William M Connolley wrote:
> On Sun, 20 May 2007, Michael Tobis wrote:
>>> Some people argue that there can't be an economics driven catastrophe,
>>> because renewables and efficiency are cheap enough already that a
>>> switch over a few decades would only mean slower growth.
>> I don't think many people argue that.
>
> John Quiggin does:
>
> http://scienceblogs.com/stoat/2007/05/help_me_here_defining_dangerou.php#comment-438132
>
> ----
> "Could we rule out the risk of economic collapse if we restricted out CO2
> emissions (this is, I think, from JA)."
>
> Absolutely. Here's an easy way of getting an upper bound on the costs.
First, although I can't find the original, I'm pretty sure that when I
originally posed that question I quite deliberately used exactly the
same language as had been used to talk about the risk of harm due to
climate change. Eg, when people talk about how we cannot "rule out" a
particular level of (economic) damage from AGW, I was asking if we could
"rule out" a similar level of economic harm from mitigation required to
avoid the AGW damage.
William's use of "economic collapse" perhaps a little out of context
gave JQ the opportunity to address a straw man, rather than the real
question. His "upper bound" is right at (I think most would say beyond)
the very top end of plausible estimates of the cost of AGW.
Secondly, his answer seems rather simplistic to me, with its explicit
assumption that no (economic) action could possibly have consequences
greater than the immediate direct financial cost.
Don't forget, I'm not talking about the expected cost, or likely cost,
but the _possibility_ of a high cost.
There are those who would argue that we shouldn't be talking purely
about cost. There is undoubtedly some validity to that point, but it's
not directly relevant to the one I was trying to make.
James
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