Essay by Eric Worrall
Professor Dennis Wesselbaum thinks we should act on climate change – but economic harm is not a good justification for doing so.
Calculating the economic cost of climate change is tricky, even futile – it’s also a distraction
Published: February 25, 2025 1.25pm AEDT
Dennis Wesselbaum
Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of OtagoClimate change is no longer a distant threat. It’s here, it’s real and it increasingly affects us all.
…
The panel’s latest assessment report avoids quantifying the economic costs of climate change. So, to understand the economic costs of climate change, we can use the best estimate based on the previous report and the insights from meta studies. These analyses posit a temperature rise of 3.7°C will reduce global gross domestic product (GDP) by about 2.6% (ranging from 0.5 to 8.2%) by 2100.
…However, this comparison is extremely misleading. The value of 2.6% today will differ substantially from 2.6% in 75 years.
The New Zealand economy grew at a compound annual rate of 1.4% between 1960 and 2000. Using this same average growth rate, New Zealanders will have a 184% higher standard of living in 2100. If nothing is done to address climate change, and given the best cost estimate, our standard of living would still be 176% higher than it is now.
…
Even if we accept our best estimates, economic costs are not the issue, but saving the environment is.
Read more: https://theconversation.com/calculating-the-economic-cost-of-climate-change-is-tricky-even-futile-its-also-a-distraction-248862
…
The professor also admits elsewhere in the article that evidence for more severe weather is inconclusive.
I found this article quite refreshing. Significant global warming would cause changes if it occurs, though the extent and significance of those changes is open to debate.
I do disagree with some of what Professor Wesselbaum wrote, I suspect the professor has the view nature is fragile. You lose that view very quickly if you spend any time living in the tropics.
I spend most of my “nature” time wondering what to do with all those blessed palm fronds which keep piling up and are difficult to burn. And where did that giant succulent which is crowding my lime tree come from? I’m pretty sure it wasn’t there last time I looked.
If I had a flame thrower I could take down some of those fast growing tropical weeds which are infesting my driveway.
In the tropics (or near tropics in my case) the problem isn’t preserving nature, the problem is smacking nature hard enough to keep it from invading your house.
The professor also kind of overlooks other issues, such as the fact that some climate action such as carbon pricing functions as a potent regressive tax which slams poor people. So there are more considerations when deciding what climate action if any to take, than whether the local beach suffers increased erosion.
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It’s a pretty piss-poor crisis which only reduces 75 years of growth by, what was that number, 2.6%?
What is the damage of their net zero and likewise actions much more than the tiny 2.6% the figure is difference between a stable climate and the projected effect of the ,assumed damage we are going to do to the climate .
Why bother
and it increasingly affects us all.
Um.. No !
Climate (whatever that is) has not changed enough to effect anyone.
It is actually the responses of the “climate agenda” are wreaking havoc in many western countries.
“Climate (whatever that is) has not changed enough to effect anyone.”
But has it changed enough to affect anyone?
It affects everybody, change or not. It’s the alarmunists who need to be controlled, not the climate.
Alright Mr spelling bee ! 😉
Affect or effect?
“Affect” is usually (not always) a verb.
“Effect” is usually (not always) a noun.
To help know which to use, a verb is an action word. So use “affect” when it’s the verb. 😎
Assistant professor Wesselbaum’s time would be better spent showing us how added CO2 can cause catastrophic global warming. Until he can do that I don’t much care what he has to say.
He could also explain how a 2.6% reduction over 75 years is catastrophic.
About as much as a 2.6 F over 75 years.
Better show us, where to find the catastrophic warmig, than he can try to explain the reasons 😀
Better, he can explain how a warmer climate is “harmful.”
That is, and always has been THE BIG LIE.
Professor Dennis Wesselbaum should get out in the field more. If he had a trek in the Queensland rain forest for a week, he would change his views on the fragility of Nature.
If the climate cult implements what they are planning to in terms of “Climate Action”, the “standard of living” of people in 2100 will be close to 0% of today’s standard of living. In fact, it would not be “living” at all for the majority of the Earth’s population.
BINGO!
It is “climate policies,” not “climate change” (in particular when discussing a warming, and therefore, IMPROVING climate) that should be feared.
Their stupid non-solutions to their imaginary “crisis” would have us freezing and starving in the dark.
So by that analysis, “climate change” is a nothingburger, smaller than the uncertainty of the models.
Human beings are more fragile than Nature. And we’ve been around a much shorter time than Nature. It’s our big brains that allow some people to believe they can control Nature or Climate, and those are the very individuals that have higher rates of mental illness. How ironic the least mentally healthy humans are taking on Nature….actually would be high comedy if it weren’t so maddening and costly.
If I was weighing up representative countries and economies to use as a basis for climatic impacts in 2100, I wouldn’t choose NZ.
Firstly, most of their population would have moved to Australia by then.
Secondly, there would be no single ewes available by 2100.
Thirdly, Trump’s successors would have made NZ the 122nd US state by then.
“there would be no single ewes “
Are you saying they would all become double ewes ?
Cowld make wnderstanding some words a bit difficwlt. 😉
I may have disparaged single ewes.
Sorry for any offence I may have caused to ewes generally.
It’s just that when Kiwi blokes are looking for a ewe to hook up with, they usually go for the good looking single ones first.
Understandably, because even Kiwi blokes are a bit reluctant to hook up some other bloke’s discards.
It’s just a basic human foible, which I’m sure all of youse will understand.
The best place to find a single ewe is on ewe tube.
What, and get fleeced?
The Seekers must have been prescient.
Oh dear, someone had to go there 🙂
I remember the joke about the prize ram dying of a broken heart from when I was about 8 years old.
Story Tip
SEC Moves To Scrap Costly Climate Disclosure Rule Amid Legal Battles – Climate Change Dispatch
No more “climate” reporting required by businesses. 🙂
GOOD. Nothing but more attempts to force the stupid climate agenda through the use of unelected beurocrats when they know they’ll never shove it through congress.
I used to have 10 acres east of Seattle. 1.5 acres was cleared, and it took a big chunk of my “free” time, a 30″ bar chainsaw, plus a large chipper to keep the vegetation from re-taking it. After 20 years, I gave up and sold it.
By 1830, 80% of Wokeachusetts was cleared of forest and converted to farms- and much of that was sheep farming- with about 3 million Merino sheep. The variety were illegally taken from Spain. By the end of that century, most of the farms were abandoned and grew back to – mostly white pine because the seeds are large and heavy and could penetrate the turf. Harvesting the pine continued through the first half of the twentieth century but much of that land grew back to hardwoods except in areas with very dry soils. Knowing what to expect in natural regrowth is what professional forestry is all about. We seldom have to replant trees. Anywhere you walk in the forests in this state- and much of New England, even miles from a paved road, you will find stone walls from those old farms.
‘Anywhere you walk in the forests in this state- and much of New England, even miles from a paved road, you will find stone walls from those old farms.’
Very true here in CT. Looking at the terrain, those early farmers must have been very tough and resilient people, and notwithstanding what today’s ‘progressives’ say, they jumped at any chance to work in the ‘sweatshops’ of industrial America or to farm more hospitable lands in the West.
When the Eire Canal opened up- word went out to New England farmers that the topsoil of the Midwest was many tens of feet deep and extremely rich- with almost no rocks- and it was essentially free- you just had to get there. And they could get there by getting to Albany then the Canal. Many towns emptied of population. For many descendants of those farmers who moved to the Midwest, New England is “the old country”. Many names of towns and cities in the Midwest are the same as in New England. (I’m no historian- just mentioning what little I know of this migration)
Yeah the wettest place in the US is a tough place to keep vegetation in check!
Published by the leftist Conversation
Again based on a 3.7 degree C temp rise
Similar approach to Lomberg assume the worst point out the cost of action is much much more than the assumed damage
Ignores increases in primary production due to increased CO2 of course
New Zealand is staring down a population reduction young people leaving
It apears that he is talking about the New Zealand economy.
Showing signs that things are starting to shift towards a pragmatic approach
Did he explain why with a cost/ benefit ratio like that he recommends we should choose to expend anything on this misadventure? In my field of civil engineering that ratio would end the study.
GAWD! I hate that term “CLIMATE CHANGE” it is so vague! WHAT!? WHAT are you seeing, claiming? (I would ask Dennis Wesselbaum) Droughts and floods as forever before? The data do not show it, so calm down and stop making claims that never materialize.
Try
Climate Crisis
Climate Emergency
Climate Upheaval
Climate Existential Threat
More and more those are embedded in the propaganda.
I smell something.
A whole paddock’s worth !! 😉
I know, right? I mean, that figure of 176% by 2100 is way to rounded to be realistic. If it had been 176.35% by 3pm on July 17th, 2107, I would have been much more likely to believe it!
“Climate change is no longer a distant threat. It’s here, it’s real
and it increasingly affects us all.”
Climate change is like Waiting for Godot. Except the ClimateCult™ isn’t waiting. These folks remind me of Harold Camping.
Omitted: “Standard of living” to DECLINE by 700% WITH “climate action.”
The professor must work in a depatment well funded by project fear.
From the above article’s quote of Professor Wesselbaum:
“The New Zealand economy grew at a compound annual rate of 1.4% between 1960 and 2000. Using this same average growth rate, New Zealanders will have a 184% higher standard of living in 2100.”
Totally wrong.
A 184% total increase over 75 years (2100-2025) requires only a 0.82% average annual compounding rate (1.0082^75 = 1.84). Alternatively, over 75 years annual compounding at an average 1.4% rate (1.014^75 = 2.84) would result in a 284% increase.
Besides, the “standard of living” does not necessarily equate to just the reported increases in any nations “economy” (e.g., What about inflation? What about taxation? What about pollution levels? What about governmental regulations governing what one can and cannot do?)
I found this article to be quite sophomoric as well as deficient in math, especially considering that it was authored by an “Associate Professor, Department of Economics”.