DIA: Let's start with global warming. We believe that although the science remains uncertain, the chances of serious consequences are high enough to make it worth spending the (not exorbitant) sums needed to try to mitigate climate change. Moreover, cutting emissions gradually is a great deal cheaper than doing it quickly. Why not spend some now in order to avert possible catastrophe in the future?
Mr Manzi: This is slightly complicated to answer in a non-flippant fashion. I will try to address you as someone who is in favour of emissions mitigation for the purpose of ameliorating the effects of global warming, but is open to rational persuasion. This will, therefore, require more than a series of assertions about my beliefs; instead I will need to ground my response in reasonably-agreed authoritative analysis. So please forgive the length of my reply.
The current UN IPCC consensus forecast is that, under fairly reasonable assumptions for world population and economic growth, anthropogenic global warming (AGW) is expected to cause economic costs of about 3% global GDP in a much wealthier world more than 100 years from now. This is pretty far from the rhetoric of imminent global destruction.
See full Article.
Posts
