Talk:Economics of global warming

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Contents

[edit] Expansion request

 Please help improve this article or section by expanding it.
Further information might be found on the talk page or at requests for expansion. (January 2007)

This data seems relevant. It would be interesting to see something like Image:Extreme-weather-cost.gif in this article, but without the controversial and potentially inaccurate future projections (and with data filled in for the missing years). -- Beland 04:32, 7 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] An extraordinarily biased article?

I read through the page hoping to find a balanced number of arguments representing the possible hazards and benefits of global warming, but instead the page is just one long rant about how much worse everything will be. It is declared, with a single reference to a Social Democratic newspaper, that food production will go down. Incidentally, others, including professors at Stanford, have taken an opposing view.

I think that this page would benefit from being split into two parts for each area, namely the costs and the benefits. This would lead to a far more balanced article than the current one, which deserves a gigantic POV stamp. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.226.8.90 (talk) 18:40, 13 March 2008 (UTC)

Suggesting that this article should have a balanced number of arguments representing the possible hazards and benefits of global warming is like suggesting that an article on the earth should have a balanced discussion about whether it is flat or not. Maybe the wikipedia article on pigs should have a balanced discussion about whether they fly or not... Woood (talk) 11:03, 12 June 2008 (UTC)

[edit] An Inconvenient Spoof

Please don't spam, not even talk pages Nil Einne 20:19, 31 October 2006 (UTC)

[edit] How does this make sense?

In the begining of the Mitigation section: "The sooner action must be taken, the shorter the period over which costs must be spread,..." Shouldn't this be: The sooner action takes place, the longer the period.... or possibly: The sooner the problem needs to be solved, the shorter the period ....

or is it just me? 130.225.79.64 10:15, 13 December 2006 (UTC) Wondering


And here's another, from Intro, para. 2: "McKibbin and Wilcoxen do not endorse GDP as a welfare measure." ???, tagged. Puzzled, Pete Tillman 22:06, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

I just discovered this page, and it strikes me it could be titled "McKibbin and Wilcoxen define the Economics of global warming" Yikes! It's all very well to have a scholarly source, but there are in fact more than two researchers discussing this important subject. I'll see what more I can turn up. I'm attending a graduate seminar on global warming and we've got a stack of assigned readings I can look through.Birdbrainscan 02:54, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Cost of Reducing Fossil Fuel Use

I started editing and found it needed some better background to set up what the question is. I wrote some basic background, but I realize this is not sourced and could potentially be criticized as original (though I didn't think up any of this myself.) I'll have to get busy looking for sources. Obviously the big omission here is failing to mention the Stern Report - that's got to be added. Birdbrainscan 03:28, 15 March 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Wrong type of fork...

This is almost an exact copy of Effects of global warming. A lot of this stuff, like agriculture, migration, etc. shouldn't be in here. ~ UBeR 18:43, 14 April 2007 (UTC)

I agree. If I hear no objections, I would like to shrink the sections:Effects on agriculture, Water scarcity, Environmental, Northwest Passage, and eliminate Mountains, and Health. Then some of the other redundant sections can have the appropriate material redistributed. Hal peridol 23:56, 3 May 2007 (UTC)
By the way, does anyone have something that can replace the first graph?Hal peridol 00:50, 16 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Predicatory article?

Do we realize that this long article contains no more than arguably unreliable predictions? Economists cant tell what's going to be tomorrow's overnight rate. Good economists ackowledge that economics should not be used as a predicatory science. The Stern Review has been ridiculed enough that even climate activists are hiding it. The title should be changed to something like "Economic theories of global warming effects" or something like that. Also, this article should be tagged as controversial or something. --Childhood's End 14:14, 20 April 2007 (UTC)

The predictions are made by verifiable reliable sources and repeated here, not as original research. 75.18.208.222 22:38, 23 May 2007 (UTC)

[edit] Birth Control

I've removed Birth Control from a list of possible mitigating factors. There is no citation to support it, and it doesn't seem to me to be particularly relevant, at least, it shouldn't head the list. The number of humans on the planet is only a very indirect driver of global warming. Today, the vast bulk of CO2 emission is being emitted by the developed world, which make up only about 1/6 of the population of the planet. These countries also have (with a few exceptions, notably the US) sharply sub-replacement birth rates. The expected rise in future CO2 emissions will come from the economic development of the rest of us, especially in China and India. China also has a subreplacement birthrate due to its infamous one-child policy, but that hasn't stopped its CO2 emissions from rising rapidly along with its economy, nor even stopped its population from growing as lengthening life spans .

A glance at the wonderful Gapminder website will show that, except for the freakish exception of Saudi Arabia, countries with high CO2 emissions have low birth rates. The greatest birth rate is occurring in poor countries, largely in Africa, which are negligible contributors to global warming. For example, the CO2 emissions of Congo (population 52 million, fertility rate 6.7 births per woman) are comparable to those of New Brunswick, NJ, population 43,000. David s graff 22:36, 21 April 2007 (UTC)

How about birth contol in the developed world? Woood (talk) 13:57, 19 February 2008 (UTC)
Its not important. If it has been discussed in reliable sources and deserves the weight, then mention it. Yet, low birthrates and high emissions are both linked to high development. Birth control has nothing to do with this, the demographic transition in the developed world occurred long before the invention of modern birth control when the only available methods of birth control were delayed marriage and abortion. In this particular case think of it this way: high development contributes to high emissions (through industry) and to low birthrates (the opportunity costs for women of having kids is too high so they have fewer kids, Saudi Arabia is an exception, and thats fine since as we all know, women probably have less opportunities outside the house there.) Brusegadi (talk) 03:09, 20 February 2008 (UTC)

[edit] Extra image

I have added another image to the lead section of the article. This illustrates hoe Integrated Assessment Models so far have failed to take into account the higher possible values for climate sensitivity that are obtained from Global Climate Models (also from Palaeoclimate data). This can lead to underestimates of costs of climate change. This relates to the discussion in the section "Economic Impacts of Global Warming" on Weitzman's recent (2008) work. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Woood (talk • contribs) 05:49, 13 April 2008 (UTC)

[edit] broken link

Heads up on the cost distribution section, the link supplied is a 404: http://www.earth.columbia.edu/about/director/pubs/jeem2002.pdf