Climate Tricks 50, Letter to the US HOR Committee on Science, Space and Technology

This week, a group of scientists, engineers, physicians, economists, mostly from the US but with other signatories from abroad, wrote the Chairman of the US' House Committee on Science, Space and Technology, about temperature data quality. Originally posted in WUWT, 300 Scientists Tell Chairman of the House ScienceCommittee: ‘we want NOAA to adhere to law of the Data Quality Act’.

January 25, 2016

Chairman Lamar Smith
Committee on Science, Space and Technology
House of Representatives
Congress of the United States

Dear Chairman Smith,

We, the undersigned, scientists, engineers, economists and others, who have looked carefully into the effects of carbon dioxide released by human activities, wish to record our support for the efforts of the Committee on Science, Space and Technology to ensure that federal agencies complied with federal guidelines that implemented the Data Quality Act. This is an issue of international relevance because of the weight given to U.S. Government assessments during international negotiations such as the IPCC.

The Data Quality Act required government-wide guidelines to “ensure and maximize the quality, objectivity, utility, and integrity of information, including statistical information,” that was disseminated to the public. Individual agencies, such as the EPA, NOAA and many others were required to issue corresponding guidelines and set up mechanisms to allow affected parties to seek to correct information considered erroneous.

We remind you that controversy previously arose over EPA’s apparent failure to comply with these guidelines in connection with its Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding, which was the subject of a report by the EPA Office of the Inspector General in 2011, see http://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2015-10/documents/20110926-11-p-0702.pdf In that case, EPA failed to comply with peer review requirements for a “highly influential scientific assessment” and argued that the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding was not a “highly influential” scientific assessment. If it wasn’t, then it’s hard to imagine what would be. (For a contemporary discussion of the EPA’s stance see
http://climateaudit.org/2011/10/04/epa-the-endangerment-finding-was-not-a-highly-influentialscientific-
assessment/ ).

In our opinion, in respect to Karl et al. 2015 and related documents, NOAA has failed to observe the OMB (and its own) guidelines, established in relation to the Data Quality Act, for peer review of “influential scientific information” and “highly influential scientific assessments.”

We urge you to focus on these important compliance issues. For your consideration we attach a draft letter which directly connects these issues to your committee’s prior request for documents.

Sincerely,
(List of signatories and tag lines)

The list of signatories is 18 pages long, see here.
I am one of the signatories, on page 14. I was invited by a good friend in the US, Dr. Willie Soon, an astrophysicist. It seems that I am the only signatory from South East Asia.

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See also:

Climate Tricks 46, More alarmism --> more climate money expectation --> more disappointment, December 12, 2015
Climate Tricks 47, Severe UK flooding due to "man-made" warming, climate change? December 30, 2015 

Climate Tricks 48, Denying climate cycles, January 13, 2016 

Climate Tricks 49, No extreme weather, no severe storms in the past? January 14, 2016

Global warming hits Asia, Part 4, January 26, 2016

Free Trade 31: FTAs, EPAs and the Heckscher-Ohlin Theorem

In the new facebook group that I created and moderate, Government and Taxes, Liberty and Responsibility, a friend, Dr. Yolanda "Yolie" Robles (former Dean, UP College of Pharmacy, Director at the Philippine Pharmacists Association, PPhA), posted in early December last year. The exchanges that followed were nice. Posting the exchanges as is. I just added the diagram of the Hechscher-Ohlin Theorem (HOT) here, not part of the original exchanges.
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December 4-6, 2013

Yolanda Robles HI Nonoy. Thanks for adding me to the group. I just attended an AIM-KOICA event in Makati with the theme: Korea as a Partner of ASEAN, Furthering Cooperation for Enhanced Partnership and Common Prosperity through ODA. In this, the NEDA Representative gave a concise report on what the present government does in terms of poverty reduction and employment generation. Comments from the participants include: "the focus of employment generation is still on services, and which may require more college graduates rather than those with lower educational attainment. The greater number of poor and unemployed are those in the latter group. Why not also reinvigorate manufacturing which could employ more people of different educational attainments." Well, what's your say on this?

Nonoy Oplas Thanks Yolly. I am not sure if there is an existing Japan-ASEAN EPA (Econ. Partnership Agreement), sort of a soft Free Trade Agreement (FTA). So S. Korea should be initiating a Korea-ASEAN EPA too.

About the comment, I think it is a misconception that those in the services sector are mostly the college graduates. Not true. The services sector include (a) trading, wholesale and retail including ambulant and public market vendors; (b) Transpo, storage and communication which includes airlines, buses, jeepneys, taxi, shipping lines, pump boats for hire, etc.; (c) real estate, renting and business activities that include hotels, inns, lodging houses; (d) public administration including LGUs, and (e) other services like restos, karaoke bars, etc.

It is not good to dichotomize the economy as "manufacturing and agriculture are crucial, services are non- or less-productive". Food manufacturing will become hollow if there are no supermarkets, convenience stores, sari-sari stores (all under the service sector).

Yolanda Robles Thanks for your comment. I think the surplus college graduates take also jobs intended for high school and vocational graduates. That's why less jobs are less available to the latter group. The surplus of college graduates reflects the greater preference for white collar jobs, the mismatch between education and human resource needs, among others. As for trade agreements, there is such a thing as ASEAN + 3. The 3 refers to China, Japan and Korea which ASEAN countries have trade agreements with 

Nonoy Oplas Yes, there is an ASEAN + 3, but it is only during the annual ASEAN summit, and not an EPA or FTA. So those 3 north Asian countries China, Japan, S. Korea initiate their own EPA or FTA with ASEAN as a bloc. Thus, a China-ASEAN FTA (I think to materialize by January 2015), a Japan-ASEAN EPA, and a S. Korea-ASEAN EPA/FTA. Since dealing with ASEAN as a bloc is more bureaucratic and more time consuming, some countries strike a bilateral EPA or FTA, that is why we have a Japan-Philippines EPA (JPEPA) and so on.

Yolanda Robles Yes, you are right. It was mentioned that Japan, South Korea, and China have country-specific agreements with some ASEAN countries and the current direction is to deal with ASEAN as a block 

Nonoy Oplas Meanwhile, here is an old graph that I developed in a talk on free trade, Atlas-FNF conference in Kuala Lumpur in 2005. Trade protectionism penalizes consumers and protects local producers, that is why free trade is being pushed to remedy the price distortion caused by protectionism.

I saw Dr. Poch Macaranas of AIM this afternoon, he's the former Director of the AIM Policy Center. He said he is helping in the ASEAN FTA (AFTA), ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) and related issues, which should materialize by January 2015 (12 1/2 months from now) but has been moved to December 2015 or 2 years from now. I thanked him for that piece of info. 

Being an advocate of free trade, I can only say that once trade is politicized and bureaucratized, instead of having free, unconditional trade between and among people, it becomes "trade with permission" from government.

Bonn Juego Noy, again, your kind of economics does not know how to create a wealthy nation in the PH context, how capitalism itself can lead to productivity explosions for the benefit of the entire economy. Good that NEDA understands the qualitative differences that different economic activities - manufacturing, agriculture, services - have for economic growth and the whole socioeconomic development process. My approach, of course, combines, among others, Marx, Schumpeter, and Keynes. As I said, I find yours more like the 'libertarianism' of Ayn Rand and the Koch Brothers, than the 'liberal' economics of Smith, Ricardo, Hayek, and Friedman who at least have a sense of moral philosophy. Anyway, greetings from stormy Scandinavia!