With regards to global warming, one important task is to more accurately and convincingly measure the cost of climate change. People are already working on this

With regards to global warming, one important task is to more accurately and convincingly measure the cost of climate change. People are already working on this topic, but all the work is quite napkin-mathsy at this point, and of course heavily politicized. If one could very convincingly predict the future cost of climate change it would do a lot to convince people to pay today to avoid the worst in the future.