Milton Friedman In Memoriam and Other News

When the father of monetary economics Milton Friedman passed on a few weeks ago, opinions were heard from both sides of the fence. Some of those opinions referred to corporate social responsibility. In the Wall Street Journal, conservative business school dean Henry G. Manne argued in a half-page opinion piece that "Milton Friedman Was Right: "Corporate social responsibility" is bunk." Elsewhere, in the Ecologist blog pages, activist Paul Kingsnorth ventures to say that he wasn't sorry to see Friedman go and points out some of the less glorious moments of Friedman's otherwise glowing career. Two radically opposing views, if we ever saw any.

Perhaps exemplifying how everything seems connected in this world, free-market idealist Manne's name also shows up on the list of Exxonsecrets.org, a site on "how ExxonMobil funds the global climate change skeptics." The Law and Economics Center headed by Manne has received considerable funding from Exxon, according to this site affiliated with Greenpeace.

In other news, more environmental legal experts may be needed going forward, given the rising number of climate change related litigation. As we speak, the US supreme court is dealing with its very first climate change related lawsuit. The central issue: "Is carbon dioxide an air pollutant that the government must regulate and should the court tell the E.P.A. to reconsider its position of not regulating the emission?"

In yet other news, as a kind of follow up to Inconvenient Truth, there's a new Canadian movie out called the Great Warming. Here's the review from The New York Times which says it "should be required viewing by all." Not sure if or when the movie is going to reach the Nordic region. Here's the trailer.