Very interesting rebuttal to the “high cost” arguments I endorsed recently in an article by Adam Stein on Grist. I don’t buy the argument that responding to climate change is “an opportunity” for society at large. An atmosphere sensitive to CO2 is worse than an atmosphere not sensitive to CO2. The “cost” may be exaggerated,…
In a cogent if demoralizing screed, the World Climate Report quasi-blog (no comments allowed, please and thanks) argues (ignoring any contradiction with its other articles, but so what) that exceeding 2 C warming is unavoidable. You’ve heard it all before, of course, and in spite of everything I am afraid it’s basically more likely than…
Nordhaus and Shellenberger have made a splash with their A Manifesto for a New Environmentalist, and there’s been much reaction hither and yon, of which what I have seen has missed the mark. As usual with economists, I was planing to wheel out my “wrong question, therefore answer irrelevant” spiel, but somehow it didn’t quite…
The NYTimes is featuring an article today on Bjorn Lomborg’s take on climate change. While the content won’t be unfamiliar to most people who follow the issue, let me quote the gist of it: “Wealth is a more important factor than sea-level rise in protecting you from the sea. You can draw maps showing 100…
I couldn’t resist attending this talk. It wasn’t especially well-attended, and I think the audience that appeared was not entirely receptive. I enjoyed it though. Corey KingPresident, Energetics Research and Engineering Design Synthesis of Multistable Equilibrium Systems and the World Development/Energy Path Design synthesis can be thought of as picking a desired outcome and then…
I don’t have much intellectual respect for B-school (school of business) types, and unlike most scientists I have had some dealings with them. It appears the pseudo-skeptics are getting a lot of mileage out of some bet that Al Gore is justifiably ignoring and some generic principles that do not apply promulgated by a Professor…
A fellow named Zeke Hausfather has showed up on the globalchange list and is saying a lot of interesting things. At last I am getting some glimmer of an idea that some sort of sensible discussion is happening in some corner of economics. I hope this leads to some substantive reading at some point. In…
If the question “is climatology a real science?” is fair game, the question “is economics a real science?” cannot just be dismissed as subversive. What we really know, how valuable our conceptual models are and how reliable our computational embodiments of them are, are questions everyone offering expertise should be willing and able to answer….
Rolling Stone is running some climate change stories. Global Warming: A Real Solution by Robert F Kennedy Jr Al Gore’s Fight Against The Climate Crisis by Eric Bates and Jeff Goodell Al Gore Speaks: selected audio clips The Secret Campaign of President Bush’s Administration To Deny Global Warming by Tim Dickinson Slide Show: Inside the…
Well, the man, (who I am reminded is the president of a medium sized country), isn’t shy, really. You can find lots of Czech President Klaus’s opinions on his own website. I’m particularly intrigued by his catalog of the features of environmentalism in his speech to the Cato Institute. Let’s look at his characterization: The…
I posted this to the globalchange list some time ago, but now that I have the attention of a couple of market conservatives, let me post it here. Apologies to those for whom it is a rerun. Note that the apparently rational strategy actually guarantees an eventual flood. Imagine that you are an economist who…
Let me call your attention to an elegant article by Paul Baer which does a better job than I have of calling the Stern Report methodologies into question and arguing for something other than economics to be steering our decisions. I have not heard of Mr Baer before but I look forward to hearing from…
For those wandering in here without context, I am advocating a rethinking of economics in the light of sustainability issues in general and climate change in particular. Consider minutes 4 through 7 of this video of a Google Tech Talk by Van Jacobson. “It’s not that the solution we have is a bad one, it’s…
Inel passes along this anonymous contribution, in an effort to answer one of my perennial questions about the conventional wisdom in economics. It’s interesting and polite, but it still seems to see everything on a pretty narrow Marxism/capitalism axis with the limits set by sustainability as a sort of afterthought. In short, I can’t agree…
This way of thinking seems literally insane to me. These numbers mean pretty much nothing. There is no purpose to arguing whose numbers are right. The problem is what is at risk, and how much it is at risk. People. Places. Beauty. Culture. Safety. Stability. Sanity. Peace. Quantifying it in GDP gained or lost is…
Economist William Nordhaus , among the best of the breed, is giving a talk entitled Measuring the Economic Effects of Global Warming. It will be presented to the Committee on National Statistics of the National Academies (US) in Washington DC on May 10, 3 PM Eastern time. It will be webcast. Here is a related…
“In a market where the seller has more information about the product than the buyer, bad products can drive the good ones out of the market.” In an article on Wired, Bruce Schneier attributes this observation to economist George Akerloff. He discusses the implications for computer security products, which need not concern us here. A…