This follows on to previous discussion of Manzi here. Manzi’s original piece is at The New Republic. First off, what are integrated assessment models? The DICE model, developed by William Nordhaus, is a dynamic integrated model of climate change in which a single world producer-consumer makes choices between current consumption, investing in productive capital, and…
Remarkably, an IPCC WGII report (see p 17) shows the “cost” of a 4 degree C temperature increase to be on the order of 3% of net economic output. Jim Manzi uses this assertion to conclude that Waxman-Markey is a bad idea. I would go further. If 3% were a measure of anything realistic it…
I find it enervating to listen to economists trying to explain our circumstances without reference to resource constraints, as if resources were a separate topic. Krugman’s backing of Waxman-Markey carries some weight with me, but not as much as it would if he didn’t totally neglect resource constraints. Some of the things Tidal has said…
I have tried to make the case that an economic slowdown properly handled can be a good thing on balance, even though it will be certainly stressful in the short run for people who are unprepared for it. I proposed repackaging the whole business, dropping the depressing words “depression” and “recession” in favor of “relaxation”,…
A given economic growth rate can be sustainable only if the average impact per unit wealth declines at an equal or greater rate. I argue that this is certainly true if one grants that a sustainable behavior must be sustainable indefinitely. Shortly after coming to this pretty firm conclusion and wondering how smug to feel…
Hats off to Gil Friend for spotting the New York Times’ enthusiasm for Wall Street deregulation a decade ago. Proponents: ”Today Congress voted to update the rules that have governed financial services since the Great Depression and replace them with a system for the 21st century,” Treasury Secretary Lawrence H. Summers said. ”This historic legislation…
The prolific (and arguably indispensable) Joe Romm has a terrifying summary about global warming which appears to me to be pretty much on the mark. Joe believes that people who understand the situation in this way should stick together. Given the scope of the problem, and the vast difference between the perspectives of those few…
Here’s an alternative view of economics that I heard in a talk, written up by Douglas Rushkoff. The most interesting point to me is this one: Local currencies favored local transactions, and worked against the interests of large corporations working from far away. In order to secure their own position as well as that of…
You would think the situation might call for a revisiting of conventional notions, a moment of introspection, an admission that perhaps past advice may have been not entirely of the finest caliber. You might think so but, well, no. David Leonhardt, in an unusually early preview of this week’s New York Times Magazine: But while…
OK, never mind, for the moment, if lawns are a good idea. Let’s consider lawnmowers. If you have a typical American house, you have a typical lawn in front of it, a lawn that is in need of occasional trimming. Unless you contract out for lawn services, you almost certainly own a lawnmower too. Most…
Thanks to “Tidal” for pointing out the fascinating essay by a similar title, CAN SCIENCE HELP SOLVE THE ECONOMIC CRISIS? by Brown, Kauffman, Palmrose and Smolin. I mostly agree with their perspective (I have a few quibbles about what “equilibrium” means) enthusiastically, and I appreciate the kick it gave me to express what I have…
I mean “begging the question” in the original sense, of constructing a complex but ultimately circular argument that depends on the result you intend to to prove, not the unfortunate sense that it inevitably developed in casual speech of “begging for, or raising another question”. I think great swaths of economics are based on question-begging….
Dot Earth is running “Eleven Questions for Obama’s Science Team” and I would like to especially recommend they (and all of us) think long and hard on question eight, which is a nice statement of one of our themes here: My request to the Obama transition team is to introduce the economy team to the…
A surprising glimmer of recognition spotted in the major media: “Look,” said the President, walking across the stage with a microphone in hand, “here’s what no one wants to tell you. Structural changes in our economy, and new competition from countries like China and India, mean that we’re in a different world now. That pattern…
This article, “The Failure of Networked Systems”, on The Oil Drum explains matters very well. It is sort of an engineer’s twist on the tradeoff between risk and return. Go read it. It applies both to the immediate financial mess and the even bigger picture reservoirs-and-flows views of the earth system. What I have to…
From Herman Daly’s keynote to the AMS workshop on Federal Climate Policy: However, it is useful to back up a bit and remember an observation by physicist John Wheeler, “We make the world by the questions we ask”. What are the questions asked by the climate models, and what kind of world are they making,…
The rest of the cartoon (H/T Dot Earth) is here. Another timely toon here. H/T Atmoz for the title of this posting. The NY Times points to an audio production of an outsider’s asking stupid questions about finance. It promises to be very interesting. I thought I’d capture my opinions about what I’ll call the…
Whatever else Microsoft will achieve by buying back $40 bn of its own shares, it has certainly achieved demonstrating how confused I am about finance. It seems to me if a company “buys back” 10% of its shares, the remaining shares are worth 10/9 of what they were before, and the company has billions of…
In a more or less typical “economists who agree with my preconceptions are reasonable, economists who don’t, aren’t, and climate science doesn’t really exist” essay, someone calling himself the Skeptical Optimist manages this wonderful blurt: GW news is too frequently contaminated by confirmation bias, belief preservation, and rehearsed political dogma. I stop reading as soon…
Suppose you believe the things that most people who understand the science believe: that the changes we are imposing on the world are huge and dangerous that the impacts follow the causes by some decades that we have a moral obligation not to trash the whole planet in the future Then suppose you grant that,…