CO2 becase it is just as economically and morally correct as paying a fine when you park carelessly.

And when I wrote that he "jumped to the cure," I meant he never proved the points about accountability/transparency before jumping ahead to the AGW points. You might like what he wrote about AGW, that's your prerogative, but are you conceding that Hayes made several unsupported points?

"Now, do you have anything to add regarding the OP other than telling me what an idiot I am for breaching your territory?"

I wouldn't call you an idiot and I did not. So stop putting words in other peoples' mouth, that is twice in this thread now.

"Guess I happened to use an example you are a bit sensitive towards."

Is that not basic troll logic? Or, as I like to call it, the "Lol u mad" style of debate. Your example of scientists being wrong about the nature of the ether is wholly unrelated to the statistical, physical, climatological and otherwise less speculative work of climate scientists. Your analogy was bad, and you really have nothing to suggest that your skepticism is not redundant (what with climate scientists already being skeptical – otherwise they would not be scientists).

Well, without accountability and transparency, the allocation of power becomes less meritocratic, which lessens the amount of trust one can give the institution. The problem isn't the concentration per se, but the fact that the accumulation of power isn't well-deserved. If the most intelligent, benevolent, philosophical, stable and educated person in the world had the most power, I wouldn't be worried.

"For example, people lost faith in the Catholic Church because of individual moral failings and PAST coverups, even as accountability and transperancy have improved."

I wouldn't know, I hate all non-individual and non-secular religious phenomenon by default, and thusly I wouldn't trust the Catholic church with a nerf gun. I think it's continuously regressive, sedate and self-righteous approach to the world makes it unworthy of trust, and I hope many more become disenchanted with it. Seriously, the current pope is actually Emperor Palpatine – I would be worried if people didn't punish the Catholic church with lower poll numbers.

I think you assume that more transparency means more trust. I think that the Catholic church may have become more transparent, but that its actual presence in the world is becoming less appreciated because it just demands societies to succumb to its anti-women, obsessively anti-gay agenda, without really offering any spiritual coherence or honesty. Transparency is one thing, but what about what people actually see more of as opacity decreases?

"But would it fit with Haye's "progressive" worldview to suggest that public loss of faith in elites was largely due to individual moral failings?"

I have no idea. I also have no idea why you put "progressive" in mock quotes.

"But he jumped straight to the cure before even remotely proving the diagnosis."

The diagnosis about why people are divided on ACC is simple – scientists value the virtue of being right, while the people who hate the ramifications of the work of the scientists value the appearance of being right.

Now, do you have anything to add regarding the OP other than telling me what an idiot I am for breaching your territory?

Seems like quite a petty wish. Do you assume its influence is unmerited? Do you think the world would be a better place if The Nation did not exist?

"However, in making this shift, Hayes conveniently drops the part about transparency and accountability, I suspect because he knows that the general public has access to more information about CEO salaries and other internal corporate business matters than they did 35 years ago."

Yeah, knowledge is a good weapon to wield. But: Lobbying. Also: Citizens United ruling. I wish people who are constantly worrying over government would exert the same caution with regards to corporations. And vice versa, of course!

Transparency isn't everything – it's not facetious or biased (innately, at least) to worry over corporations and their wield of power just because some insight into accounting, dealings etc. are available.

I won't say anything about your complaints about his position on climate change and how it's an important issue to the left (as if that has anything to do with anything). Because, seriously, what a strange complaint.

"What if, say, Global Warming were to turn out to be a scientific fallacy fifty years down the road?"

Lol, not very likely. People are running out of factors to rationalize away their responsibility with. Our consumption and our production is causing a whopping externality that is having a social cost. That means increasing the cost of production and consumption (economically and efficiently) is economically and morally correct – that is perfectly in line with the most liberal of economists (think von Mises, even).

"At the turn of the (previous) century the consensus among the physicists was that there was this thing called "ether". Then it was "disproved". Who knows if it will be proven again, since many quantum physicists have begun to point in that direction? "

LOL, thinking you have a case to make an analogy between ACC and the concept of etherial matter. The fact that scientists are unsure and have been unsure about the "ether" has no particular weight when it comes to the certainty regarding the level of anthropogenism of climate change. The climate has an energy imbalance that is unexplained. You insert CO2 as a factor and all of a sudden the imbalance is explained. I oversimplify, but that is the gist, and a majority of people who know more than you and me combined seem to think the explanation has merit. What have you got?

If climate "skeptics" admitted a loss credibility every time Anthony Watts or Lomborg turned out to have been wrong, you would realize you have no credibility left.

You know who is a real climate "skeptic"? I am. Climate scientists, also, are *intrinsically* skeptical. That's what being a scientist is all about. You seem to assume that the overwhelming proportion of climate scientists who support ACC is somehow not meritorious – I think your position cannot be the null hypothesis. The onus is on the scientist – but you *opinion* on the work of these scientists has a separate onus, shifted onto you.

"According to those like Hayes, there is one correct way of thinking and anyone else who wastes time stalling is a fool and a bigot."

Are you aware that you appear deeply dishonest and not a little, em, bigoted yourself when you mangle the words of another to suit your wounded preconceptions of ACC proponents? Try something else, something that makes sense.