As an economist and a former student of Prof. Milton Friedman at the University of Chicago, I am by education skeptical about any theory of climate change that explains warming but not cooling. The anthropogenic theory of climate change (AGW) blames man-caused carbon emissions for global warming but cannot explain past periods of global warming and cooling when there were no human beings to blame for climate change. Another economist who shares this view is former Czech President and Prime Minister,Vaclav Klaus, who fought against Communism and recognized in the movement that blames man for causing global warming, a new threat to our freedom saying:
I feel threatened now, not by global warming — I don’t see any — (but) by the global warming doctrine, which I consider a new dangerous attempt to control and mastermind my life and our lives, in the name of controlling the climate or temperature. … I used to live in a similar world called communism. And I know it led to the worst environmental damage the world has ever experienced.” (As quoted in the Herald Sun of Melbourne , 7/28/11)
It not only cannot explain past periods of global warming and cooling, it cannot explain the most recent decade of global cooling. Just fifty years there were allegations that we were entering a period of global cooling. There are reasons to be skeptical.
But even if the AGW theory had some basis, economists have to ask , “What is the best policy to deal with global warming?” Whatever policy is selected should meet the standard economic criteria of economic benefit-cost analysis.