Recyclists cover up emissions figures (only they don't)

Not normally noted for caring about the environment The Adam Smith Institute weighs in that recycling has a higher carbon footprint than landfill.

In an article strangely titled "Good sense on recycling at last"  libertarian blogger Tim Worstall predicts that a Scottish Government initiative looking at the emissions cost of recycling will be suppressed.  "Indeed, I have a very strong feeling that this will be quietly dropped and not spoken of again" confides Tim. So can we hope for the stripey shirted blogger to return to the topic when the matter is 'quietly dropped'?

Perhaps not, because Tim's ingeniously found a way to make the suggestion of a cover-up without any actual evidence whatsoever.

Tim's erudite analysis doesnt quite add up either . "[W]hat they're going to find is that ...we already recycle too much. For example, we crush up green glass to be used as underlay for roads" says Tim as if the Scottish Government didn't know that already .  But paragraph 5 of Zero Waste Scotland's press release talks of "giving higher weighting to glass which is recycled back into glass rather than that which is used for aggregates or insulation materials." So clearly the Scottish Governemnt did know that already.

When I pointed out that his is not an evidentiary viewpoint and is purely suggestive Tim answered "Yes because I think that the results will be so embarrassing that they will be suppressed. I'll be pleasantly surprised if they're not, of course."

Of course. But on closer inspection we find that the initiative by Zero Waste Scotland is merely a way of measuring and setting carbon emissions targets . The suggestion that results are to be published (and hence covered up) is purely the work of Tim Worstall.

So not only is it more opinion dressed up as fact. It's also a prediction that is not falsifiable.  Tim, you haven't got the hang of the clairvoyant gig have you ?


Hat tip to Bishop Hill for this one.