When Reality and Models Collide

On global warming, whatever the final outcome of the debate on whether we are really warming (rather than in a cyclical uptick), whether we are causing it; and whether it is actually bad to have warmer climate, I stand firm on my last line of defense against fighting it: I have no confidence that the socialists who want to guide our economy in the name of saving the planet have any clue about how to orchestrate our lives to save us.

Let's look at one relatively simple mechanism that the global Warmists insist can use "market-based" solutions that they create (and how is it market-based if they had to create the supply and demand?). The New York Times is quoted:

Greenhouse gases were rated based on their power to warm the atmosphere. The more dangerous the gas, the more that manufacturers in developing nations would be compensated as they reduced their emissions.

But where the United Nations envisioned environmental reform, some manufacturers of gases used in air-conditioning and refrigeration saw a lucrative business opportunity.

They quickly figured out that they could earn one carbon credit by eliminating one ton of carbon dioxide, but could earn more than 11,000 credits by simply destroying a ton of an obscure waste gas normally released in the manufacturing of a widely used coolant gas. That is because that byproduct has a huge global warming effect. The credits could be sold on international markets, earning tens of millions of dollars a year.

That incentive has driven plants in the developing world not only to increase production of the coolant gas but also to keep it high — a huge problem because the coolant itself contributes to global warming and depletes the ozone layer.

Gosh, who could imagine such an epic fail?

Tip to Instapundit.