This is definitely something I’m interested in learning more about, and haven’t seen a thorough analysis from an EA perspective anywhere. I respect both Bjorn Lomborg and Martin Rees on this subject, even though they have opposing views. Bjorn Lomborg thinks that cost-benefit analysis shows reducing carbon emissions to be a bad investment compared to global health spending, and that we should instead just try to accept climate change and adapt to it. Martin Rees thinks Bjorn Lomborg is using the wrong discount rate in his calculations, and that the tail risk of catastrophic climate change alone makes its prevention a worthwhile investment. I haven’t dug any further than that yet.
Hi egastfriend, I would recommend not respecting Lomborg. He regularly writes op-eds on climate change that are rated as “scientific credibility very low” on Climate Feedback due to his selective and misleading use of statistics. His books have numerous errors and his first one was found to contain: “Fabrication of data; Selective discarding of unwanted results (selective citation); Deliberately misleading use of statistical methods; Distorted interpretation of conclusions; Plagiarism; Deliberate misinterpretation of others’ results”. On top of that, he’s received fossil fuel funding, as documented on DeSmogBlog.
Although he is right to suggest cost-benefit analyses, this is something that environmental economists already do in spades, and the reason his analyses (which have not been published in detail) come out with different answers is because of his biased and unsupportable assumptions that, frankly, reach beyond just having a different opinion.
This is definitely something I’m interested in learning more about, and haven’t seen a thorough analysis from an EA perspective anywhere. I respect both Bjorn Lomborg and Martin Rees on this subject, even though they have opposing views. Bjorn Lomborg thinks that cost-benefit analysis shows reducing carbon emissions to be a bad investment compared to global health spending, and that we should instead just try to accept climate change and adapt to it. Martin Rees thinks Bjorn Lomborg is using the wrong discount rate in his calculations, and that the tail risk of catastrophic climate change alone makes its prevention a worthwhile investment. I haven’t dug any further than that yet.
Hi egastfriend, I would recommend not respecting Lomborg. He regularly writes op-eds on climate change that are rated as “scientific credibility very low” on Climate Feedback due to his selective and misleading use of statistics. His books have numerous errors and his first one was found to contain: “Fabrication of data; Selective discarding of unwanted results (selective citation); Deliberately misleading use of statistical methods; Distorted interpretation of conclusions; Plagiarism; Deliberate misinterpretation of others’ results”. On top of that, he’s received fossil fuel funding, as documented on DeSmogBlog.
Although he is right to suggest cost-benefit analyses, this is something that environmental economists already do in spades, and the reason his analyses (which have not been published in detail) come out with different answers is because of his biased and unsupportable assumptions that, frankly, reach beyond just having a different opinion.
Links: http://www.realclimate.org/index.php/archives/2015/08/bjorn-lomborg-just-a-scientist-with-a-different-opinion/ http://www.lomborg-errors.dk/ http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bjorn_Lomborg
The Giving What We Can report on Climate Change can be found here, in case you’re interested.