Tuesday, July 31, 2012

Remembering Milton Friedman and Other Links for Your Classroom


  • July 31, 2012 is Milton Friedman’s 100th birthday. Here are two readings to celebrate the occasion: Remembering the Real Milton Friedman (David Beckworth); and NGDP Targeting is the Natural Heir to Monetarism (yours truly).
  • Should the German public be angry about the euro crisis? Yes, but mad at whom? In this post, Josh Rosner gives a list—mad at EU technocrats who designed a bad system, mad at banks that made reckless investments, and others. Hat tip to Yves Smith via Economonitor.com for a good summary.
  • Richard A. Muller, Prof. of Physics at UC Berkeley, used to be a climate skeptic. His studies of climate records led him to doubt the very existence of global warming. However, he believes that the duty of a scientist is to be skeptical. In this article from The New York Times, he explains how further research has convinced him that climate change is not only real, but is caused almost entirely by human activity.

2 comments:

  1. Richard A Muller might have caught up with the scientific evidence proposed by others for 20+ years, but he still claims that the impacts won't be large and we don't need to act.

    Here is Michael Mann's critique of errors in one of Muller's recent interviews.

    https://www.facebook.com/MichaelMannScientist/posts/407285742660967

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  2. Muller was interviewed on Fareed Zacharia's CNN program GPS yesterday and specifically said the effects would be large and we need to act. His recommended actions included, for example, switch from coal and oil to gas to reduce carbon emissions.

    If you watch the interview at this link, you will see that Muller goes farther than Mann claims. http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2012/08/03/on-gps-sunday-the-fallout-from-romneys-israel-visit-iran-china-and-more/

    I don't understand why Mann is so dismissive of Muller's views. Something personal?

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