Climate economists have long ignored the risk of climate tipping points, like the sudden melting of ice sheets or massive methane release from melting permafrost. Now there's finally an attempt to quantify those risks. The news is not good.
Great post. This addresses the first serious criticism from economists but I'd like to see a response to the other, the one articulated best by Jim Manzi a few years ago: Climate change tail risk has to be weighed against other catastrophic tail risks as well. Asteroid hitting the earth? Sun burst? Pandemics? Super volcanic eruption? Climate change doesn't even seem like the worst of em and the costs associated with it also have to be weighed against other more serious tail risks. Why is Climate change so unique?
Has anyone done a greenhouse gas emission assessment of the new Senate bipartisan bill that was just passed? With an apparent boondoggle for unproven CCS technologies included for the oil companies, and the vast majority of incentives for renewables axed, it strikes me that the bipartisan bill is likely to add significantly to US emissions with almost no prospect of progress.
What if bills like this one required an official assessment of their likely GHG impact as well as federal budget impact?
David, re transcripts: I'm on the board of the progressive radio show alternativeradio.org and we just found a terrific transcriptionist after our old one retired. Let me know if you want the contact. m.voelker@cres-energy.org
This data driven perspective has some predecessors. I'm thinking of the late Stephen Schneider at Stanford who pointed out that society routinely buys insurance for much less frequent or severe risks, such as a house fire. Tufts University's late Frank Ackerman led broad macroeconomic comparisons between the cost of doing nothing on climate vs early preventative measures. Not only was prevention at ~ a tenth of the cost of 'business as usual', it also carried massive 'side' benefits. Meanwhile, shills like the pretend-economist Bjoern Lomborg latch onto Williams Nordhaus' DICE model as if it were Holy Writ, ignoring that it plugs in outdated assumptions, as shown by Martin C. Hänsel of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.
Great post. This addresses the first serious criticism from economists but I'd like to see a response to the other, the one articulated best by Jim Manzi a few years ago: Climate change tail risk has to be weighed against other catastrophic tail risks as well. Asteroid hitting the earth? Sun burst? Pandemics? Super volcanic eruption? Climate change doesn't even seem like the worst of em and the costs associated with it also have to be weighed against other more serious tail risks. Why is Climate change so unique?
Great post is right - makes me think of Frank Ackerman's Worst Case Climate Economics too: http://frankackerman.com/worst-case-economics/
Has anyone done a greenhouse gas emission assessment of the new Senate bipartisan bill that was just passed? With an apparent boondoggle for unproven CCS technologies included for the oil companies, and the vast majority of incentives for renewables axed, it strikes me that the bipartisan bill is likely to add significantly to US emissions with almost no prospect of progress.
What if bills like this one required an official assessment of their likely GHG impact as well as federal budget impact?
David, re transcripts: I'm on the board of the progressive radio show alternativeradio.org and we just found a terrific transcriptionist after our old one retired. Let me know if you want the contact. m.voelker@cres-energy.org
This data driven perspective has some predecessors. I'm thinking of the late Stephen Schneider at Stanford who pointed out that society routinely buys insurance for much less frequent or severe risks, such as a house fire. Tufts University's late Frank Ackerman led broad macroeconomic comparisons between the cost of doing nothing on climate vs early preventative measures. Not only was prevention at ~ a tenth of the cost of 'business as usual', it also carried massive 'side' benefits. Meanwhile, shills like the pretend-economist Bjoern Lomborg latch onto Williams Nordhaus' DICE model as if it were Holy Writ, ignoring that it plugs in outdated assumptions, as shown by Martin C. Hänsel of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research.