I've never understood the argument that property rights would solve commons problems.  As if farmers don't ruin their soils, homeowners always maintain their houses perfectly, and nobody neglects the oil in their cars.

Plus, there never was any tragedy of the commons.  It's a theoretical construct bereft of any historical evidence.  Actually-existing commons were heavily regulated and mediated by the community.

Bailey is to be applauded for changing his mind on the basis of new evidence. Libertarians do have an allegiance to reason, and this is to their credit.

And yet...

How could a journalist with Bailey's experience get it so wrong?  There's something seriously wrong, if a smart guy like Bailey could make such a long-standing error in judgment.

I think the answer is ideology. Like other ideologies, libertarianism is a blindness and echo chamber, lowering one's IQ by about 30 points.

Unfortunately, Bailey does not see how his ideology warped his judgment and I suspect that he will continue to make similar mistakes. I've been monitoring his writings on peak oil, and I see the same pattern of wishful thinking and selectively applied skepticism.

Bailey spent years and years being paid by the CEI (who are partly funded by ExxonMobil), all the while producing skepticism about global warming despite, despite earlier articles and the 2001 IPCC TAR. Then he went to Reason, which is also funded by ExxonMobil. His opinion was bought and paid for. Real journalists do not compromise their integrity by taking money from groups with specific interests.

Yes, this means that David Roberts (or any other blog author here) is not a real journalist, because his income depends on painting an extremist position so that people will give money to Grist. Roberts' conflict of interest is not smaller than was/is Bailey's. That makes it all the more ironic that people like the Weather Channel look to him for content. Roberts is not neutral and never will be. It's sad that the Weather Channel can't be bothered to find journalists who have no conflicts of interest and feel they must rely on conficted writers who benefit by advancing an extremist position.

It's not worth it. It sidetracks serious discussion.

and you find dirty hippies working for ideas.  Real conservatives work only for money.

The paid skeptics recently lost their corporate funding and do not want to appear to be working for ideas.

Bull on mea culpa.  Looks more like payback for getting cut off from mother Exxon.

Bailey deserves credit for admitting he was dead wrong when he scoffed at global warming. But note that the moderate, science-based rhetoric of his mea culpa in no way matches the wrongful delight he took in slamming those warning of the risks.

According to the titles of Bailey's books, people who warned of the risks of global warming were "false prophets." Global warming (or global heating, as James Lovelock calls it) was "a myth." To speak of more powerful hurricanes, rising sea levels, or climate chaos, was "alarmism."

Now that Bailey has admitted that we face serious risks due to a changing climate, will he discuss in his columns how we can reduce those risks? Or will he continue to support the nihilist  do-nothing policies of ExxonMobil? He got the past wrong; now that he's admitted it, will he make amends? That's the next test for a responsible man in his position.