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> Someone do the math, what is the value of this comeback in USD? About USD 120 billion. I’m always sceptical of these claims in the media that economists say
by skissane 4y ago
> Someone do the math, what is the value of this comeback in USD?
About USD 120 billion.
I’m always sceptical of these claims in the media that economists say that something “could be worth up to $X billion/year” or “X costs the economy $Y billion/year”. They are based on assumptions, whose veracity may be unknowable-if not just totally unrealistic; and the error bars on such estimates must be huge, but many journalists will only cite the upper error bar.
- alanbernstein 4y agoThat's fair, but I have to assume it's better than the alternative, which is allowing everyone to maintain the implicit assumption that the value is 0. The point of these claims is to try to get people to understand that climate destruction events have meaning, and if negative economic effects are the most straightforward way to explain that, then so be it.
- Archelaos 4y agoI fear that, on the contrary, such inaccurate claims may do more harm than good. When people are confronted with claims whose accuracy can easily be doubted, they may conclude that everything else is also exaggerated.