My favorite new blogger is the pseudonymous Sub Specie Æternitatis, who I discovered when he left a particularly thoughtful comment on the Fair and Balanced thread here at The Big Questions. A little Google-stalking later, I was immersed in his blog. Before much longer, I was in love with it.
Not only is Æternitatis a great writer; he’s also a gracious colleague who (after I introduced myself by email) agreed to let me reprint one of his incisive commentaries as a guest post here. So without further ado:
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It is reported that former Vice President Al Gore just purchased a villa in Montecito, California for $8.875 million. The exact address is not revealed, but Montecito is a relatively narrow strip bordering the Pacific Ocean. So its minimum elevation above sea level is 0 feet, while its overall elevation is variously reported at 50ft and 180ft.
At the same time, Mr. Gore prominently sponsors a campaign and award-winning movie that warns that, due to Global Warming, we can expect to see nearby ocean-front locations, such as San Francisco, largely under water. The elevation of San Francisco is variously reported at 52ft up to high of 925ft.
There being very little reason to suppose that the Pacific Ocean would (or could) rise much less in Montecito than in San Francisco, it follows that Mr. Gore just paid nearly $9 million for property, which according to his professed beliefs, will likely soon be literally under water and hence worthless both as a residence and for resale.
The possible explanations for such behavior are few. One is that Mr. Gore willingly invests millions of his own dollars in property he soon believes to be worthless. That seems very difficult to reconcile with Mr. Gore’s past history as it would require a degree of either extreme stupidity, eccentricity, or clinical mental defect inconsistent with that history, even under the most cynical realistic assumptions about the relationship between worldly success and mental aptitude.
In fact, the only explanation I can think of is that Mr. Gore is a self-conscious, witting liar who does not actually believe his predictions of doom, but nevertheless cynically peddles them for pecuniary or psychic gain. In short, it appears that Mr. Gore is a fraud, not in the sense all of us like to accuse our political enemies to be, but in the most dispassionate, common-sense meaning of the term.
Please note that this is far stronger evidence of Mr. Gore’s lack of sincerity than his willingness to engage in a very carbon-intensive life-style of multiple mansions, private jets, and the like. It is perfectly possible to sincerely believe in Global Warming and yet conclude that one’s own personal contributions are so small compared to the size of the problem that one nonetheless indulges in the comforts one finds so dear. That is not admirable. But it is a common human failing and can be logically consistent with a sincere belief in the problem.
However, it is impossible for a rational person to both believe in imminent rise of sea levels and purchase ocean-front property with their own money, as Mr. Gore has just done.
This depends on how we efficient we think markets are. Suppose that Gore is right and markets reflect his pessimism. If people generally believe that seaside properties will be underwater within the next few decades, they will pay less for them. Gore gets a relatively non-durable good, but he gets it at the non-durable price, so there is nothing irrational about that.
It would be interesting then to try to tease out the effect of global warming on seafront house prices. For example, if a new and pessismitic scientfic report comes out, the corresponding decrease in seafront house prices should reflect the market beliefs on its validity.
If we find that markets attribute low costs to global warming, then Gore is in bad shape no matter how efficient he thinks markets are. If he thinks that markets are efficient, then he is wrong about the costs of global warming. If he thinks that markets systematically underestimate the costs of global warming, then he should be adjusting his purchases to reflect that. Unless he really, really likes his new place, it’s unlikely that he thinks that the market systematically overestimates its price.
There is one caveat though: human attempts to reduce global warming. Gore might think that there will be extensive global warming only in the event that little action is made to mitigate it. For whatever reason (confidence in his own influence, belief in the people to “do what’s right”) he may believe that it is much more likely that we do succeed in significantly reducing or halting global warming, and thus the expected damage given that is low. (This also makes it tricky to calculate how global warming gets priced in: a new report might raise expectations of global warming but also increase the response to it). This doesn’t mean that Gore thinks global warming is not a threat, he’s just confident that the threat will be dealt with.
I find this logic to be a bit dubious- it’s like saying that if a person chooises to play the lotto that he must be misinformed about the odds of winning, since no rational person would play lotto if they knew that the odds were against them. Contrary to what a lot of economists like to model, people knowingly make “bad” bets all the time, and I don’t see why Mr. Gore would be exempt from this phenomenon.
You are also overlooking the possibility that there is a benefit to Mr. Gore of potentially having a very stark and personal example of “See? I told you so, and now my house in under water.” Furthermore, if Mr. Gore is sincere in his beliefs, he likely thinks that he is getting one hell of a deal on flood insurance. :)
It’s one thing to irrationally buy a $1 lottery ticket. But a $8+M house?
Well, it’s not like Al Gore is predicting that those places will be underwater in a few years. Even under catastrophic global warming he would have plenty of time to enjoy his house.
Maybe Gore simply has self-belief; he thinks people will come round to his way of thinking and do something about it before his house is flooded.
Or maybe he just really wants to live by the sea. There are costs/benefits other than money, you can’t claim hypocrisy in this case unless you know something about his preferences. Perhaps a few years living in an ideal location is worth losing $8M worth of property to him.
Another possibility is that he’s assuming insurance companies won’t share his anticipation of large rises in sea levels, he may actually believe what he says and is just making a large bet on himself being right.
Maybe he bought closer to the 180 ft. level and expects that his property will become relatively more scarce when the lower elevation properties flood?
Maybe he expects to enjoy it a great deal before it goes under water so it’s still worth the money. He is rich after all. That would leave the question of why he doesn’t just rent the property, but that could be answered. Perhaps he doesn’t like dealing with a landlord, perhaps he wants to be able to modify the house extensively, etc.
Belief in global warming and the purchase can be reconciled.
I am completely satisfied with the refutations and I won’t add any new line.
Let me try and respond to a few of the comments:
In response to several of the commenters, I’ll concede that it is possible to reconcile purchasing low-lying property with the sort of belief in Global Warming held by people more reasonable than Mr. Gore. If it would take Global Warming several centuries to reach his elevation, or if it is likely to eventually be averted by gradual adjustments over coming decades or climate engineering, then perhaps buying such a property, if otherwise desireable, could be rational.
But it is not with the imminent catastrophic Global Warming pushed by Mr. Gore. Again, and again, he and people like him assert that unless drastic action is taken by a short deadline (conveniently something like the current presidential term, or by the time of the Copenhagen conference), dramatic rises in sea levels will be both unavoidable and imminent. Such a belief, if sincere, is very, very difficult to reconcile with Mr. Gore’s actions.
As for some of the other admittedly-creative explanations offered, each seem to rest on unsupported and rather heroic assumptions: That Al Gore has multiple insurance policies covering permanent loss of land (which is certainly an unusual clause in home insurance contracts and would just make Al Gore a different kind of fraud), that the nearly $9 million already priced-in imminent permanent flooding (which seems unlikely for a nice 5 room mansion in a desirable neighborhood), or that just a few years of habitability would justify the price (which is really just the same unlikely predicate as the previous one).
I’m sorry, but that is just bad economics.
The following reasons:
1) He doesn’t take into account his preferences. If he gets strong satisfaction by having a house near the sea (and assuming all houses in sea level will all be worthless) then it is worth for him the 9 million he is paying, even if it is going to be worthless in 30-40 years.
2) He also forgets depreciation. Since most bad forecasts for global warming take place in 50 or even 100 years, all his asset (the house) will be depreciated by then. Hence, it shouldn’t even matter to his decision.
3) Even if Al Gore does believe the house will be drowned in 50 or so years, nothing stops him from renting it today and selling it in 10 years, thus earning profit. It is like saying it is stupid to buy shares of car companies because in 50 years everyone will be flying jets.
Finally, there is also a logical fallacy: Al Gore believes that global warmth is a threat, and defend that we should do something about it. That doesn’t necessarily means that he believes the doomsday scenario is going to occur, maybe he is confident humanity will find a way to prevent it (e.g. cutting carbon emissions) before that happens. Therefore it is possible (and not illogical or irrational) to believe both: a) Global warming is happening and it is a big threat; b) I can safely buy a house on the beach without risk of it being flooded.
Finally, I’d like to point out that any of the 4 points I discussed above is alone sufficient to refute the text. I don’t know if Al Gore is a fraud or not, but the fact that he bought a house on the beach is definitely not sufficient information to claim that.
From now on, whenever he argues for global warming mitigation we can accuse him of conflict of interest ;)
People are getting hung up on the fact that Al Gore’s purchase is not absolute, irrefutable evidence that he doesn’t believe that sea levels will rise. But surely we can get beyond this and admit that it is, at some level, evidence about his beliefs.
If you observed someone spending $10,000 on Powerball tickets, or buying a $2,000 television which you knew (privately, somehow) would break in a week. Yes, it’s possible that this person just really enjoys this particular TV, but wouldn’t you think that he likely just doesn’t know that the TV will break?
Yes, any set of preferences is possible, but I think commenters are trying to explain too much with them.
I agree with Marcel. Al Gore is 62 years old, and his father lived to 91. So if Gore doesn’t believe that Montecito will be under water by 2040, why not buy it? Sure it may not have much resale value in 2040, but that may not be a concern to him.
This purchase actually makes sense, if one assumes that Gore really believes in the impact of global warming. After all, the near-term effect of global warming is predicted to be more in a rise in tropical storms and hurricanes than in sea level rise. And it makes more sense to purchase ocean front property in California than elsewhere. Since 1900 on one tropical storm has made landfall in California, only two have actually passed over California (the other making landfall in Mexico), and only four have subjected California to gale force winds. Contrast this with tropical storm impact on the eastern and gulf coasts, and it makes much more sense to purchase a home in California than in the east.
This is disapointing. If you going to pick a posting from this guest, why not the mortgage defaulting one, which I thought was good. This one is rubbish. Al Gore has apparently warned that “ocean front locations such as San Francisco” risk being under water. I don’t know what Al Gore has specifically said on this matter, but for now I will take the quote as accurate. The key here is “Ocean Front”. San Francisco has an ocean front. So does Montecito. San Francisco has higher ground, so does Montecito. If the author has interpreted the “ocean front locations such as San Francisco” to mean all of San Francisco, then they are either simple minded or perverse. Given the tone of the piece, my money is on perverse. They have deliberately misinterpreted it to mean the whole of San Francisco, whereas the real meaning is clearly “ocean front, such as can be found in San Francisco”. Such an obvious mis-interpretaion from what appears to be an otherwise intelligent person smacks of deception -self or otherwise.
“Mr. Gore is a self-conscious, witting liar who does not actually believe his predictions of doom, but nevertheless cynically peddles them for pecuniary or psychic gain”.
This is pretty strong allegation on such flimsy evidence. This suggests that the author actually believes Al Gore thinks that the sea level will rise by over 50 ft (or 180ft), and therefore any purchase in Montecito reveals his duplicity. The latest IPCC report predicts up to 59 cm, or a shade under 2 ft., by the end of this century. Mr Gore has not got a record of believing predictions orders of magnitude greater than the IPCC. He has been found guilty of attributing events to global warming where the case is not proved, and possibly of exageration by much less than required here. It seems extremely unlikely that he believes that the sea level rise will be more than 25 times that predicted by the IPCC, and within his lifetime, which is likely to end much sooner than the end of this century (hold back your cheers – so is yours). I do not follow Al Gore’s arguments closely, in the same way as I do not follow the “deniers” blogs closely. I prefer to stick to more authoratative sources. Thus I may be wrong, and Al Gore may be as described, in which case I appologise. However, I won’t believe it without a quote.
Is it possible that any sea level rise could cause problems for a city, but not be very significant for a beach-front house at the same elevation? The economists seem to percieve that the adjustments needed to cope with climate change are based on the new normality – that is wrong. The adjustments need to be based on the new extremes. Low lying parts of San Francisco (and many other major cities) will probaly not be under water most of the time, just on those occasions when storm surges and tides combine. How much higher than the mean sea level are the levees in New Orleans? I don’t know, but I do know that you must plan for the extreme event, not the normal sea level. Your flood defences must be several feet above normal water level. If you raise this by a further 2 ft, how much longer do your flood defences have to be? It could easily encompass many, many extra miles. You would need this to make a city safe against a say 100 year event (or even a 20 year event). Or you could choose not to, and take the losses. Whichever, the problems occuring in a city are different from those that would occur in a beachfront house. Here you get out of the way, clean up and carry on. That is not quite so easy for a city (think perhaps Calcutta). So it is quite possible that Al Gore could believe there is a very real risk of major problems for seaside cities, whilst still choosing to buy a seafront house.
Here endeth the comment on this post directly. What follows is of a more general nature.
The IPCC report is quite conservative. It uses a maximum temperature of 5.2°C, whereas the maximum temperature estimate is actually 6.4°C. It computes up to 2095 rather than 2100. The report shows that the sea level rise has in the past been greater than the models used to predict the 59cm, and it assumes the Antarctic icesheet will gain mass, which is at odds with past ice-sheet behaviour. Thus there is good reason to think that the maximum sea level rise could be more like 3ft than 2 ft.
Some, such as Friedman, have argued that adaptions should not be that hard: http://daviddfriedman.blogspot.com/2009/07/does-climate-catastrophe-pass-giggle.html
“If people can currently live, work, grow crops over a temperature range of much more than two degrees, it is hard to imagine any reason why most of them couldn’t continue to do so, about as easily, if average temperature shifted up by that amount—especially if they had a century to adjust to the change.” Yes, this is true, but fails to appreciate the reality. First, the average temperature rise may be 2°C, but this will be uneven. Some areas will have perhaps 6°C rise. The results will not just gradually move over the next century. An example of what might happen. The monsoon in India is caused because the land is warmed in summer. The hot air rises, and brings in warm moist air from the Indian Ocean. There is also a warm place in the ocean to the south of India at the equator. If this warm spot gets warmer than the land, then instead of swinging North to bring much needed rain to the subcontinent, the moist air swings South to bring not at all needed rain to a patch of ocean. (Now this is something I remember, and is an illustration of the type of occurrence which may happen. Please do not take it that I am predicting the failure of Indian monsoons, nor saying that others do so). Now this is something that Humanity can adapt to. This is not something India can adapt to without famine, and probably a significant reduction in population. If we value each life equally (as Steve has argued in immigration blogs), and we value an American life at $10-$100 million, then what cost a million deaths in India? Yes, a 2°C temperature rise sounds OK, but the reality is that a world 2°C warmer is very different from today’s world. Humanity will probably survive this OK, with many “small” tragedies on the way. The real problem arises because the best estimates are that a 2°C rise is possible only with strong action now. Without this action, a greater than 2°C rise is likely.
Friedman again:
” That would be a persuasive argument if we were talking about a substantial change occurring over five or ten years. But we aren’t. We are talking about a not very large change occurring over a century. In the course of a century, most existing houses will be replaced. If temperatures are rising, they will be replaced with houses designed for a (slightly) warmer climate. If sea levels are rising, they will be replaced, in low lying coastal areas, with houses a little farther inland. Over a century, farmers will change at least the varieties they are growing, very possibly the kind of crop, multiple times, in response to the development of new crop varieties, shifting demand, and similar changes. If temperatures are rising, they will gradually shift to crops adapted to a (slightly) warmer climate.”
If only. What will happen is that sea levels will rise a bit, then comes a storm, and a million people die where previously “only” 10,000 would have died. Somewhere, the local conditions change, the rains fail, and another million people die. It does not give them 100 years to adapt. One year the rains will come, the next they will not.
None of this alters the fact that the costs must be weighed up against the benefits of action now. I just think that the future costs are severely undersestimated if we assume a gentle, gradual and modest change happeneing everywhere equally. Sorry this has turned out so long.
Give me a break?
Gore is a very rich man. He made a ton of money with Apple and Google.
Rich people got rich because they contributed something to society to get rich. After all, you do believe that don’t you?
Rich people can spend their money anyway they want.
IF we price things correctly then the market will take care of global warming. If we don’t then people will take the free lunch and destroy the world.
Why is it that rich conservatives are allowed to enjoy their money but rich liberals are not allowed to?
@Harold,
as I thought the original post implied, and my subsequent comment made clear, my quarrel here is not with the IPCC consensus predictions. In fact, as I hope to show if I ever finish writing my half-written post on the easy and the hard questions on Global Warming, my views on the issue overall are actually fairly moderate.
My quarrel is with Al Gore (and other similar celebrities and politicians) who in his political activism, including his film, makes predictions of imminent doom and catastrophic rise of sea levels, such that much of San Francisco (not merely the immediate ocean front), would be underwater soon. That is entirely inconsistent with buying nearby low-lying property.
Responsible, reasonable advocates for Global Warming and greenhouse gas limitations should denounce Al Gore et al. for making such irresponsible claims, rather than embracing him and riding the wave of public sentiment generated by him and his likes. Their failure to do so offers a certain degree of poetic justice to any response which paints them and the Al Gores of this world with the same brush, even if that is not entirely fair.
Marcel is right. Is a long-term lease (such as 99 years, a fairly common deal) less expensive than an outright purchase? Not much, would be my guess. So Gore’s present value for his purchase would be about the same in either case.
@neil wilson
Come on, unless you are being sarcastic (in which case I apologize for this going over my head), you are entirely missing the point.
This argument is not about whether the rich should be “allowed” to spend their money as they please. If it was, I’d vociferously defend their right to do so rich, whether they are liberal or conservative.
This argument *is* about what the way one particular rich person chooses to spend his money says about what that particular rich person actually believes.
If that distinction is so hard to see, imagine if the shoe were on the other foot, imagine that Rupert Murdoch bequeathed a large fraction of his fortune to Planned Parenthood, a leading abortion provider and advocate. Nobody here would dispute that he has the right to do that. But would it really be unfair to conclude that Mr. Murdoch (in contrast to many of the publications he owns, supports, and directs) supports abortion rights?
He might believe that we will fix this problem, he might have faith in the human race.
T.
Is it really ocean front? From what i could gather from this blogger, its location is rather high up in the mountains, maybe in a few hundred years it might actually be ocean front. I’m afraid the original post was jumping to conclusions about its elevation.
http://motls.blogspot.com/2010/04/al-gores-new-villa-in-california.html
(use the address he gives here to look it up in google maps)
1504 East Mountain Drive, Montecito CA., 93108
Neil: “Rich people can spend their money anyway they want.”
Yes, and Æternitatis never argued otherwise. Al Gore, on the other hand, does not want to let us spend our money any way we want. Hence the attention trained on his own spending. Capice?
Harold:
From wikipedia: “The film includes segments intended to refute critics who say that global warming is unproven or that warming will be insignificant. For example, Gore discusses the possibility of the collapse of a major ice sheet in Greenland or in West Antarctica, either of which could raise global sea levels by approximately 20 feet”
Nonetheless, Æternitatis is too quick to assume bad faith on the part of Gore. Gore clearly is looking ahead, and plans on erecting a dome over this new mansion. When it will be submerged, he plans on turning the domed mansion into a public exhibit that will serve as a cautionary tale of how our over-consumption has resulted in flooding and other disasters.
Æternitatis, I would watch his film, but probably have better things to do, so I will take it that Al Gore has exagerated. I still think the conclusions are probably a bit harsh based on the evidence. I think he possibly does not believe his own exagerations, whilst I think he does believe in the hazards associated with global warming. I agree that disinformation from both camps is toxic and to be discouraged. I will look forward to your post on the easy and hard questions if you finish it.
Harold: “I would watch his film, but probably have better things to do”
I’d be shocked if you, or anyone else, didn’t.
What, me biased? :-)
What an inflamatory post! I expect that kind of writing from either:
a) News Limited during an election
b) A 10yo on an internet gaming forum
I feel like I should be saying “stop feeding the trolls” but instead I’m wondering how a leading professor in Economics can think this is important, clever or relevant?
Anyone who saw that news post would think Gore is a hyppocrite. Where it gets a little silly is where you assume he bought near the beachfront and not at a safe level and then build a whole post about his revealed preferences.
I’ll tell you what? I’ll bet I can tell you more about your revealed preferences from the post and comments than you’ve told me about Gore’s?
@jerome That is interesting.
As I said in the original post, the news paper article did not reveal the exact address and I did not realize that it could be sniffed out from public sources. However, neither did I jump to the conclusion that the villa would be directly on the oceanfront. Hence the various estimates of elevation of the two general geographic areas I compared.
If the blogger you quote is correct, then Al Gore’s new mansion is indeed on the side of Montecito further away from the shore. If that substantially increases its elevation, it would take longer to become submerged, even under the apocalyptic scenarios pushed by Mr. Gore. Still, by the scale of biblical floods predicted by Mr. Gore, it hardly seems a safe investment.
If Mr. Gore purchased full coverage insurance on the house then he would be completely covered in the event the house actually did become underwater. This is a possible explanation to the rationality behind the purchase, but the overall theme of Mr. Gore being a hypocrite is dead on and should be applied to any and all who imitate such beliefs.
@Chris M
That has been suggested before, but seems unlikely for two reasons:
(1) Home owner insurance generally does not cover permanent loss of land. In fact, outside of flood plains, it does not even cover losses due to temporary floods. Perhaps Mr. Gore has a special OTC insurance which does cover him in case of permanent loss of land, but it would be highly unusual and definitely worth mentioning by his side.
(2) If catastrophic flooding is as settled a scientific fact as Mr. Gore claims, why would any insurance company write a policy which fully covers him at less than prohibitive premiums? Surely, insurance companies whose insatiable greed is so frequently excoriated by Mr. Gore and his political allies would not willingly throw away money on below-actuarial-cost insurance company to–what we are assured–is their sworn political enemy? Would that not imply a corporate commitment to principle, however mistaken you think it is, that most of Mr. Gore’s political allies would find laughable if claimed in any other context?
Can anyone who thinks this post makes a good point please tell me what could possibly be the reason for Al Gore to invent a big climate-change-and-rising-sea-level-scam that he doesn’t at all believe in? Doesn’t any possible answer to that question seem hopelessly ridiculous?
I’m pretty shocked by professor Landsburg’s taste in conspiracy theories.
Has Gore actually predicted that the ocean levels will rise by a given amount? I don’t follow him closely, but I assumed he thought we had a good chance of preventing severe problems if people listened to him.
finzent:
Can anyone who thinks this post makes a good point please tell me what could possibly be the reason for Al Gore to invent a big climate-change-and-rising-sea-level-scam that he doesn’t at all believe in?
Let’s start with a Nobel prize and an Academy award.
This guest poster is a moron. Gore buys a house on a hill overlooking the sea. His house is maybe 50 feet above sea level, or maybe 180 feet. The last time the water was that high was 9000-17000 years ago. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Post-Glacial_Sea_Level.png
The worst doomsday estimate is that science has put forward is that sea levels will rise 7-9 meters by 2100. so 21-27 feet (using sloppy math). In 90 years. It would take the melting of all the ice in Antarctica to flood gores house.
This is the kind of grandstanding and outright dishonesty of message that turns people off from political or social commentary. A person sees a name like Prof. Landsburg’s and all of the prestigious institutions he has associated himself with in his writings and there is an expectation of academic integrity in the information he puts out (or allows to be put out unchecked at his podium).
So I have to ask the Professor, if a thesis paper came across your desk, arguing that Al Gore must be a liar and a Charleston, based on the reasoning of the guest blogger above, with the sources for the data that supports his argument the guest blogger used, would you sponsor that paper for submission in a peer reviewed paper? Would you give him a passing grade?
If I want GOP rhetoric spilled out unchecked I can tune in to FNC.
finzent: In Australia, there was a famed (now suicided) stock broker who was somewhat of a celebrity and went around talk shows on tv and radio and issued a weekly newsletter telling everyone to buy specific stocks. Meanwhile he was selling them. His influence was enough to cause bidders to increase the share prices of stocks he wanted to get rid of and he used his fame to get a better price.
Maybe that’s why Gore is going around telling everyone to sell waterfront property? So he can buy one for cheap?
I know a lot of people complained about Global Warming during the snowstorms this winter.
Did anyone notice that NJ, IL, CT, RI and ME had the warmest April on record?
Of course, CA was far below normal in April.
But EVERY state north or east of Texas was significantly warmer than normal except Florida.
One month doesn’t make a trend but 2010 looks to be one of the warmest years in history.
After about 4 hours of on and off research I haven’t found anything attributable to Al Gore that mentions a rise in sea level greater than 25 feet. And those statements were couched in enough conditional language to make them at least semantically honest.
So that means that Æternitatis is either a completely incapable scholar, or he is a liar and a charlatan putting out information that he either knows to be untrue or at the least does not know to be true.
It surprises me that no one has mentioned the SIZE of this home. It appears to be a 6 bedroom, 9 (yes, 9) bathroom home. Also included are six fire places, a swimming pool, a guest house with a large entertainment/game room, full length loggia, and a wine cellar, all built in 2002 (info found here: http://www.shvoong.com/society-and-news/news-items/1997309-al-gore-new-villa-california/).
This is in no way the “eco-conscious” home a man of Mr. Gore’s position and publicly stated environmental views would be expected to purchase. Nor is this his only home of comparable size and energy-sucking requirements.
While I believe to my core in the right to spend your money the way you see fit (if it is honestly earned), when a public figure takes it upon himself to tell a nation how they should live, spend, and do business, then he damn well needs to walk the walk and lead by example.
That is why he engenders my particular distaste. He’s insincere, uneducated about his “expert” subject, and completely disconnected in lifestyle from the cause he purports promote. Quite simply his actions DON’T match his words.
While zillow is not the end all for property reports, you can get an idea of the home size here: http://www.zillow.com/homes/1504-East-Mountain-Drive,-Montecito-CA.,-93108_rb/
and here: http://santabarbararealestatevoice.com/2010/02/04/the-top-10-most-expensive-real-estate-sales-in-montecito-ca-in-2009/
Vee: Taking as given the *price* of the home, I don’t see why *size* would be relevant to Aeternitatis’s point.
Most comments still coming in on this post seem to be repetitions of points made and answered earlier, so I will refrain from repeating earlier rebuttal again and again. Instead let me endorse the good professor’s comments and conclude with one crucial assertion:
I am *not* a Charleston!
Benky Wrote: “So that means that Æternitatis is either a completely incapable scholar, or he is a liar and a charlatan”
To which Æternitatis responded directly (no one else suggested he was a charlatan): “one crucial assertion:I am *not* a Charleston!”
It takes a big person to own up to the fact that he is inept at ensuring the information he puts out is accurate. And I agree with your decision to not apologize to your readers for letting such a gross and obvious error slip past. Admitting your incompetence, as you have, does enough to brand your future work.
I honestly don’t see why you’d so admire a blogger who writes such ridiculous claptrap, so I hope this isn’t representative of his blog – yet you did choose it as the one post of his you wanted to repost first. Perhaps it’s your strange blindness when it comes to certain topics, such as Al Gore?
Either way, the explanations are completely obvious and reasonable:
1. Gore very likely believes that the campaign to prevent serious climate change will have a lot of success, which significantly lowers (though does not eliminate) the possibility of a sea level rise of > 6 feet.
2. Even if we don’t prevent such a dramatic sea level rise, it’s not likely to happen this year or next. It may not happen for more than a decade, or two, or three. Who are you to say that the value Gore will get from the use of this property over the time period it will continue to exist, isn’t worth (to him) what he paid for it? Even if he’s sure it will be submerged 30 years from now, he’s probably also equally confident he’ll be dead then.
Given how obvious these points are, I repeat my opening statement: I honestly don’t understand why you heap such praise on a blog post so blindingly … blind.
@Steve Landsburg, Of course it’s relevant. It requires an immense amount of energy to build a home of this size, then run it (even when unoccupied).
What’s the “carbon footprint” on that? Huge.
This was my point. I don’t much care about the purchase price. It is interesting to note however, that it was listed in the Top Ten most expensive homes in Montecito.
Several other commenters have pointed out somewhat more interesting possible explanations. I pointed out the two that I did, in my earlier comment, because they were the simplest and most obvious, and constitute proof of the blindness of this guest-post. That the post didn’t even mention those two possibilities is a sign of either sheer stupidity (and a very high level of it, at that), or deliberate deceitful propogandistic intent, or a writer so caught in a blind ideological bubble of worldview as to not have bothered to try to think about it.
However, I can posit a more interesting possible explanation of my own, that I don’t fault this blogger for not having come up with, because it’s less obvious.
As you may recall – in fact, I think you’ve blogged about it at some point – there’s research that shows sports fans often bet in favor of their teams even when they know they’re more likely to make money betting on a different team. Why do they bet against their own financial self-interest? Probably because the point of following sports, to them, is to have an emotional connection to certain teams, and feel personally invested in those teams’ fortunes. To feel the highs and the lows, to care how well they do. Betting can be a way to deliberately enhance one’s commitment to a team, and thus enhance the reward of following sparts – even if it costs some money to do so.
Let’s presume that Al Gore is honest about climate change, as he appears to be. Let’s presume further that he believes there’s a significant chance of the ocean rising several feet within Gore’s lifetime, and that he intends to keep this property for that length of time. And let’s presume that he’s also honest in his deep commitment to rallying the world to solve the climate change problem, and in his professed optimism that we *can* solve it. Taking all those together, you could view his purchase of expensive near-the-ocean property as a way of deepending his commitment and personal investment in a project he’s already committed to and believes can succeed if pursued strongly enough.
Benkyou: “After about 4 hours of on and off research I haven’t found anything attributable to Al Gore that mentions a rise in sea level greater than 25 feet.”
Am I to assume that those 4 hours did not include my previous comment on this very thread? Granted, one prefers not to depend on Wikipedia, but still…
“And those statements were couched in enough conditional language to make them at least semantically honest.”
“Semantically honest,” that’s the gold standard, isn’t it.
But I do sympathize with you at the decline in academic standards, especially when it comes to peer review. :-)
finzent: I am indeed doubtful that Al Gore invented it all, but are you seriously saying that you find it implausible that he would wildly exaggerate? (Exaggerate? No, surely not Al Gore!)
Bob– Are you referring to this:”For example, Gore discusses the possibility of the collapse of a major ice sheet in Greenland or in West Antarctica, either of which could raise global sea levels by approximately 20 feet”??
How does that reconcile with the guest poster’s statement: “the imminent catastrophic Global Warming pushed by Mr. Gore. Again, and again, he … assert that unless drastic action is taken by a short deadline… dramatic rises in sea levels will be both unavoidable and imminent”??
If the author had said that Al Gore stated that action must be taken immediately or else catastrophic sea level rise over the next 100 years will be unavoidable he would be right or at least semantically honest. But only by portraying algore as stating that catastrophic oceanic rise was unavoidable AND imminent could he use gore’s beach house as a vehicle to question the man’s honesty.
So I asked him, in so many words, to show me where gore said that a rise in ocean level sufficient to destroy his beach home is “both unavoidable and imminent” as he wrote on his blog. Or, if he cannot show us the source, is it because he is “witting liar” and a “fraud” as he suggested was the case of the subject of his post. Or was it, like the alternative explanation he posed in the same post, a result of “stupidity, eccentricity, or clinical mental defect”?
With all the great things to tag Gore with (I am not a fan of Gore) It is just so disappointing to see someone sacrifice their credibility for what amounts to low hanging fruit.
finzent-
One of the arguments against this blog post was that if markets efficiently price global warming risk, then Al Gore has not overpaid for his house. However, he continually makes claims that global warming is far worse a threat than people believe, hence arguing that markets have not adequately accounted for this risk. His repeated comments indicate that he believes oceanfront property is overpriced.
What could be a motivation for this if he does not truly believe it? If he believes that he is influential enough to alter the public’s (and therefore the market’s) beliefs on global warming, then his efforts could be designed to induce the market to price global warming risk as being more likely or more damaging than it really is, resulting in underpriced ocean front homes. If Al Gore, being the one who caused this market failure by touting exaggerated information as fact, realizes that ocean front homes are now underpriced, the rational course of action would be to purchase one or more of them.
If, on the other hand, he believes what he says- that global warming risk is not taken adequately into account by the market, then he is purchasing a home that he claims is overpriced. Obviously, it could be that he really values that property more than anyone else, despite his belief that it will soon be worthless, but Occam suggests otherwise.
Then again, maybe he funded his purchase by shorting REITs on even lower elevation areas.
Vee: Either you’re seeing something the rest of us are missing, or you’ve thoroughly misunderstood this post. My money’s on the latter.
Douglas—If you learned that a loved-one in a distant state or country was critically ill and had only 5 days left to live, does an airplane ticket to that location become more or less valuable to you?
I don’t believe that Gore’s house is in any danger if even the least likely of his predictions came true. At least not during Gores lifetime and I suspect Gore agrees with me.
But suppose he believes that within 20 years his favorite place to live in the world will be destroyed. We’ve established that he is wealthy enough so that taking a 9 million dollar loss wouldn’t be the end of the world and even then the loss would be realized around the time he’s 80 years old?
Tell me again how, even pretending that your premise is not crafted out of vapor, how is this a bad bet for Al Gore?
Æternitatis– you claim, “As I said in the original post, the news paper article did not reveal the exact address and I did not realize that it could be sniffed out from public sources”
I really want to know how your mind can justify this statement to mean anything except: “I had absolutely no intention making any effort whatsoever to ensure the message I was typing was accurate.”
Please explain to me how it is that you didn’t know that you could type in “what is Al Gore’s new California home address” into google.
You claim on your blog profile that you are an attorney. That seems like a profession that requires a fair bit of intellectual capacity. You had to go to a school to learn that one right? Didn’t you have to research things in school? They didn’t teach you what would be and what wouldn’t be available in public records at law school?
You didn’t know you could look for information, relevant to the topic you were speaking on, with a simple internet search? Yet you advise in one of your blog posts “anybody with even a smidgen of Internet know-how (and many without) can figure out the legal name of the author with a few minutes snooping at most”
You seem pretty internet search savvy there. I would assert, like the case you made against Gore, that you really are not as mind numbingly stupid as your explanation for your actions would require you to be. But instead you are a a self-conscious, witting liar and in the most dispassionate, common-sense meaning of the term, a fraud.
Al Gore’s new home is 480′ above sea level. A measurement critical to the validity of your argument. It took me about 6 minutes to find a free web interface to the USGS topographical maps containing elevation. And before that all of 10 seconds to find the address of his home. His home was on MOUNTAIN Drive for god sakes!
I guess the real question comes down to this: If you had done that minute or two of research necessary to factually establish the entire basis of your argument. And in doing so discovered that every bit of ice and snow on this earth could melt at ten times the predicted rates and the subject of your ridicule would still have a fine home in Santa Barbara County, would your blog post have been written differently?
Vee– you said, “@Steve Landsburg, Of course it’s relevant. It requires an immense amount of energy to build a home of this size, then run it (even when unoccupied). ”
The climate around this house has an average yearly temperature of 64 degrees. There are a few months where the highs get up to 78-79 degrees and a few months where they get as cool as 41.
In terms of actual energy usage, I suspect he could get by using as much energy each year as my old 1500 sq. ft house in Michigan.
I looked up some electricity usage statistics and the yearly kWh per capita in California is less than that of Michigan (about 3 million kWh vs. 3.5) But Gore’s new place is in a region of California even milder than the state average so it stands to reason that he would need to use climate control less and on fewer days than the California average.
Benkyou-
I’m not sure what premise I’m crafting out of thin air,so if you could identify the balloon for me that would be appreciated.
In response to your question, I would say that buying land that you believe will become worthless sooner than others think it will become worthless means that you must therefore believe it is currently overpriced. That does not mean the same thing as saying that you think it is worth less to you than the current price, simply that the market has not adequately reduced its value in recognition of risk.
An airplane ticket loses its value once the plane leaves the gate. It is one-time use. Buying a house that might soon be worthless is less like buying an airplane ticket that must soon become worthless than it is like, say, buying a house.
If Gore wanted to live in California, and had decided that the way to do so was to purchase land and a home there rather than rent it, then the presence of information that that land and that home are likely to become worthless far sooner than the current price indicates cannot possibly make the home worth more. It very well might make a plane ticket there worth more.
Suppose I ran around and told everyone that I had unequivocal, settled evidence that Rochester NY would be an uninhabitable swamp sometime in the next 100 years. Would land and home prices rise or fall? What would you conclude about my credibility if I was purchasing land and homes in Rochester while making this claim? These are very basic questions, and they shed some light on this situation. Of course it’s possible that he believes everything he’s said and he still thinks this home was worth the price. It’s just odd to see someone purchasing something when they have spent years trying to convince everyone else that it is overpriced.
EDIT: Just saw the updated information on the actual elevation of the home, and most of this post could be thrown out based on that. However, if one were to assume a low elevation, the points would remain valid and un-vaporized.
Al-boy made a very forward-looking investment. Knowing that sea-level will rise 25 feet, he bought land 50 feet above sea-level, so that he (or his heirs) can just walk out on his beach some years hence. Of course, if global cooling sets in…well, the price differences between properties 50 feet and 75 feet asl are probably not great. The man is a genius!
Bennet–This part is your balloon, with or without advanced knowlege of his home’s elevation.
“despite his belief that it will soon be worthless,”
This element of your argument is not in evidence.
Then you say “I would say that buying land that you believe will become worthless sooner than others think it will become worthless means that you must therefore believe it is currently overpriced. ”
but what if we changed this to say “…you believe will become worthless sometime after you are dead…”.
Is it impossible to believe something is priced fairly now even if that thing is sure to become worthless later? By your own example, then isn’t every airline ticket a bad deal? Since the resale value of every ticket becomes nil as soon as the plane leaves the gate.
Your argument can only be valid if we assume that the value of this home as a financial investment was the determinant factor in Gore’s decision to buy it. But he may have chose to buy a house that will be worthless in a century for sentimental reasons, or because it requires so much fewer fossil fuels per sq-ft to heat and cool.
He made a movie reporting that the ocean would rise making beach-front housing worthless within years. Then buys one at a significantly reduced price… we should find out what he knows about sub-prime lending and bank runs.
Scott F– All three elements of your post are objectively false. His movie does not claim that oceanic rise will make beach-front housing worthless within years. He did not buy a beach-front house. And the price he paid was slightly higher than its 2007 price (according to Zillow).
I suspect his understanding of banking and real estate is not exceptional. At least, like you, I don’t have any objective reason to suspect otherwise.
I mean, c’mon, you can analyze the facts however you like. You can “read between the lines and tell us what you “suppose” Al Gore meant by the things he says. You can tell us you think he’s wrong (I’ll agree with you for the most part) in the conclusions he draws. But don’t tell us he said something that he didn’t. That’s lying. Unless that’s your intention. To put out information that you know to be false for the purpose of shaping public opinion.
Possible explanations
1. He does not care if he looses $9 million over the next 20 or so years. He will get enough utility out of the property before the rise.
2. He knows that he can collect on insurance.
3. He believes that interventions will be enacted that will stop the warming.
3. He does not really believes that sea level will rise much.
Another possibly is that he believes we are all doomed anyway and so he should enjoy his money now.
This post contained many false statements, including these whoppers, regarding Al Gore’s mansion in Montecito, California:
“In fact, the only explanation I can think of is that Mr. Gore is a self-conscious, witting liar who does not actually believe his predictions of doom, but nevertheless cynically peddles them for pecuniary or psychic gain. In short, it appears that Mr. Gore is a fraud, not in the sense all of us like to accuse our political enemies to be, but in the most dispassionate, common-sense meaning of the term.”
And…
“However, it is impossible for a rational person to both believe in imminent rise of sea levels and purchase ocean-front property with their own money, as Mr. Gore has just done.”
These statements were premised on the assumption that Al Gore’s mansion in Montecito is near sea level. It is not. It’s elevation, as near as I can tell, is approximately **500 feet** above sea level (plus or minus about 50 feet).
I realize that you were simply repeating verbatim someone else’s analysis, but if you do that, you are pretty much saying that you think the blog post is true.
If you care about facts like I do, you’ll correct this particular smear on Al Gore’s character. (He has a history of hypocrisy regarding climate change, so there are true smears that could be made.)