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Guest essay by Eric Worrall
The Age, an Australian newspaper, complains that economists who try to model the impact of climate change, say by measuring the impact of heatwaves, and scaling it up a little for the predicted increase in extreme weather, are not producing a high enough hypothetical body count to contribute properly to public discussion.
Economists are out of touch with climate change
If economists are to help us deal with global warming, they need to start studying science.
In the debate over climate change, there is one group from whom you don’t hear much: economists. The failure of climate economics to make a difference in the public discussion about climate policy should be a concern for the profession.
Climate economists are just as worried as anyone about the prospect of global warming. A recent survey by the Institute for Policy Integrity found that most climate economists believe climate change is a grave threat. Most supported carbon taxes or cap-and-trade programs to limit emissions, even if these actions were taken unilaterally by the United States. The consensus view was that a catastrophic loss of global gross domestic product – a 25 per cent decline or more – is possible under a “business as usual” scenario.
But for all this concern, economic research has had little impact on the public debate. The problem, as far as I can tell, is that there is a disconnect between climate science and economics. This goes beyond the out-of-date forecasting models used by policy makers. Even within academia, research often uses bad science.
The first climate economics paper I ever read provides a nice illustration of this problem. In 2007, Michael Greenstone, of the University of Chicago, and Olivier Deschenes, of the University of California-Santa Barbara, published a paper entitled “Climate Change, Mortality, and Adaptation: Evidence from Annual Fluctuations in Weather in the US“. The paper tried to estimate how many people would die as a result of global warming. To do this, the authors calculated how many people now die from random temperature fluctuations, due to things such as heat stroke. They then extrapolated this effect using the expected temperature increase from climate change, and found the probable increase in mortality is small.
…
Global warming will probably kill people in a lot more ways than days of extreme heat do now. If the climate changes a lot, floods will become more common in low-lying areas. Hurricane Katrina provided an example of how a large flood can cause a lot of deaths. This has nothing to do with the mechanism studied by Deschenes and Greenstone – the authors just leave it out. If they had paid more attention to science, they would have taken more sources of mortality into account.
Read more: http://www.theage.com.au/comment/economists-are-out-of-touch-with-climate-change-20160314-gnizta.html
The economists aren’t the only people confused by how a few degrees of warming is supposed to kill lots of people. In tropical Queensland, the Australian state where I live, which in rainy season is subject to violent weather extremes, a funny thing happened. When the government built the storm drains, the drain pipes they used are a little larger than other places where I have lived. That way, instead of backing up and flooding, the unusually large but planned for volumes of water from sudden tropical deluges are safely transported away from inhabited areas.
The high capacity drainage system doesn’t always work – planning mistakes have sometimes occurred, and truly enormous storm systems can occasionally exceed the carrying capacity of even Queensland drainage systems. But surely if such storm systems became more common, the drainage system would simply be scaled up even further, to accommodate changed weather patterns.
Most of the time, violent weather extremes are an inconvenience rather than a disaster, for regions with well designed and properly maintained civic infrastructure.
Globally, there has been TREMENDOUS DECLINE in mortality associated with extreme events. I would say The Age has not read the science.
http://www.friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/FOS%20Essay/global_death_rates_1900-2006.jpg
http://goklany.org/library/deaths%20death%20rates%20from%20extreme%20events%202007.pdf
Goklany’s figures are hard to believe. Apart from the huge jump after 1920, there is a lot else odd about his Table 1
http://www.moyhu.org.s3.amazonaws.com/2016/3/goklany.png
Most of the early deaths are from drought – presumably famine. They have dropped by a factor of 1000. Now we are much better at dealing with that, but still, only 185 deaths per year in the entire world?
Windstorms have actually risen. But what about “extreme temperatures”? Increased by a factor of 50 after 1990?
Are you seriously suggesting anybody bothered properly counting deaths from extreme temperatures in the early 20thC, Nick?
My family lived in Tucson since 1880. No air conditioning. My grandparents lived to be 80+ years old. I had no air conditioning in my old Victorian home there in the late 1960’s to early 1970’s. I didn’t die of the heat, either.
The heat wave deaths we read about in the Victorian era like in New York City, for example, was due to brick and cement and asphalt retaining and reflecting heat in city canyons which heats up much more than grassy areas with trees.
Had you bothered to really look at the report, it would have become obvious that the first part of the table should read “Deaths per period (1,000’s).” The tables breaking down each event type make that more than clear.
Nick: Goklany gives the source data. Look it up.
Windstorm deaths have risen, but mortality RATES have fallen.
A recent meta-study on temperature extremes says COLD extremes outnumber warm extremes 20-1 in mortality.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2015/05/150520193831.htm
This is a pretty poor effort on your part, racehorse.
Paul,
“Are you seriously suggesting anybody bothered properly counting deaths”
I don’t think any category were properly counted. They are presented as reliable estimates. And as such, they make no sense.
As far as counting deaths go. please refer to the Lancet article linked. They charted 74 million human deaths over a 30-year period, and attributed a primary cause to each. Turns out about 17 times more people died from extreme cold than from extreme heat.
http://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(14)62114-0/abstract
Doesn’t say extra warm or deep cold…
Could be deaths from extreme cold, which is a lot more likely than “baby it’s hot out,”.
Nick:
Thank you for delving into the data some!
Lots of interesting discussion followed.
Keep it up Nick!
Add in the deaths caused by environmental policy. How many people died from malaria since DDT was banned? These are actual deaths, not hypothetical deaths in the virtual reality of some broken computer model.
What is more, all warm periods like the Minoan, Roman and Medieval periods also had huge rises in population and all cooling periods like the Dark Ages (well named indeed!) were periods known for things like the Black Death which came at the beginning of the aptly named ‘Little Ice Age’.
We are apes with no fur except on the top of the head and a few choice places. Why is that, pray tell? We can’t exist on much of the planet during Ice Ages except by killing animals and wearing their furry pelts, after all.
emsnews: Well, some of you have hair on top.
What happened to the numbers for 1910-1919 (essentially, WWI)? Things got better because we were blowing ourselves up?
When 500, 000 men die from bullets and 500, 000 women and children die from bombs and starvation then 1, 000, 000 are NOT available to die from other events…
Nearly 100% of those alive during WWI are now dead, soldier or civilian, which statistically concludes war is hell. And their parents have gone missing, too.
I do not need to read to the end of the comments section to point out something everyone is missing……
And That is…………
No mention of a decline in oil rigs of well over 50% in a single year.
No mention of global economic crisis and the impact of lowering emissions of all kinds as a direct consequence, for instance, Greeks not being able to afford to use electricity and so forth. Austerity is a great CO2 emissions killer.
No mention of hundreds of petrochemical/coal companies going broke, from lack of demand and other factors.
A complete cognitive failure to put two and two together that many emission targets have been met by countries undergoing austerity measures and societal collapse.
Time for at least some to wake up.
“MikeFromAu
March 15, 2016 at 2:03 am”
There are people who believe the drop in emissions was not due to austerity measures but all due to a price on carbon, carbon taxes and/or emissions trading or a combination of taxes on energy. Energy costs, as well as labour costs, was what Holden and Ford cited as factors in their decision to leave Australia. IIRC, Toyota also cited similar reasons for the end of manufacturing in Australia. As a consequence, emissions in Aus did drop (According to “official” figures) and many attributed that to the price on carbon. I have yet to see any Govn’t official attribute reductions in CO2 emissions to economic slowdown rather than a tax on CO2 (Energy).
We will find out if Australia will head down the path to economic oblivion this year with the next federal election looming.
I hear it every day…”She’ll be right mate! My house is now worth AU$2mil!” And many here believe Australia does not need a strong economy, just ever increasing fuel, energy, food and house prices. It will end in tears, one day.
“Patrick MJD March 15, 2016 at 3:04 am”
The latest Quarterly Update of Australia’s National Greenhouse Gas Inventory: June 2015 shows that total emissions in Australia started declining in 2009, well before the government’s Carbon Tax was introduced in December 2012. It also shows that the principal factor driving that decline was a decline in electricity generation, which makes up about 34% of total emissions.
The decline in electricity generation is even more significant, when considering electricity generation per capita. That chart shows that the decline actually began in 2006 (see “Why is electricity consumption decreasing in Australia?” at Reneweconomy’s web site). So the reality is that Australia’s declining emissions had absolutely nothing to do with government imposed taxes on carbon or the GFC.
Conversely, South Australia, the state where most of Australia’s car manufacturing takes place, has been leading the drive to renewable energy sources for electricity generation. It reached its target of 33% renewables in 2014, and has now set a new target of 50% by 2025. This has come with significant government investment (already$6.6B rising to $10B) but has also resulted in the highest energy costs of any state in Australia (see Australian Energy Regulator – Industry Statistics).
These statistics show the false economy of the renewables sector – high government subsidies and increased cost to generate electricity – which result in higher costs to consumers. Large investments in renewable energy is hardly an approach that will work for developing countries.
As to your claims of economic oblivion, Australia’s reality is that we have completed our 24th year of continuous economic growth, with growth in 2015 exceeding expectations and reaching a high of 3% (compared to a forecast 2.75%). 2016 has already been forecast to exceed that, with real GDP growth of 3.25% predicted.
“Paul
March 15, 2016 at 9:13 am”
I did state that one of the reasons Ford and Holden cited for pulling out of car making in Australia was energy costs. Labour costs was another factor. Given the price of carbon INCREASED energy costs to an energy intensive industry and suppliers and given the cost of energy in South Australia (SA) is the most expensive in Australia, you think that wasn’t a factor they pulled out of Australia because SA is so into renewables? It’s exactly the same reason why in is pulling out of California in the USA and moving to states such as Texas?
“Paul
March 15, 2016 at 9:13 am”
And you are right, along with MikeFromAU, Australian emissions started to decline from around 2006, in line with an economic slowdown.
Per Australia, their stocks in $ US are consistently down…
http://bigcharts.marketwatch.com/advchart/frames/frames.asp?show=&insttype=Fund&symb=ewa&x=0&y=0&time=12&startdate=1%2F4%2F1999&enddate=6%2F30%2F2013&freq=2&compidx=aaaaa%3A0&comptemptext=gld+spy&comp=gld+spy&ma=4&maval=23&uf=0&lf=268435456&lf2=2&lf3=4&type=4&style=320&size=2&timeFrameToggle=false&compareToToggle=false&indicatorsToggle=false&chartStyleToggle=false&state=15
I made money in EWA a decade plus back, now it is on my avoid list…
There are no coincidences in stock valuation.
The numbers from WWI (1914-1918) were small (17 million deaths, including my Grandfather’s brother) compared to the 1918-1919 Flu Pandemic (50 to 100 million). BUT, BUT, BUT humans can cope with, forestall, and mitigate both of these types of historical tragedies with the wealth afforded by cheap, plentiful energy as supplied by hydrocarbons. The idea that we will make energy expensive to reduce its consumption (as promoted by both the President of the U.S.A. and the European Union) is simply the new Communist / Marxist claptrap (such as spouted by ‘Americans’ Paul Robeson, Pete Seger, Margaret Sanger, Tom Hayden, et al) which led to the suffering and death of tens of millions (not millions, but tens of millions). Uncle Joe would simply teach us that those kind of numbers are not a tragedy, merely a statistic. Shame on those blind, mindless supporters. We didn’t forget. Just as surely shame will haunt others who profess the dangers of CAGW,
If you choose a long enough time span, everyone dies. I wonder how this can be coorrelated with global Temperatures?
So you are saying (implicitly) that the flu pandemic isn’t related in any way with the war?
That’s an extraordinary statement. (And a very typical of Big Pharma/Big Medicine/Big Gov PR point).
Don’t forget the Spanish Flu pandemic of 1918-20, which killed more people than WW1 soldiers/civilians combined.
The Age is a rag for delusional left wing donkeys and they never worry about the science. The other Fairfax papers and THEIR ABC are ditto as well. The proper science comes from experts like Dr Indur Goklany as observed by Les Johnson’s first comment above.
Climate economists? What is that? Sheesh! When the ALP/Green circus, errm I mean coalition, in Australia were talking about a “Proice ohn cahbon” we heard day after day from economists such as Ross Garnout. And this week, in the Sydney Morning Hearld (The New South Wales equivalent of the Victorian The Age) Mr. Hannam keeps publishing alarmist articles. Climate change alarmism is beyond stupid in the lucky country.
A climate economist is one that will NoT observe under aNy circumstances that economic collapse directly equals a cut in CO2 emission. By default ,
Emissions of all kinds. Period.
As an Economist, I can tell you in no uncertain terms that a “Climate Economist” is clearly defined as someone who is an Economist that gets a paycheck from the “Climate Industry”, just as a Government Economist is paid by the government and a Bank Economist is paid by the bank.
Since the Oz press seems to have a number in mind for creating a proper discussion they should show their work – or just quit posting stupid articles like this. It removes all doubt about their weak qualifications for discussing climate.
“When the government built the storm drains, the drain pipes they used are a little larger than other places where I have lived. That way, instead of backing up and flooding, the unusually large but planned for volumes of water from sudden tropical deluges are safely transported away from inhabited areas.”
Eric, I recall one of the smaller upstream towns in the recent floods the local council ignored advice on storm drain pipe diameters, 18″ recommended 6″ installed, the town flooded severely. I don’t recall the name of the town. Of course, the 1972 Brisbane flood was more severe, but flooded mostly industrial sites. Now those sites are residential without the typical “Queenslander” house (On stilts).
So many choices as to where to put the enema nozzle in Australia. After 8 months of being there I sold up again and moved back to China.
Lucky bugger..
It was always my impression that economists were better than scientists at statistics. Yes/no?
Probably.
😉
100 years ago, Carlyle wrote, ‘Economics is the dismal science’.
And, by the way, this was due to the idea set forth by Malthus that we are all going to starve to death unless we cut the population. Then WWI and WWII came along and tried to fix this problem by violently removing whole populations.
They are the kind that do not notice that intense economic collapse and all kinds of austerity actually lower CO2 emissions in a big way.
Maybe they are paid to ignore this particularly interesting little connection.
Didn’t work in 2008 or many dates before that such as the Wall St crash of 1929.
Economists are unable to predict the past, much like those in other modeled not-understood-equals-null-variable “sciences.”
One major reason is that they don’t take into account corporate cheats as in the S&L defaults after dereg in the ’80’s, and later ENRON, WorldCom, 2008 banking fraud, etc, etc, etc.
“BFL
March 15, 2016 at 8:57 am
…2008 banking fraud, etc, etc, etc.”
Banking fraud has been happening since The Bank of England was formed over 300 years ago. A system of interest bearing debt that does not create wealth (Think Federal Reserve for our US cousins). A bank, originally set up, to fund a military force. War makes money for these systems. Sounds familiar these days aye?
“God invented economists to make weathermen look good.” Richard Lindzen
https://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WGIIAR5-Chap10_FINAL.pdf
Fig 10-10
Almost everything has a bigger impact economically than climate. Population, income, aging, lifestyle… So sayeth the economists of IPCC.AR5.
A poor economic climate actually cuts CO2 emissions.
Just see the amazingness of austerity measures on ones ability to actually have enough money to buy petrol.
‘The consensus view was that a catastrophic loss of global gross domestic product – a 25 per cent decline or more – is possible under a “business as usual” scenario.’
Strike 1: no link.
Strike 2: by when is this GDP loss supposed to take place? 2050? 2500?
Strike 3: who the hell thinks a change in the number of heatwaves and hurricanes is going to cut GDP by 25%?
Weren’t the Aussy’s going to set Bjorn Lomborg up for extended Climate Economics research?
No! His funding was withdrawn.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2015-05-09/students-praise-uwa-for-ditching-bjorn-lomborg-think-tank/6457210
Of course, the ABC loved the news.
The institutee of higher learning (the term is used loosely), caved into a handful of activists who would have been offended by the truth. PC reigns supreme in Australia. The police are forbidden to mention the ethnicity of criminals. It could be construed as racial profiling. Australia is going nuts.
With Trudeau 1.2, that’s not an upgrade, in Canada, I’ll challenge you on which country will go completely bonkers first.
Lomborg is the wrong sort of economist for Australian academe. There was a tremendous outcry from the warmunists and the project was cancelled.
Does anyone know where this comes from? Is there any actual science behind this so-called “consensus” estimate? And did they also estimate how much the global gross domestic product would decline if fossil fuels were banned?
Scientists, journalists, politicians, and doctors should all follow the ethical maxim: “first, do no harm.” If the cure is worse than the disease, what value is it? In the case of climate change, even the acts required to prevent the disease are worse than the disease. Too many who practice science and journalism allow politics to bias their reasoning.
I am a trained Economist. That means you learn to argue both for and against things like regulating an industry (as a student doesn’t know if industry or government will be hiring them to argue which side…). One also gets to examine a lot of crap arguments and must be able to analyze all sorts of broken government statistics with decades of political crap layers accumulated.
The end result leans toward a certain natural cynicism and skepticism. After all, one must learn both capitalism (a couple of kinds) and communism as valid economic systems ( not to mention the dozen kinds of “often wrong” but valid socialisms and more…) When you must be fluent in a dozen mutually exclusive systems, it does something to your willingness to exude enthusiasm for Yet Another Crank Thesis…
So my economists view of the damage from global warming is this: AC use rises, offset
by reduced heating demand. Less crop grown in hot deserts, but more in cold climates, net a gain. Flooding or drought to increase (once they pick which one it will be) while the other decreases. No change in disease trajectory as it is driven by improving sanitation and medical access, not temperature. No change in economic productivity as we produce in any and all climates already. In short, nobody will notice. Oh, and as we’ve not noticed the last 5000 years of sea level change, that won’t matter either.
People will still mostly die from wars, famine caused by stupid political decisions and greed, accidents (cars mostly) and eating & drinking too much. Occasional murders and suicides from wanting a lover who finds you icky will continue too. Cosmetics and clothing sales will remain strong.
BTW, if Global Warming doesn’t happen, it will be about the same outcome, net net.
+1
As another trained Economist I can only facepalm at the stupidity and obvious desperation demonstrated in this article. At the end of the day, Economists SHOULD attempt to examine ‘reality’ based on as few assumptions as possible. Available data is king. Predictions/projections should stem from that approximation of reality. Not just ‘make sh1t up’!
And a great theory I picked up from studying economics is that of ‘revealed preferences’ – this transfers to observing what people DO, not what they SAY they’ll do…. Leo the Legend tops the bill of celebrity hypocrites on this environmental front.
What I read in the article above was another pathetic whine to the effect that, “Economists aren’t getting on board (enough) with our agenda! We’d like them to up the ante and predict more doom so that others will take our pathetic whining more seriously and do something about the bad, bad things we’re doing to Holy Mother Earth! Or pay us more money to hypocritically whinge about what everyone ELSE is doing…”
…or was I the only one who read that between the lines…?
Zenreverend, they cannot even make the connection that economic collapse actually cuts CO2 emissions.
They could go out and start spouting/RejOicInG that economic collapse has already cut CO2 emissions.
Talk about the bleedin obvious.
To answer your question – clearly not.
Perhaps the real issue is the fact that economists, like engineers, tend to base their analyses on facts that are reproducible, not hypotheses based on unvalidated assumptions.
Mr Smith.
I think you need to look at the effects of an economic collapse and how it cuts emissions of all kinds, including CO2.
Perhaps you could find the time to look at the connection between a poorly performing economy/ies and the closely following dramatic collapse of emissions of all kinds.
The Baltic Dry Index is performing poorly => therefore lower emissions/pollution etc.
Collapse in oil-rig count. over 50% i a single year and still dropping.
Mass coal worker lay-offs in China.
and so on.
Baltic Dry’s decline is mostly due to excess ship supply, not so much to decreased demand.
Rig counts are declining (and, more important, Canadian oil sands production is dropping sharply), but US oil production is still high. The storage at Cushing, OK,s near the maximum
Chinese coal miners haven’t yet been laid off.
Those are things I watch regularly. My blog is full of them.
BUT, they are not a consequence of Global Warming (which was the question), but of stupid government policies (often driven by stupid belief in Global Warming or stupid belief in Socialist policies)
So, yes, economic collapse is a necessary result of Global Warming Stupidity based policies. But not at all related to warming or cooling in the real world.
“I am a trained Economist. That means you learn to argue both …”
Are you familiar with the Austrian School, Rothbard, Mises, Block, and so forth? Just curious.
Yes. I like to call myself “A recovering Keynesian” as I came to the Austrian School post graduation. (We did cover The Chicago School, but ony tangentially. . it was the 70s after all…)
FWIW, IMHO, The Ausrian School is closest to correct.
It’s perfectly consistent with the general quality of the rag but this article was written by a US economics academic:
http://www-personal.umich.edu/~nquixote/cv.pdf
Lots of Marxists in the Economics faculty at my Alma Mater University of Michigan. I had to drop this Econ 101 course this guy taught, as the professor at the time was a rank Communist, class discussions were the TA and 27 other students arguing against me. Teaching Assistant was a Club of Rome doom predictor, I contradicted him successfully in front of the class, he failed me on the first exam, I said Goodbye…
Track the Maurice Strong influence into U.Mich. from Canada and in particular into the Business school.
Also somewhat into MSU.
The “Age” in Melbourne is generally known as the “Spencer Street Soviet”. Not to be relied on.
Two comments:
1. The Queensland Road Drainage Manual, of which I have a copy, is thorough and sets a standard for such documents.
2. It is generally accepted that more excess deaths occur in winter due to cold weather than in summer due to heat. A detailed economic study would show that, as far as early death is concerned, climate change is beneficial.
How much to tamp down all of the modelable and big benefits of warmer higher latitudes? Production on the Taiga for example?
Economists are out of touch with reality, full stop.
Basic principal #1 No money equals no petrol in the vehicle.
#2 Poorly performing economies and economic collapse is actually a great tool to lower CO2 emissions.
..And starvation, and disease, and frozen people that can’t afford expensive energy, and ….etc…………
#3 Zero CO2 emissions is an even better tool to create economic collapse.
Economist are rather fully in touch with reality. Mostly the reality of the need for a paycheck and delivering what the client requested…
“Will do research for money”. No. No smiley or sarc; tag. I’m a contractor for a living. (in the field of computers, not economics). Also known as a Computer Whore. I don’t care what the client wants, my job is just to deliver it and cash the check. I’ve even installed M.S. Windows based solutions (just to show how low my limits can go) when the client demanded it.
I’d love having an Econ gig, but one of the first things you learn as an economist is the law of supply and demand. Then you learn there is a very large supply of economists and almost no demand… so that computer minor starts to pay off…
Don’t confuse the client’s demands / goals / deliverable with the economist’s understanding of reality. The two are mostly only distantly related…
[
[Unless that economist gets a university/government-paid “teaching” position. Once securely “inside” the government safety net, the economist never needs to justify anything nor any decision nor any theory , as long as it justifies the needs of his government-master. .mod]
Dear Mod: In that case the Client is the Government, and the economist was hired for that POV in the first place. That is why I have no teaching position despite holding a college level teaching credential. The interviewing committee tends to weed out non-“progressive” non-socialists (I enjoyed observing the questions and reactions, but found the process rather sad in being so obviously biased.)
So yes, you are right, but that is not in opposition to my point that the Client writes the sheet music to which the economist sings….
Economists should study science ?? Al Gore and Mann has so has our Flannery and it’s worked ok for them bankbalance wise !
I have yet to find an economist that can accurately describe what money is. Somehow they have all been indoctrinated to believe that only currency is money. They also talk about “jobs” as if all we have to do is wash each other’s laundry and trade pieces of paper with big numbers on them. We will all be rich,,, sheeeesh.
OK, I’m one.
Money is a medium of exchange AND a store of value.
Currency is only a medium of exchange.
As a necessary consequence of that, no paper currency is really money.
That for all practical purposes the word “money” is used to mean “currency” bothers me; but is a battle I quit fighting decades ago. Life is too short to waste it on that.
Not fighting losing battles ought not be confused with ignorance.
Climate change is like St Patricks Day.
Obama is more Irish than St Patrick was but its convenient for everyone including the church to portray him as Irish
St Patrick was Welsh
He wasted a bit of time doing un-eco things like expelling snakes from Ireland [why???]
He’s also been the cause of great distress…like suffering the consequences of a creme de menthe hangover on March 18th
Hére I go again: their “business as usual” case is baloney…there isn’t enough fossil fuels to feed those rcp8.5 projections.
E.g. if people stand still during a flooding, letting water bringing them away or simply submerging them, they will die for sure. Since flooding mitigation and escaping is something as mankind we have a bit of experince about (like four or five thousand years at least?) I bet than we can cope with such a problem even in future and even in harsher (if ever) conditions. Anyway, I don’t see any science in that article: maybe the journalist should go back to university, take at least a bachelor degree in engineering or phisycs, and after at least three years of studies get back and write again about science.
Noah Smith is an assistant professor of finance at Stony Brook University and a freelance writer for finance and business publications
Gosh, it isn’t Peter Hannam the Age’s resident alarmist but an assistant professor of finance no less writing for a few extra bucks. The science really must be settled, mustn’t it?
/sarc
utter disbelief/
While the profession of economics is not immune to fools and folly, the overall focus of economics as the understanding of rational behavior under constraints is going to keep most economists from swallowing the kool-aid that is AGW. Certainly, those who subscribe to the positivist economics of Milton Friedman will not be impressed by climate models. If those worried about “climate change” want to be taken more seriously by economics, they need to be more serious about science, and less focused on pushing a political or social agenda.
Obamacare is killing a thousand a day
http://www.healthcareitnews.com/news/deaths-by-medical-mistakes-hit-records
The article doesn’t mention the PP&ACA. And I don’t see the linkage that you do.
Another consequence of climate change. The climate-profession prefix convention is making my head hurt. Climate-economists, climate-clergy, climate-farmers, climate-plumbers ….
Climate justice.
I think it is a good thing to add the “climate” prefix – It can be considered as a warning that the outcome is likely to be somewhat bizarre.