I wanted to note some follow-up discussion to material that I have flagged here recently at the blog. The first was my post On the Denialists from March 2nd. The NY Review of Books has printed a reply to William Nordhaus’s refutation of the claims of the climate denialists, that I discussed at earlier post. Nordhaus responds to their reply. I will let these speak for themselves.
I wrote more recently, on March 15th, on Bill McKibben’s essay, framed as a book review, on fracking. In To Frack or Not to Frack, I took exception to some of McKibben’s premises. Most of all, what I find particularly disappointing in some of the activism these days, particularly in the anti-fracking movement, is the near-total disregard for the efficacy of environmental regulation. This is part of the argument that John Deutch makes in his response to McKibben’s review. Deutch, a former top agency official at both Energy and Defense, and also CIA Director, chaired the DOE committee that reviewed fracking’s problems and offered solutions. McKibben responds to Deutch as well. As much as I respect McKibben’s work over many years, it really bugs me that he, along with too many others, seems to categorically reject the notion that government can, and has so often proven, get the job done.