nan | 楠木

I’ve been reading a lot of the Wall Street Journal as of late, since the hotel provides it on a daily basis. It’s interesting to note the WSJ’s stance on environmentalism (especially climate change), which has long been skeptical. I just didn’t know before how proactive it was in pushing this.

In the past week there’s been at least two opinion columns on climate change. Today there’s an article (behind WSJ’s paywall, though) by the chairman of Nestlé, arguing how water is the most important issue, rather than global warming, with some particularly strong words against biofuel:

This could be the single most destructive set of policy mistakes made in a generation…

…If there’s one certainty, it is this: The production of biofuels has stimulated a massive, and destructive, reorientation of the world’s agriculture markets…

…The biofuel craze, egged on by global warming activists, has helped fuel a huge agricultural crisis.

Just last week, there was another article (this one you might not need an subscription to view, since it’s searchable on Google News – it seems if you search for WSJ articles on Google News and click the link from there you can view the full article) on how global warming should definitely not be the top priority. It again cites the Copenhagen Consensus Center (led by Bjorn Lomborg, famous for The Skeptical Environmentalist, and who also appears in the WSJ quite frequently it seems) on how there were many other priorities (most cost effective action item – solving malnutrition in children in poverty), and tackling global warming was low on the cost-benefit scale.

To some extent, I agree with the argument that global warming is not the single-most urgent issue. I think it’s being abused by interest groups to push their own agenda (just like every other issue), and sound economic analysis is needed for any global warming related policy (so we avoid bad policies like the biofuel push, whose unintended consequences are endangering the livelihood of the world’s poor).

But then again, that’s not saying much, since all policies should undergo such scrutiny in the first place. And I’m also wary of how WSJ is also a medium for other interest parties pushing their agenda too. (For example, this Copenhagen Consensus Center certainly looks shady…)