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New Study Finds Incredibly High Carbon Pollution Costs -- Especially For the US and India (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader quotes a report from The Guardian: A new study led by UC San Diego's Katharine Ricke published in Nature Climate Change found that not only is the global social cost of carbon dramatically higher than the federal estimate ($37 per ton) -- probably between $177 and $805 per ton, most likely $417 -- but that the cost to America is around $50 per ton. That's the second-highest in the world behind India's $90, and is also higher than the current federal estimate for the global social cost of carbon. That's a remarkable conclusion worth repeating. Ricke's team found that the cost of carbon pollution to just the United States is probably higher than its government's current estimate of costs to the entire world. And the actual global cost is more than 10 times higher than the federal estimate.
[The Guardian's Dana Nuccitelli] asked Ricke to describe her team's approach in this study: To calculate social cost of carbon, you need to answer four questions in sequence:
1. How would the economy change with no climate change (including GHG emissions)?
2. How does the Earth system respond to emissions of carbon dioxide?
3. How does the economy respond to changes in the Earth system?
4. How should we value losses today vs. in (for example) 100 years?
The team answered these questions using four "modules": a socio-economic module to answer the first question, a climate module to address the second, a damages module to investigate the third, and a discounting module to tackle the fourth.
That study detailed the relationship between a country's average temperature and its per capita GDP, finding a sweet spot around 13C (55F). That's the optimal temperature for human economic productivity. Economies in countries with lower average temperatures like Canada and Russia would benefit from additional warming, but it would slow economic growth for nations closer to the equator with hotter temperatures. The United States is currently right near the peak temperature, whereas many European countries like Germany, the UK, and France are 3-5C cooler, and a bit below the ideal economic temperature. So, continued global warming is worse for the US economy than Europe's.
[The Guardian's Dana Nuccitelli] asked Ricke to describe her team's approach in this study: To calculate social cost of carbon, you need to answer four questions in sequence:
1. How would the economy change with no climate change (including GHG emissions)?
2. How does the Earth system respond to emissions of carbon dioxide?
3. How does the economy respond to changes in the Earth system?
4. How should we value losses today vs. in (for example) 100 years?
The team answered these questions using four "modules": a socio-economic module to answer the first question, a climate module to address the second, a damages module to investigate the third, and a discounting module to tackle the fourth.
That study detailed the relationship between a country's average temperature and its per capita GDP, finding a sweet spot around 13C (55F). That's the optimal temperature for human economic productivity. Economies in countries with lower average temperatures like Canada and Russia would benefit from additional warming, but it would slow economic growth for nations closer to the equator with hotter temperatures. The United States is currently right near the peak temperature, whereas many European countries like Germany, the UK, and France are 3-5C cooler, and a bit below the ideal economic temperature. So, continued global warming is worse for the US economy than Europe's.
They are making so many cause and effect assumptions here it is just mind-blowing..
1. The Earth is warming.
2. We are probably the major cause.
3. Our actions are certainly the only knob we can control.
4. It is reckless to change how the only life supporting planet you got works, particularly if you have no viable plan to undo the mess once it gets too far.
5. At minimum we need to compute the cost of action vs the cost of inaction to society, which seems to be what the study does.
Ask a farmer if temperatures affect yield.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
All schemes involving cap and trade / carbon tax, etc is nothing more than a wealth redistribution scheme for the globalists to maintain a neo-feudalism form of global dominance, control, and oppression.
If you really wanted to tackle CO2, then dump every bit of R&D into Fusion Energy. NEVER will happen though as it negates the the real purpose as I've just stated above.
Life is not for the lazy.
US NUMBERS FOR CO2 HAVE BEEN FALLING FOR MANY YEARS!!!!!!
When do you expect them to hit zero, with things going they way they are ?
Keep in mind that natural gas replacing coal is just a one time picking of low hanging fruit.