First, I do not want to debate global warming, I want to understand what the CATO Institute is and their position.
In this morning’s Washington Post, there was a full-page ad placed by the CATO Institute disputing Obama’s position that there is scientific consensus on global warming. It listed over 100 PhD’s as signatories.
Although there are some experts who dispute that global warming is caused by human activity, my impression has been that the mainstream scientific community accepts it. When I saw the ad from CATO, which even disputes whether global warming is even happening, I wondered if they are legitimate part of a mainstream debate, or whether they are a splinter group that is not taken seriously by the mainstream.
The Cato Institute is a libertarian think tank. As long as the favored solution to the climate change crisis is for government to impose any kind of limitations on industry, the Cato Institute will stick their fingers in their ears and scream “LALALALALA”. I’m thinking it’s a safe bet that less than 3 of those “100 PhDs” is a climatologist or even a meteorologist.
FYI, the name is ultimately derived from the name “Cato.” It’s not an abbreviation or acronym. No need to set it in all caps.
To add to what JayJay said – a think tank or policy institute is an institution that offers grants and salaries to scholars to produce papers on public policy matters. The best known one is probably the Brookings Institution.
The Cato Institute pretty much always takes the position that government action is not needed. They also criticized the initiation of the Iraq war.
Cato is the policy arm of the capitalist business machine. So you’ll see opinions that reflect on business positively. For instance, global warming is blamed on CO2 which is produced by the engines of business, be it manufacturing, transport, etc.
Cato is a great organization if youre a billionaire with lots of corporate holdings. They say exactly what you want them to say. This is how lobbying the government works. Things like science, truth, reason, etc are naive concepts that go against its stated and unstated goals.
If Cato is one thing, they are consistent. They abhor nearly all forms of government intervention and regulation, and that includes spending public money rescuing failed businesses.
Of course theyre against the bailout, because in the end the bailout means:
More taxes. Its gotta come from somewhere
More regulation. OHNOES!!!
They dont want any of that. If GM folds, so be it. Someone else will move into their market. GM’s influence is much smaller than the collective influence of the wolves waiting to divide up that market share.
Regulation. They hate it alll. So what if it destroys the world economy. Thats the average man’s worry, not theirs. Theyre set for life. They dont need jobs. They only care about this quarter’s bottom line. Putting in regulations to save the economy? That’s like acid to them.
Apparently so. In their ad, though, it is given as all caps, although it appears on lines where *everything *is all caps.
I have a friend who works for Brookings (actually, not any more, he was just appointed to be the US rep to NATO). But I never heard of Cato.
I can’t speak for the qualifications of any of the people they list, but they include a paleoclimatologist, a retired climatologist, a few meteorologists. Most of those listed give no clue as to their field of specialization. (BTW, on closer review I see a few are not PhD’s. Just for the record.)
I wonder what a wonk at Cato who got laid off would say after losing his/her job, house and being evicted and losing tons of dough on some un-regulated derivative dealing.
Cato the Elder was known as a thoroughly incorruptible statesman, austerely virtuous and strict, and also as one of the most horrible, nasty, evil and unpleasant persons of classical antiquity. One has to question the sanity of any modern organization that would care to use his name.
They’re named after John Trenchard and Thomas Gordon, who wrote a bunch of essays in 18th century England (“Essays on Liberty, Civil and Religious”) under the pseudonym Cato. These essayists chose the pseudonym Cato after Cato the Younger, who fought Julius Caesar, due to his outspoken opposition to tyranny.
Scant improvement. Cato the Younger was as rigid and as unpleasant as his illustrious ancestor, plus he was also nuckin’ futs, like a modern politician who insists on attending Senate sessions dressed like a 17th-Century Puritan, and glowering at everyone for their failure to emulate him.
One of the best ways to evaluate a policy institute is to look at funding. A list of donors is found in the annual reports. It may require a little digging because the larger donations are usually from foundations and charitable funds to allow the mega rich tax free lobbying.
The donors are the clients. They pay the institute for unethical research, lobbying, and PR campaigns.