5 ms·

While the full article is gated at WSJ, John Cochrane and David Henderson write about the lack of quantifying economic costs when it comes to addressing climate

While the full article is gated at WSJ, John Cochrane and David Henderson write about the lack of quantifying economic costs when it comes to addressing climate change. Their last paragraph: Climate policy advocates’ apocalyptic vision demands serious analysis, and mushy thinking undermines their case. If carbon emissions pose the greatest threat to humanity, it follows that the costs of nuclear power—waste disposal and the occasional meltdown—might be bearable. It follows that the costs of genetically modified foods and modern pesticides, which can feed us with less land and lower carbon emissions, might be bearable. It follows that if the future of civilization is really at stake, adaptation or geo-engineering should not be unmentionable. And it follows that symbolic, ineffective, political grab-bag policies should be intolerable. Here's Cochrane's write up about the op-ed: http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2017/07/on-climate-change.html?spref=tw http://johnhcochrane.blogspot.com/2017/07/on-climate-change....

mathattack 9y ago
Cochrane is an awesome thinker
QAPereo 9y ago
Climate policy advocates’ apocalyptic vision demands serious analysis, and mushy thinking undermines their case. If carbon emissions pose the greatest threat to humanity, it follows that the costs of nuclear power—waste disposal and the occasional meltdown—might be bearable. I agree, but I'd also consider myself to be a "Climate policy advocate" with an "apocalyptic vision" so maybe he's conflating different groups for the purpose of argument?
mcguire 9y ago
I mostly agree with his paragraph above. But from your link, "No. Healthy societies do not fall apart over slow, widely predicted, relatively small economic adjustments of the sort painted by climate analysis. Societies do fall apart from war, disease or chaos. Climate policy must compete with other long-term threats for always-scarce resources." "Small economic adjustments?" How many large scale resources does preventing war or pandemics require? Is chaos a real threat? Most of what he lists are effects, not causes. Here's an economic question for him: what happens when the area between the Mississippi and the Rockies returns to being an unusable semidesert? (That's not an if. It is all irrigated.) And I'll just leave this comment here: "As I favor a uniform VAT in place of the idiotically complex income and corporate tax system."
- mseebach 9y ago
  Relatively small. Compared to "war, disease or chaos", keeping "the area between the Mississippi and the Rockies" irrigated will be (is) expensive, but it's a relatively small expense.
  - mcguire 9y ago
    Total war between large nations is very bad. Large scale pandemics on the order of the medieval black death are catestrophic. But how much do you spend to prevent war? How much do you dump into the CDC? Is there a Bureau for the Prevention of Chaos? And how do you irrigate the Midwest once the aquifers get low? Piping desalination water from the Gulf?
    - mseebach 9y ago
      > Is there a Bureau for the Prevention of Chaos? Decent government. Stable institutions and mostly fair and equitable justice and law enforcement. The US and Europe have their challenges, to put it mildly, but have been fairly successful in averting chaos, and things are going pretty damn well, judging by even relatively recent historical standards. > But how much do you spend to prevent war? How much do you dump into the CDC? A lot. So that means that things can be very expensive and still be relatively cheap. > And how do you irrigate the Midwest once the aquifers get low? Piping desalination water from the Gulf? I don't know. Perhaps. Or perhaps redirecting water from the Hudson Bay drainage basin. Human ingenuity is pretty great.
- jessaustin 9y ago
  what happens when the area between the Mississippi and the Rockies returns to being an unusable semidesert? (That's not an if. It is all irrigated.) Here in Missouri, there is actually fairly little irrigation. There's a 1.5 hour drive through rural farmland I take regularly, and I see one irrigation setup on the whole trip. The other irrigation I can think of off the top of my head is just north of Jefferson City, 100 yards from the Missouri River, and that's for a sod factory that turns its fields over every couple of months. This year the rain has been fantastic. We put up more hay than we ever have. July was hot, as July often is, but the first week of August will be our coolest in memory. If this is climate change, I vote for more of it. b^)
bluGill 9y ago
What is the cost of genetically modified foods and modern pesticides? Sure you can imagine B-movies plots of bad things that we can do, but in the real world none of them have happened yet, and even if they do it would be a mad scientist who already has all the knowledge needed to do his evil scheme so this has no bearing on real uses.
awkwarddaturtle 9y ago
> Climate policy advocates’ apocalyptic vision demands serious analysis, and mushy thinking undermines their case. If carbon emissions pose the greatest threat to humanity, it follows that the costs of nuclear power—waste disposal and the occasional meltdown—might be bearable. It follows that the costs of genetically modified foods and modern pesticides, which can feed us with less land and lower carbon emissions, might be bearable. It follows that if the future of civilization is really at stake, adaptation or geo-engineering should not be unmentionable. And it follows that symbolic, ineffective, political grab-bag policies should be intolerable. If climate change alarmists truly believed what they were saying, they wouldn't be using smartphones, internet or driving SUVs. The climate change movement is nothing but globalists and the "clean" energy industry exploiting the environmental fanatics to get more grants/money for themselves. The climate change movement is really the globalist "carbon energy/tax movement". It's a way for the political elite to control world energy use and energy production. Just like the "priests" of olden times used the threat of "earthquakes/natural disasters" to dupe the masses into doing their bidding ( virgin sacrifices, building monuments, etc ), the globalists are using climate change as a scare mongering tactic to put the world's energy/industry/etc under their control. If truly the crazy climate predictions are true and humanity's existence was at stake, would we stop mass production of trucks, SUVs? Wouldn't we immediately stop international trade and air travel. After all, container ships are the largest producers of carbon pollution.
- hwillis 9y ago
  >If climate change alarmists truly believed what they were saying, they wouldn't be using smartphones, internet or driving SUVs. Nearly all CO2 emissions in the US come from heat, electricity, and transportation. "Climate alarmists" drive hybrids or electric cars and have solar panels and heat pumps. The internet and smartphones are totally besides the point. Not to mention that you're inventing a strawman. >The climate change movement is nothing but globalists and the "clean" energy industry exploiting the environmental fanatics to get more grants/money for themselves. ugh, just... fuck off. "globalists". You're a fucking conspiracy hound. >The climate change movement is really the globalist "carbon energy/tax movement". It's a way for the political elite to control world energy use and energy production. idiot >Just like the "priests" of olden times used the threat of "earthquakes/natural disasters" to dupe the masses into doing their bidding ( virgin sacrifices, building monuments, etc ), the globalists are using climate change as a scare mongering tactic to put the world's energy/industry/etc under their control. go away >If truly the crazy climate predictions are true and humanity's existence was at stake, would we stop mass production of trucks, SUVs? Wouldn't we immediately stop international trade and air travel. truth has very little to do with what people believe. I'm sure you agree with that >After all, container ships are the largest producers of carbon pollution. Idiot. It's 2.2% of carbon emissions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_shipping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_shippi... You seriously have no idea what the fuck you're talking about at any level. You have made your conclusions and taken zero steps to verify them. Start here: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/ http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/
hwillis 9y ago
> It follows that if the future of civilization is really at stake, adaptation or geo-engineering should not be unmentionable. Problem: the balance of the planet has been seriously disturbed in largely unexpected ways due to very complex processes. Solving this problem by a method other than reversing out changes is an extremely risky proposition and is virtually guaranteed to produce unanticipated fallout. Even at the small scale when we try simple solutions to complex problems, they are fraught with effects that are often worse than the problem was.

mathattack 9y ago

Cochrane is an awesome thinker

QAPereo 9y ago

Climate policy advocates’ apocalyptic vision demands serious analysis, and mushy thinking undermines their case. If carbon emissions pose the greatest threat to humanity, it follows that the costs of nuclear power—waste disposal and the occasional meltdown—might be bearable. I agree, but I'd also consider myself to be a "Climate policy advocate" with an "apocalyptic vision" so maybe he's conflating different groups for the purpose of argument?

mcguire 9y ago

I mostly agree with his paragraph above. But from your link, "No. Healthy societies do not fall apart over slow, widely predicted, relatively small economic adjustments of the sort painted by climate analysis. Societies do fall apart from war, disease or chaos. Climate policy must compete with other long-term threats for always-scarce resources." "Small economic adjustments?" How many large scale resources does preventing war or pandemics require? Is chaos a real threat? Most of what he lists are effects, not causes. Here's an economic question for him: what happens when the area between the Mississippi and the Rockies returns to being an unusable semidesert? (That's not an if. It is all irrigated.) And I'll just leave this comment here: "As I favor a uniform VAT in place of the idiotically complex income and corporate tax system."

mseebach 9y ago
Relatively small. Compared to "war, disease or chaos", keeping "the area between the Mississippi and the Rockies" irrigated will be (is) expensive, but it's a relatively small expense.
- mcguire 9y ago
  Total war between large nations is very bad. Large scale pandemics on the order of the medieval black death are catestrophic. But how much do you spend to prevent war? How much do you dump into the CDC? Is there a Bureau for the Prevention of Chaos? And how do you irrigate the Midwest once the aquifers get low? Piping desalination water from the Gulf?
  - mseebach 9y ago
    > Is there a Bureau for the Prevention of Chaos? Decent government. Stable institutions and mostly fair and equitable justice and law enforcement. The US and Europe have their challenges, to put it mildly, but have been fairly successful in averting chaos, and things are going pretty damn well, judging by even relatively recent historical standards. > But how much do you spend to prevent war? How much do you dump into the CDC? A lot. So that means that things can be very expensive and still be relatively cheap. > And how do you irrigate the Midwest once the aquifers get low? Piping desalination water from the Gulf? I don't know. Perhaps. Or perhaps redirecting water from the Hudson Bay drainage basin. Human ingenuity is pretty great.
jessaustin 9y ago
what happens when the area between the Mississippi and the Rockies returns to being an unusable semidesert? (That's not an if. It is all irrigated.) Here in Missouri, there is actually fairly little irrigation. There's a 1.5 hour drive through rural farmland I take regularly, and I see one irrigation setup on the whole trip. The other irrigation I can think of off the top of my head is just north of Jefferson City, 100 yards from the Missouri River, and that's for a sod factory that turns its fields over every couple of months. This year the rain has been fantastic. We put up more hay than we ever have. July was hot, as July often is, but the first week of August will be our coolest in memory. If this is climate change, I vote for more of it. b^)

bluGill 9y ago

What is the cost of genetically modified foods and modern pesticides? Sure you can imagine B-movies plots of bad things that we can do, but in the real world none of them have happened yet, and even if they do it would be a mad scientist who already has all the knowledge needed to do his evil scheme so this has no bearing on real uses.

awkwarddaturtle 9y ago

> Climate policy advocates’ apocalyptic vision demands serious analysis, and mushy thinking undermines their case. If carbon emissions pose the greatest threat to humanity, it follows that the costs of nuclear power—waste disposal and the occasional meltdown—might be bearable. It follows that the costs of genetically modified foods and modern pesticides, which can feed us with less land and lower carbon emissions, might be bearable. It follows that if the future of civilization is really at stake, adaptation or geo-engineering should not be unmentionable. And it follows that symbolic, ineffective, political grab-bag policies should be intolerable. If climate change alarmists truly believed what they were saying, they wouldn't be using smartphones, internet or driving SUVs. The climate change movement is nothing but globalists and the "clean" energy industry exploiting the environmental fanatics to get more grants/money for themselves. The climate change movement is really the globalist "carbon energy/tax movement". It's a way for the political elite to control world energy use and energy production. Just like the "priests" of olden times used the threat of "earthquakes/natural disasters" to dupe the masses into doing their bidding ( virgin sacrifices, building monuments, etc ), the globalists are using climate change as a scare mongering tactic to put the world's energy/industry/etc under their control. If truly the crazy climate predictions are true and humanity's existence was at stake, would we stop mass production of trucks, SUVs? Wouldn't we immediately stop international trade and air travel. After all, container ships are the largest producers of carbon pollution.

hwillis 9y ago
>If climate change alarmists truly believed what they were saying, they wouldn't be using smartphones, internet or driving SUVs. Nearly all CO2 emissions in the US come from heat, electricity, and transportation. "Climate alarmists" drive hybrids or electric cars and have solar panels and heat pumps. The internet and smartphones are totally besides the point. Not to mention that you're inventing a strawman. >The climate change movement is nothing but globalists and the "clean" energy industry exploiting the environmental fanatics to get more grants/money for themselves. ugh, just... fuck off. "globalists". You're a fucking conspiracy hound. >The climate change movement is really the globalist "carbon energy/tax movement". It's a way for the political elite to control world energy use and energy production. idiot >Just like the "priests" of olden times used the threat of "earthquakes/natural disasters" to dupe the masses into doing their bidding ( virgin sacrifices, building monuments, etc ), the globalists are using climate change as a scare mongering tactic to put the world's energy/industry/etc under their control. go away >If truly the crazy climate predictions are true and humanity's existence was at stake, would we stop mass production of trucks, SUVs? Wouldn't we immediately stop international trade and air travel. truth has very little to do with what people believe. I'm sure you agree with that >After all, container ships are the largest producers of carbon pollution. Idiot. It's 2.2% of carbon emissions: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_shipping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Environmental_impact_of_shippi... You seriously have no idea what the fuck you're talking about at any level. You have made your conclusions and taken zero steps to verify them. Start here: http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/ http://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar5/wg2/

hwillis 9y ago

> It follows that if the future of civilization is really at stake, adaptation or geo-engineering should not be unmentionable. Problem: the balance of the planet has been seriously disturbed in largely unexpected ways due to very complex processes. Solving this problem by a method other than reversing out changes is an extremely risky proposition and is virtually guaranteed to produce unanticipated fallout. Even at the small scale when we try simple solutions to complex problems, they are fraught with effects that are often worse than the problem was.