Investment decisions are based on expected costs and benefits AND a characterization of the uncertainties in those estimates. Parametric uncertainty in climat

Investment decisions are based on expected costs and benefits AND a characterization of the uncertainties in those estimates. Parametric uncertainty in climate models can be beaten to death with Monte Carlo techniques and the like. Structural uncertainty — how certain are you in the functions and their couplings — is a lot harder. A single feedback loop missed, a single additional factor unaccounted for...and 3.5 C becomes 5 C, or -2 C. Consider the models that were used in the first days of the COVID pandemic to predict the trajectory of deaths over time by US State. It wasn’t that they were wrong...that was to be expected. What was problematic was their estimates of the uncertainty in their estimates of those trajectories which, if I remember, was way too small. You will overinvest if the uncertainties are understated...and the very modelers who understated the uncertainties will be first line to sop up the money. Convenient. The loudest voices, whether politicians or scientists, will generally overestimate how much confidence we should place in their predictions. “The seersucker principle - for every seer, there’s a sucker.” Especially when there is a 10 Trillion Dollar international slush fund waiting to be established and milked. That’s a lot of graduate stipends, and somebody has to eat all those Viennese pastries at international conferences. Well, what about consensus? You mean a Mongolian cluster...umm...let’s just say that there is no way to quantify the reduction in uncertainty when a group of experts, who stand to gain reputationally (for at least as long as it takes for their kids to get out of college), say that something is a sure thing. I believe that a relevant phrase from finance is “lipstick on a pig”. But we have to do something, right? Well, are there lower risk investments? Well, a lot of folks are going to die in China, India and the like from air quality, if certain health models are correct. Models that can be verified a lot more easily than global climate models. India needs technologies to plant crops without burning fields. Those are well-established technologies that could be implemented in India today with a small fraction of just 1 Trillion. Scrubbers on coal plants in China? Direct lives saved this decade. Electric vehicles? A win-win according to some analysts for both short term and, if the climate models are correct, long term. Nuclear power? Replacing burning wood with cleaner household fuels? Let’s address deforestation too. What about climate modelers? We still need researchers and research...because we live here. On Earth. Nice to know where the light switches are, for a lot of good reasons.