One needn’t agree with everything a climate change skeptic says to observe something conspicuous from the alarmist side.  They rarely treat the question of climate change as an issue with unfortunate trade-offs, as Byorn Lomborg does in an essay for the New York Post:

Activist organizations like Worldwatch argue that higher temperatures will make more people hungry, so drastic carbon cuts are needed. But a comprehensive new study published in Nature Climate Change led by researchers from the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis has found that strong global climate action would cause far more hunger and food insecurity than climate change itself.

The scientists used eight global-agricultural models to analyze various scenarios between now and 2050. These models suggest, on average, that climate change could put an extra 24 million people at risk of hunger. But a global carbon tax would increase food prices and push 78 million more people into risk of hunger. The areas expected to be most vulnerable are sub-Saharan Africa and India.

Indeed, the attitude of alarmists is pretty good evidence that their solutions come before their reason for them, because the depth of analysis is lacking.  A promotional interview of progressive candidate for lieutenant governor Aaron Regunberg that Rhode Island Public Radio (RIPR) misleadingly presents as a “debate” contains a good example.

[box type=”tick” style=”rounded”]Please consider a voluntary, tax-deductible subscription to keep the Current growing and free.[/box]

Regunberg pitches the move to reduce the flow of traditional energy into the state as a good economic trade-off.  Imported fuel sends our energy dollars out of state, he says, while home-grown green energy production keeps energy dollars here.  Even without going into the ways in which modern companies are constructed (with supply lines crossing many borders), we can observe Regunberg’s lack of economic depth.

If imported traditional energy is (let’s just say) half the cost of local green energy, it is a cold comfort to local residents that they’re spending twice as much on energy, but with the extra going people who happen to share their state.  On the commercial side, local businesses could reinvest that money in themselves.  In both cases, all of the extra money going into the local green machine is coming out of the local economy anyway.

As with Regunberg’s claims about single-payer health care, progressives insist that their policies are 100% upside and the only reason to disagree is some sort of hatred or greed.  On its face, that’s foolish.