4 ms·

The video seemed like a reasonable critique to me - what within it did you think was a strawman?

mushufasa 5y ago
The critique is reasonable but it's a straw man -- Nordhaus is already well aware of the critiques he raised and has responded to them. My source: Nordhaus was my thesis advisor in 2016 and I wrote my thesis according to the same critiques Keen raised in this video, and Nordhaus responded to them... this video was from 2019.
- sideshowb 5y ago
  So specifically what is Nordhaus' response to the criticism that a linear (or quadratic) model of gdp vs temperature fitted across space doesn't account for tipping points? Such as, say, if there is a severe scarcity of suitable land for growing food then the effort required to obtain food would likely rise in a very nonlinear fashion? (Not to mention that if that effort is reflected in price it could even show up as a positive in gdp when it's clearly a Very Bad Thing?) If the model described above is not what he actually did, then what is it he did do? Feel free to link your thesis if its the most succinct answer...
  - mushufasa 5y ago
    Here's a speech nordhaus gave in 2009 on the topic. https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d16/d1686.pdf https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d16/d1... My thesis modeled the tipping points and extrapolated the damage function via monte carlo. Even in worst case scenarios the models didn't return overall damage functions that provoked the dismal theorem. Fundamental solow growth is too resilient (A = innovation). I didn't submit my thesis for publication so it's just in the university archives. Someday i'd like to revisit it with the latest science and another computational implementation and submit to publication. To be clear, I'm not saying Keen or Weitzman (Keen here is just parroting the late Weitzman) are wrong -- I'm partial to that intuition hence my thesis work. I'm just pointing out that this speech isn't really engaging with the latest literature on the subject meaningfully.
    - sideshowb 5y ago
      Can you clarify what TSC means exactly there? in equation 3 it enters a consumption equation in multiplicative form yet in the appendix ""TSC" is the equilibrium response of global mean temperature to a doublin of atmospheric CO2 concentrations (°C)". Isn't that a confusion of units to multiply a financial quantity by a coefficient that determines temperature? As such I'm unable to tell (with the time I have available here!) how Nordhaus estimates the severity of any given global temperature change i.e. what data is used to calibrate that relationship And more crucially to tell whether we're measuring the right thing, as all this seems to be measured in terms of consumption which is usually a financial measure: if (repeating my point above) food takes substantially more effort to produce, or is scarce, in a different climate, then consumption could be shown to increase even though people's wellbeing would decrease?

The critique is reasonable but it's a straw man -- Nordhaus is already well aware of the critiques he raised and has responded to them. My source: Nordhaus was my thesis advisor in 2016 and I wrote my thesis according to the same critiques Keen raised in this video, and Nordhaus responded to them... this video was from 2019.

sideshowb 5y ago
So specifically what is Nordhaus' response to the criticism that a linear (or quadratic) model of gdp vs temperature fitted across space doesn't account for tipping points? Such as, say, if there is a severe scarcity of suitable land for growing food then the effort required to obtain food would likely rise in a very nonlinear fashion? (Not to mention that if that effort is reflected in price it could even show up as a positive in gdp when it's clearly a Very Bad Thing?) If the model described above is not what he actually did, then what is it he did do? Feel free to link your thesis if its the most succinct answer...
- mushufasa 5y ago
  Here's a speech nordhaus gave in 2009 on the topic. https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d16/d1686.pdf https://cowles.yale.edu/sites/default/files/files/pub/d16/d1... My thesis modeled the tipping points and extrapolated the damage function via monte carlo. Even in worst case scenarios the models didn't return overall damage functions that provoked the dismal theorem. Fundamental solow growth is too resilient (A = innovation). I didn't submit my thesis for publication so it's just in the university archives. Someday i'd like to revisit it with the latest science and another computational implementation and submit to publication. To be clear, I'm not saying Keen or Weitzman (Keen here is just parroting the late Weitzman) are wrong -- I'm partial to that intuition hence my thesis work. I'm just pointing out that this speech isn't really engaging with the latest literature on the subject meaningfully.
  - sideshowb 5y ago
    Can you clarify what TSC means exactly there? in equation 3 it enters a consumption equation in multiplicative form yet in the appendix ""TSC" is the equilibrium response of global mean temperature to a doublin of atmospheric CO2 concentrations (°C)". Isn't that a confusion of units to multiply a financial quantity by a coefficient that determines temperature? As such I'm unable to tell (with the time I have available here!) how Nordhaus estimates the severity of any given global temperature change i.e. what data is used to calibrate that relationship And more crucially to tell whether we're measuring the right thing, as all this seems to be measured in terms of consumption which is usually a financial measure: if (repeating my point above) food takes substantially more effort to produce, or is scarce, in a different climate, then consumption could be shown to increase even though people's wellbeing would decrease?