I continue to cringe at the SuperFreakonomics reviews, but I can't stop reading and reposting them. Is that admission a cry for help?
David Roberts at Grist:
Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner are the latest to do it, in their new book Superfreakonomics. Their chapter on climate change sits awkwardly with the rest of their work; the original Freakonomics was based on Levitt’s academic work, real data and models the authors used to make ostentatiously counterintuitive points about perverse economic incentives. But Levitt did no original work on climate. The chapter’s not about economic incentives. There’s no evidence of deep or sustained engagement with the literature or previous research on the subject. The authors just high-stepped in, cast a cursory glance around, and started condescending to the people involved in it (and stepping on rakes).
Why? What leads people to think that entire areas of climate science and policy, the subject of close study by thousands of very smart people all over the globe every day, can be overturned with facile points of logic and Silver Bullets Nobody’s Thought Of?
I read the section of the climate change chapter on negative externalities. It is good, except for one thing. I don't get how a stray bullet, intended for a drug dealer, that hits an innocent bystander is a negative externality. Negative externalities are the result of voluntary transactions that harm someone not participating in the transaction. Next up is the geoengineering section!
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