Talk:William A. Niskanen

His middle name?

What does the A. stand for?--Victor Chmara (talk) 20:10, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Okay, I'm pretty sure it's Arthur.--Victor Chmara (talk) 20:11, 26 October 2011 (UTC)

Finnish

Had he Finnish roots? Niskanen is a Finnish word, niska = a neck and -nen is diminutive, so Niskanen means neckling or lands by the neck. --193.199.56.240 (talk) 14:17, 30 October 2011 (UTC)

Climate skepticism

I'm copying the text of a subsection documenting Niskanen's published scholarship on climate skepticism, which was mass-deleted by User:Will Wilkinson for reasons that strike me as suspect.[1] It also raises a potential Wikipedia:Conflict of Interest issue as Wilkinson appears to be an officer at a Think Tank founded by Niskanen.

Niskanen was an outspoken skeptic of proposed political solutions to global warming and critic of the Kyoto protocol. Writing in 1994, he was one of the first scholars to suggest that the political objectives of the environmentalist movement were exerting a distortive effect upon climate science. As Niskanen wrote, "One consequence of the distortion of science is that substantial resources are spent to reduce minimal risk at the expense of other activities that would reduce risk at a much lower cost." While Niskanen did not deny the existence of global warming or even human contributions to this phenomenon, he questioned the severity of the trend and argued that we should not fear moderate global warming. Drastic policy interventions to correct for climate change, he warned, were too severe for a problem that he considered modest and even in some cases beneficial, such as the increase in the world food supply brought about by longer crop growing periods. He concluded that most proposals to address climate change did not pass the cost-benefit analysis test.

On Whether climate change skepticism is a noteworthy part of his scholarship. The Cato Institute believed it was. Their official obituary of Niskanen included a lengthy mention of his work in this area.

"He also added insight to the debate on global warming. In a 1997 article, “Too Much, Too Soon: Is a Global Warming Treaty a Rush to Judgment?” he points out that the case for a global warming treaty depends on the accuracy of seven ideas:

■ Continued increases in emissions of greenhouse gases will increase global temperatures. ■ Such an increase in temperature will create more costs than benefits. ■ Emissions controls are the most efficient means to prevent an increase in temperature. ■ It is better to control emissions earlier than later. ■ Emissions controls can be effectively monitored and enforced. ■ Governments of the treaty countries will approve the necessary control measures. ■ Controlling emissions in the rich countries several decades earlier than in the poor countries is desirable.

Bill shows why the case for any one of those seven statements “is surprisingly weak.” Although I can’t, in a short space, recount his serial reasoning, I’ll settle for noting one of his arguments. Concerning the costs and benefits of global warming, he writes that most of the global warming “is expected to be at night, in the winter, and in the high northern latitudes.” That means that heating costs would be reduced more than cooling costs would be increased.

Some 14 years after his article was written, the case for each of the seven statements is still quite weak. Interestingly, concerning international cooperation to reduce carbon emissions, the Canadian government withdrew from the Kyoto treaty in December 2011." [2]

NaturalVariation (talk) 00:52, 27 January 2016 (UTC)

I, too, found the section unsatisfactory. I changed the titled and added a cn; but having read the above (and checked NVs contribs) I've removed it entirely. There are two refs to the section; one ([3]) is a deadlink. The other ([4]) doesn't say what the section claims it says; it's about the Endangered species act; Superfund; Wetlands; the Clean Air Act.

If you want WN on GW, then https://www.heartland.org/publications-resources/publications/too-much-too-soon-is-a-global-warming-treaty-a-rush-to-judgment is a better ref; but it is from 1997. That was fairly early on; at that point (well, OK, IPCC '95) the IPCC was offering "the balance of evidence suggests a discernable human influence on climate" so for 1997 the article is unremarkable William M. Connolley (talk) 20:54, 5 September 2017 (UTC)

References