The Economist responds! ...and my response back...

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From: Allan Châtenay

Sent: October 7, 2019 9:44 AM

To: Oliver Morton

Cc: Catherine Brahic; Mark Doyle

Subject: RE: Non Sequitur

Dear Mr. Morton;

Thanks very much for your reply.

The socialist ideological bent of climate alarmism is implicit in its ‘the world is ending and its your fault’ narrative, which is a new and more sophisticated version of the fire-and-brimstone fear mongering used as the foundation of many other flawed ideologies. It is an enormous distraction for our society to have accepted this very uncertain prediction, thus misallocating trillions of dollars to ‘take action’ against an uncertain future outcome in what must be the least efficient use of capital in history.

In the case of climate your newspaper isn’t assessing “the world as it is.” The world as it is has a climate to which we are well adjusted and for which we require access to abundant sources of reliable, uninterrupted energy. The world as it is has billions of people desperate for improved access to reliable sources of energy. It does not need less energy, or less reliable forms of energy, or more taxes to make energy more expensive, or more government control of energy sources. The world as it is could also do without people frightening children by telling them the future is bleak and humans are awful. We now have frightened children frightening other children in a growing mass hysteria fed by social media, the attention economy and weak journalism. 

Instead of seeing the world as it is, your newspaper is taking a dire prediction of the future as a fait accompli. This prediction of the future is based on complex but incomplete and flawed models of the earth that produce the premise to the argument, posited predominantly by socialists, that the science is somehow ‘settled’ and that climate requires and would respond predominantly to human action, presumably orchestrated by governments and a global elite. Science must never be ‘settled.’ Instead, it should always be questioned and tested. Blindly accepting this climate-prediction-based premise to the argument for action despite the significant uncertainties with the premise inevitably leads to strange arguments, logical fallacies and risky and illogical conclusions.

Demand for access to reliable energy continuing its inexorable growth is simply the market telling us that whatever minor anthropogenic variations in climate we might be observing are much less important than ensuring access to abundant and reliable sources of energy. Access to energy enables humans to deal with whatever weather events or climate change might be headed our way, driving human safety, wellbeing and prosperity.

Best Regards,

Al.

From: Oliver Morton

Sent: October 7, 2019 8:45 AM

To: Allan Châtenay

Cc: Catherine Brahic; Mark Doyle

Subject: Re: Non Sequitur

Dear Mr Chatenay

Thank you for your letter.

It seems odd to advocate that this newspaper should judge the issue of climate on the basis of its ideological bent, as you suggest in your first paragraph. In general we assess the world as it is then consult ideology for a response. This is indeed what the leading article in the climate issue did -- robustly rejecting the notion that climate action must be quasi- or crypto-socialist. 

Yours

Oliver

On Tue, 1 Oct 2019 at 16:08, Letters Mailbox <lettersmailbox@economist.com> wrote:

---------- Forwarded message ---------

From: Allan Châtenay <al@explor.net>

Date: Sun, 29 Sep 2019 at 17:30

Subject: Non Sequitur

To: letters@economist.com <letters@economist.com>

Dear Editor;

As a significant sponsor of the geosciences, I have found it incredibly frustrating to watch The Economist’s descent into climate alarmism. For the critical thinkers among us, it is becoming increasingly clear that climate alarmism is just thinly disguised socialism. A command and control socialist economy is posited as the solution to our moral and ecological ills. Climate alarmism is the conjoined twin of anti-capitalism. I would have expected that The Economist, previously being a bastion of economic liberalism, would have seen that the climate emperor has no clothes.

For this reason, I was somewhat relieved to see the article entitled “Throwing the dice” on page 83 of your September 21st, 2019 issue. This article was a tiny breath of sanity in an issue that was largely illogical and alarmist. This article briefly outlines a few (but certainly not all) of the uncertainties with respect to the models driving alarmism. A more complete examination of these uncertainties is certainly called for. However, despite the significant uncertainties outlined in that article, the article itself concludes as a fait accompli that humanity should take extraordinarily expensive and anti-capitalist action against uncertain predictions of future states. This is an illogical non sequitur and The Economist ought to know better.

In today’s incredibly polarized world, the truth is particularly elusive. For this reason, it is imperative that the surviving institutions of real journalism (including The Economist) work ever harder at uncovering the truth and finding logical fallacies in the arguments of the day. For that reason, I’m prepared to forgive your descent into publishing populist nonsense in the hope that you will soon come to your senses.

Best Regards,

Allan Châtenay