Wednesday, December 8, 2010

The Ruffin-Gregory Award for the Worst Treatment of Climate Change in an Economics Textbook

I did not know until yesterday that there is a prize that bears my name. The Ruffin-Gregory Award was established by a protector of the faith in global warming for the purpose of “hounding out of print” the economics text that has the worst treatment of climate change. That the award is named after us, I guess, means that our Principles of Economics is the worst of all time!

The Cancun conference has again brought climate issues to the forefront, and an e mail from a colleague, whose economics text was recently awarded an F in climate change (and a threatened boycott of the publisher’s books), brought the existence of the Ruffin-Gregory Prize to my attention.

I had long forgotten that, in 2000, Roy Ruffin and I received complaints about our treatment of global warming in our seventh edition of Principles of Economics. Our publisher (Addison Wesley) was threatened with a boycott if it did not withdraw our text. Our sin was to suggest that the scientific method should be applied to three questions: (1) is global warming occurring, (2) is global warming caused by human consumption of fossil fuels, and (3) is global warming bad for our future. At the time we were writing (1999), we knew that there was no “normal earth temperature” in terms of geological time and we also that temperatures in the medieval warming period were higher than contemporary standards. Moreover, we had a healthy skepticism of computer modeling of such things from our first-edition discussion of the fatal flaws of the Club of Rome-MIT model, which famously predicted we would long be out of natural resources by today. These seemed like legitimate grounds to call for the application of the scientific method to our three questions on climate change. Whatever answers the scientific method produced would be fully acceptable to us. We did not and do not have any stake in the outcome. Let the chips fall where they may.

Over the past decade, much has happened: Nobel prizes for Al Gore and the IPCC, the “100% consensus” on global warming and its causes and consequences, and ClimateGate. My own personal view is that we still do not have solid answers to the key question of the human contribution to climate change. It is heartening to know that the Ruffin-Gregory Award is still alive and well (and that we now know it exists). It is also informative that economics textbooks are still being threatened by the climate police with boycotts for departing from climate orthodoxy. The one disheartening note is that some economic textbook authors seem to be deliberately aiming for an A grade.

3 comments:

  1. When your critics employ intimidation and base threats, you know they do not have a leg to stand on. I live in Canada in the mid west. We have not seen a typical summer in 3 years. Much colder than average is all we get. But this is supposed to be one of the hottest years on record. Try and tell that to the Europeans and the Canadians.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I am AMMA MARIA. I'm from america. I was going crazy when my husband left me and my two kids for another woman 2 weeks ago after 17years of marriage. We had a lovely marriage but he started a relationship with a co worker who chased after him. He is living away OUR home and refuses to talk to me or to come home. I was devastated and am finding it hard to cope . I wish I did not love him and that I could move on but I can't. I starting to feel ill. I have begged him to come home all to no avail. I became very worried and needed help. As I was browsing through the internet one day, I came across a website that suggested that Dr Larry can help solve marital problems, restore broken relationships and so on. So, I felt I should give him a try. I contacted him and he did a spell for me. 4days later, my husband came to me and apologized for the wrongs he did and promise never to do it again. Ever since then, everything has returned back to normal. I and my family are living together happily again.. All thanks to Dr Larry. If you need a spell caster that can cast a spell that truly works, I suggest you contact him. He will not disappoint you. if you have any problem contact him, I give you 100% guarantee that he will help you, Email him at: assurancesolutionhome@gmail.com you can call or Add him on Whatsapp +1(424)-261-8520




      I am AMMA MARIA. I'm from america. I was going crazy when my husband left me and my two kids for another woman 2 weeks ago after 17years of marriage. We had a lovely marriage but he started a relationship with a co worker who chased after him. He is living away OUR home and refuses to talk to me or to come home. I was devastated and am finding it hard to cope . I wish I did not love him and that I could move on but I can't. I starting to feel ill. I have begged him to come home all to no avail. I became very worried and needed help. As I was browsing through the internet one day, I came across a website that suggested that Dr Larry can help solve marital problems, restore broken relationships and so on. So, I felt I should give him a try. I contacted him and he did a spell for me. 4days later, my husband came to me and apologized for the wrongs he did and promise never to do it again. Ever since then, everything has returned back to normal. I and my family are living together happily again.. All thanks to Dr Larry. If you need a spell caster that can cast a spell that truly works, I suggest you contact him. He will not disappoint you. if you have any problem contact him, I give you 100% guarantee that he will help you, Email him at: assurancesolutionhome@gmail.com you can call or Add him on Whatsapp +1(424)-261-8520

      Delete