The Chilling Effect: We ran into you at the Americans For Prosperity/RightOnline event, where you were on speaking a panel regarding global warming. Some in the audience were certain that global warming is a hoax, while others were agnostic on the science. Given your review of the issue, what’s your best guess on climate change?

Iain S. Murray: I think it’s pretty conclusive that, all other things being equal, more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere leads to a warmer atmosphere. However, it’s clear from the recent plateau in temperatures, while GHGs have continued to accumulate, that all other things are not equal. We really don’t know very much about the other “forcings,” as they call them, that go in to deciding the global temperature, and clearly need more research on them. We also don’t know very much at all about the history of climate beyond 400 years ago. We need to know not just what regulates the atmosphere, but whether temperature swings are unusual or not.

TCE: What frustrates you most, then, about the current debate over climate change?

ISM: There are a lot of things we can do - the so-called “no regrets” policies - that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions and/or create a global economy more resilient to change that would be beneficial even if global warming doesn’t turn out to be a problem. However, these policies are ignored by the global warming industry because they require a little lateral thinking and don’t create massive bureaucracies and central control. Meanwhile, there are many who deride such policies because they see global warming as a hoax. The truth is it isn’t a hoax, not is it a crisis. It’s a risk to be managed. So let’s manage it!

TCE: It doesn’t take long to understand the thesis of your book, since the title does a great job of summing it up. One of the most interesting arguments you make is that “Gore’s vision of greater state control over the economy has already produced some of the greatest environmental disasters in history.” Can you give our readers a quick idea of what you mean?

ISM: The central insight of free-market environmentalism is that people with an ownership stake in the environment generally take care of their asset. Yet the Goreite approach to the environment seeks to take control out of the hand of the owner and give it to the commons either by regulation (forcing or even “nudging” the owner to do something he wouldn’t otherwise) or by direct public ownership. This leads to what ecologist Garret Hardin called “The Tragedy of the Commons,” as far back as 1968. So it was nationalization of the nation’s waterways that led to the Cuyahoga catching on fire, biofuel subsidies and mandates that have led to food crises and deforestation, public management of forests that led to Yellowstone almost burning down 20 years ago, the de facto ban on DDT that led to the failure to control malaria in Africa and, worst of all, the Soviet direct management of waterways in Asia that led to the destruction of the Aral Sea.

TCE: When you get feedback from people who have read your book, what is the most common thing that they mention? What strikes or surprises them most, or what pushback have you gotten from critics?

ISM: The people I thought would criticize the book have largely ignored it, which seems to be the liberal environmentalist approach these days to things they don’t like. They regard such arguments as literally unspeakable. Of those open-minded enough to read the book, the thing that has gotten the most attention is the revelation of the environmental movement’s silence over a number of issues that plainly affect the environment by their own lights - the effects of the contraceptive pill on the nation’s freshwater fish, the encouragement of mass immigration to the US and so on. And, of course, everyone wants to know about global warming. In fact, if I’d written my book purely on global warming I’m sure it would have sold more copies, but there are plenty of other books out there doing that. I wanted to stress how global warming alarmism is just the latest in a series of environmentally-based power grabs.

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