Man, I’m trying to dig into the whole Super-freaking-nomics (misspelling intentional) climate change dust up and am feeling worn out. These guys, the freakonomics guys, play these games where logic and knowledge and analysis all get thrown around in the most unserious way. It’s maddening. Here’s what I’m talking about.
More than 52,000 bicyclists have been killed in bicycle traffic accidents in the U.S. over the 80 years the federal government has been keeping records. When it comes to sharing the road with cars, many people seem to assume that such accidents are usually the cyclist’s fault — a result of reckless or aggressive riding.
Who are these “many people” who think bicycles are to blame in traffic accidents? You hear a lot about cars hitting cyclists but not a lot about it happening the other way around. The Freakonomics blog stands common sense on it’s head and then declares that the real answer isn’t the one you expect! I call bullshit. It’s just a stunt. There is nothing surprising about the fact that cars hit bikes.
Here is an example on the topic of climate change. Dubner is talking about how climate change will affect poor nations the most. That, perhaps, is true. The muddle comes at the end of this quote.
A Different Climate Change Apocalypse Than the One You Were Envisioning
In other words: the likeliest victims are, once again, the poorest people. Which means that if the relatively rich people who are currently most vocal about climate change are also the people who stand in the least danger, there may come a point where they realize that their concern is not so much an act of self-preservation as an act of altruism. Considering how impure much of our altruism is, that could be the most dangerous news of all.
Altruism is dangerous!@! More dangerous than global warming!! But the link, if you click through, says no such thing, of course. Rather, it tells us that altruism isn’t based on rational decision making. Not very shocking!!!
When the Freakonomics blog was new, I read it a bit. So, I was clued in to their climate change cluelessness long ago. Here’s a post I remember.
Are Man-Made Tornadoes the Answer to Global Warming?
This is probably too good to be true, but all you need is one big idea like this to work. If that happens, all the gloom and doom and real economic sacrifice associated with global warming becomes a small footnote in the history books. Technology and human ingenuity have solved just about every problem we’ve faced so far; there is no obvious reason why global warming shouldn’t succumb as well.
I’m a big fan of technology but who can seriously suggest that it has “solved just about every problem we’ve faced so far”? Also, we won’t have to make economic sacrifices because these geo-engineering projects, none of which have gotten past the fanciful idea stage, will be, um, free? How’s that?
These guys aren’t evil. They aren’t out to screw anybody. I think their problem is that they’ve developed this contrarianism-as-entertainment niche and they apply that thinking to every topic that comes their way. They are following their own noses instead of than following the facts.
