{"id":22870,"date":"2019-06-17T17:27:27","date_gmt":"2019-06-17T21:27:27","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/?p=22870"},"modified":"2019-06-17T17:27:27","modified_gmt":"2019-06-17T21:27:27","slug":"the-economics-of-climate-change-what-universities-wont-teach-college-students","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/2019\/06\/17\/the-economics-of-climate-change-what-universities-wont-teach-college-students\/","title":{"rendered":"The Economics of Climate Change: What Universities Won&#8217;t Teach College Students"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><script async type=text\/javascript src=https:\/\/www.dclick.io\/static\/js\/ad.min.js><\/script><br \/>\n<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignnone size-full wp-image-22871\" src=\"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/climate-change-1.jpg\" alt=\"climate-change\" width=\"1920\" height=\"1279\" \/><\/p>\n<p>I recently gave a talk to a student group at Connecticut College on the economics of climate change. (The video is broken up into three parts on my YouTube channel:\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=Fiz8bq-kY7w\" data-anchor=\"?v=Fiz8bq-kY7w\">one<\/a>,\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/youtu.be\/2tBI2rsFIPc\">two<\/a>, and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=6fELIUpsdCw\" data-anchor=\"?v=6fELIUpsdCw\">three<\/a>.) In this post I\u2019ll summarize three of my main points:<\/p>\n<p>(1) There is a huge disconnect between what the published economics research actually says about government policies to limit global warming, and how the media is reporting it.<\/p>\n<p>(2) President Trump taking the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement doesn\u2019t really affect anything on the margin, even if we stipulate the alarmist position on climate change.<\/p>\n<p>(3) If I\u2019m wrong, and human-caused climate change really\u00a0<em>does\u00a0<\/em>pose a dire threat to humanity in the next few decades, then scientists are currently working on several lines of research of practical ways to\u00a0<em>actually\u00a0<\/em>deal with the problem.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-0\">The \u201cConsensus Research\u201d Does\u00a0Not\u00a0Justify Radical Political Intervention<\/h2>\n<p>I first clarified to the students that throughout my talk, I wasn\u2019t going to grab results from right-wing think tanks, or from \u201cfringe\u201d scientists who were considered cranks by their peers. On the contrary, I would be relaying results from sources such as the work of a Nobel laureate William Nordhaus (whose model on climate change policy had been one of three used by the Obama Administration) and from the UN\u2019s own periodic report summarizing the latest research on climate change science and policy.<\/p>\n<p>To demonstrate just how wide the chasm is between the actual economics research and the media treatment of these issues, I described to the students the spectacle I observed back in the fall of 2018, when on the same weekend news came out that William Nordhaus had won the Nobel Prize for his pioneering work on the economics of climate change\u00a0<em>and\u00a0<\/em>that the UN released a \u201cSpecial Report\u201d advising governments to try to limit global warming to 1.5 degrees Celsius.<\/p>\n<p>The media treatment (sometimes in the same story) presented these events with no sense of conflict or irony, leading regular citizens to assume that Nordhaus\u2019 Nobel-winning work\u00a0<em>supported\u00a0<\/em>the UN\u2019s goals for policymakers.<\/p>\n<p>But that is not true at all. Here\u2019s a graph from\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.nber.org\/papers\/w22933.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">a 2017 Nordhaus publication<\/a>\u00a0that I included in my presentation:<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a class=\"colorbox init-colorbox-processed cboxElement\" title=\"slide-2.png\" href=\"https:\/\/mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/styles\/max_1160\/s3\/slide-2.png?itok=g7CXQZTT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-colorbox-gallery=\"gallery-file-83872-2gcj5aNOXFQ\" data-cbox-img-attrs=\"{&quot;title&quot;: &quot;&quot;, &quot;alt&quot;: &quot;&quot;}\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slide-2.png\" alt=\"slide-2.png\" width=\"693\" height=\"522\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p>As the figure shows, Nordhaus\u2019 model\u2014and again, this isn\u2019t cooked up by the Heritage Foundation, but instead was one selected by the Obama Administration\u2019s EPA and was the reason he won the Nobel Prize\u2014projects that if governments \u201cdid nothing,\u201d total global warming would reach about 4.1 degrees Celsius. In contrast, if governments implemented the \u201coptimal carbon tax,\u201d as Nordhaus would recommend in a perfect world, then total warming would be about 3.5 degrees Celsius.<\/p>\n<p>Anyone remotely familiar with the climate change policy debate knows that such an amount of warming would terrify the prominent activists and groups advocating for a political solution. They would quite confidently tell the public that warming of this amount would spell absolute catastrophe for future generations.<\/p>\n<p>My point here isn\u2019t to endorse Nordhaus\u2019 model. My point is simply that Americans\u00a0<em>never heard anything about this\u00a0<\/em>when the media simultaneously covered Nordhaus\u2019 award and the UN\u2019s document calling for a 1.5\u00b0C limit. And yet, Nordhaus\u2019 own work\u2014not shown in the figure above, but\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.econlib.org\/library\/Columns\/y2018\/MurphyNordhaus.html\">I spell it out here<\/a>\u2014clearly concludes that such an aggressive target would cause far more damage to humans in the form of reduced economic output, that it would be better for governments to \u201cdo nothing\u201d about climate change at all.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-1\">With or Without the United States, the Paris Agreement Was Going to \u201cFail\u201d<\/h2>\n<p>To continue with the theme of how they\u2019ve been misinformed, I reminded the students of the media\u2019s apoplexy when Trump announced his intention to remove the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement (or treaty, in lay terms). I showed them a headline in which\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.npr.org\/sections\/thetwo-way\/2017\/07\/03\/535377270\/stephen-hawking-trump-pushing-earths-climate-over-the-brink\">famed physicist Stephen Hawking said Trump was pushing<\/a>\u00a0the planet \u201cover the brink.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>I then asked the students rhetorically, \u201cYou would think that the Paris Agreement was going to \u2018work\u2019 to contain the threat of climate change, except for Trump pulling out and wrecking it, right?\u201d<\/p>\n<p>And yet, the\u00a0<em>pro<\/em>-intervention group\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/climateactiontracker.org\/\">ClimateActionTracker.org<\/a>\u00a0nicely illustrates that even if all countries met their pledges (including the U.S.), it wouldn\u2019t come close to limiting warming to the weaker benchmark of 2\u00b0C, let alone the newer, more chic target of 1.5\u00b0C. Things were even worse if we evaluated the\u00a0<em>actual\u00a0<\/em>policies of governments (as opposed to what they stated they\u00a0<em>intended\u00a0<\/em>to do about limiting their emissions).<\/p>\n<div>\n<p><a class=\"colorbox init-colorbox-processed cboxElement\" title=\"slide-2.png\" href=\"https:\/\/mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/styles\/max_1160\/s3\/slide-2.png?itok=g7CXQZTT\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-colorbox-gallery=\"gallery-file-83872-2gcj5aNOXFQ\" data-cbox-img-attrs=\"{&quot;title&quot;: &quot;&quot;, &quot;alt&quot;: &quot;&quot;}\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slide-2.png\" alt=\"slide-2.png\" width=\"693\" height=\"522\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<p><a class=\"colorbox init-colorbox-processed cboxElement\" title=\"slide-1.png\" href=\"https:\/\/mises-media.s3.amazonaws.com\/styles\/max_1160\/s3\/slide-1_0.png?itok=n3cq3xTZ\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\" data-colorbox-gallery=\"gallery-file-83874-2gcj5aNOXFQ\" data-cbox-img-attrs=\"{&quot;title&quot;: &quot;&quot;, &quot;alt&quot;: &quot;&quot;}\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" style=\"display: block; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;\" title=\"\" src=\"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/06\/slide-1_0.png\" alt=\"slide-1_0.png\" width=\"693\" height=\"520\" \/><\/a>\n<\/div>\n<p>Further, I included a screenshot (in the top left of the slide) from a <em>Vox<\/em> article published\u00a0<em>before\u00a0<\/em>Trump\u2019s Paris announcement, which said not a single country on Earth was taking the 2\u00b0C target seriously.<\/p>\n<h2 id=\"link-2\">Technological Solutions<\/h2>\n<p>After spending so much time showing that the political \u201csolutions\u201d were failing even on their own terms, I summarized a few avenues of research (see\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.econlib.org\/library\/Columns\/y2009\/Murphygeoengineering.html\">this article<\/a>\u00a0for details) where scientists are exploring techniques to either remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere or reflect some incoming sunlight.<\/p>\n<p>Although I personally do not think human-caused climate change is a crisis, and do think that adaptation coming from normal economic growth will be more than sufficient to deal with any problems along the way, nonetheless scientists do have these other techniques in their back pocket should they become necessary to \u201cbuy humanity a few decades of breathing room\u201d while technology advances in the transportation and energy sectors.<\/p>\n<p>Americans, especially students, are being whipped into a panic over the allegedly existential threat of climate change. Yet the actual research, summarized in the UN\u2019s own periodic reports and in the research of a Nobel laureate in the field, shows that at best only a\u00a0<em>modest\u00a0<\/em>\u201cleaning against the wind\u201d could be justified according to standard economic science.<\/p>\n<p>By their own criteria, the alarmist activists are admitting that political measures are nowhere near achieving their goals. Their own rhetoric says that these activists are wasting everyone\u2019s time pushing solutions that will end in catastrophe. Occasionally they slip up, as for example when Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez admits that her \u201cwe have 12 years left\u201d\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/freebeacon.com\/politics\/ocasio-cortez-walks-back-claim-on-world-ending-in-12-years\/\">was not to be taken literally<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>In order to bring light to the climate change debate, at this point one just needs to actually screenshot and explain the evidence from the establishment sources. The rhetorical framing of the issue is so far removed from the underlying research that this alone is heretical.<\/p>\n<p style=\"text-align: right;\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/mises.org\/wire\/what-universities-wont-teach-college-students-about-economics-climate-change\">This article is republished with permission from the Mises Institute.\u00a0<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n<div>\n<h5><a href=\"http:\/\/fee.org\/people\/robert-p-murphy\/\"> Robert P. Murphy<br \/>\n<\/a><\/h5>\n<p>Robert P. Murphy is senior economist at the Independent Energy Institute, a research assistant professor with the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.depts.ttu.edu\/freemarketinstitute\/index.php\">Free Market Institute<\/a> at Texas Tech University, and a Research Fellow at the Independent Institute.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p style=\"font-style: italic;\">This article was originally published on FEE.org. Read the <a href=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/articles\/the-economics-of-climate-change-what-universities-wont-teach-college-students\/\">original article<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/fee.org\/counter\/183790\" alt=\"\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" \/><script src=\"https:\/\/fee.org\/Scripts\/fee-repub.js\" async=\"async\"><\/script>\n<p><center><\/p>\n<div class=\"dclickad\" data-client=\"darth-azrael\" data-slot=\"1560806824264\">\n<\/div>\n<p><\/center><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I recently gave a talk to a student group at Connecticut College on the economics of climate change. (The video is broken up into three parts on my YouTube channel:\u00a0one,\u00a0two, and\u00a0three.) In this post I\u2019ll summarize three of my main points: (1) There is a huge disconnect between what the published economics research actually says about government policies to limit global warming, and how the media is reporting it. (2) President Trump taking the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement doesn\u2019t really affect anything on the margin, even if we stipulate the alarmist position on climate change. (3) If I\u2019m wrong, and human-caused climate change really\u00a0does\u00a0pose a dire threat to humanity in the next few decades, then scientists are currently working on several lines of research of practical ways to\u00a0actually\u00a0deal with the problem. The \u201cConsensus Research\u201d Does\u00a0Not\u00a0Justify Radical Political Intervention I first clarified to the students that throughout my talk, I wasn\u2019t going to grab results from right-wing think tanks, or from \u201cfringe\u201d scientists who were considered cranks by their peers. On the contrary, I would be relaying results from sources such as the work of a Nobel laureate William Nordhaus (whose model on climate change policy had been one [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[2670,446,622,3454],"class_list":["post-22870","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news-and-politics","tag-climate","tag-climate-change","tag-economics","tag-global-warminge"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22870","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22870"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22870\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22870"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22870"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.megalextoria.com\/wordpress\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22870"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}