On the whole, economists who get involved in climate change seem to have something in common with those superannuated physicists who decide that a few weeks of work is sufficient to overturn the whole of climate physics. I guess yelling is the first step to clarity. The standard hypothesis of these arguments is that raising the cost of electricity in order to make electricity more ‘green’ will have no effect on people’s spending, poverty, or job loss.

There are far too many ‘go for green’ articles that ignore the economics of their arguments entirely. The second article, by Weitzman on climate change, was really detailed and interesting but he chose to set the effect of new technology to ‘No effect.” If he had included new techonlogy, even conservatively his conclusions would have been radically different. Unfortunately, the scientific and practical effects that they ignored are the same effects that would change their conclusions and make their study have little impact. One on benzene levels in the Houston area made a nice list of the effects that they ignored in coming to their conclusions. I read two economics position papers recently. I am hoping, after the yelling subsides, that the two sides will start to listen to each other. It’s just Romm that doesn’t understand it.įiled under climate variability, economics | 23 Comments | But that would be obviously fallacious too.

I could just as easily make an identical argument, citing Romm’s most recent screed, that advocates for action on climate change do not understand what economists have to offer. The important thing here is to talk about what economists are and are not saying, not to just dismiss the whole lot of them based on the subset you disagree with. That there are economists who do understand climate science, and who have done a useful job of incorporating economic knowledge into the tool kit to be used for dealing with it, should be obvious to anyone who’s followed the climate policy debate. He offers a single economist, and argues from that single particular to an overheated general. Today’s case in point is his latest screed defending his position that “ economists don’t understand climate science.” The fallacy of his argument should be immediately apparent. I can no longer be bothered to make my way through the tribal argumentation (wherein one tars those one disagrees with with broad brushes and labels) to get to the meat of what he is saying. He’s aparently an important guy in this arena, because he gets quoted on Andy Revkin’s blog and stuff.īut he has chosen to adopt a style of argumentation that absolutely loses me. I am sure he must have useful things to add to the climate change-energy policy discussion. I’ve read lots of his work, and interviewed him for newspaper stories.

Climate change by joseph romm