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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.

5 of 190 comments (clear)

  1. Cause.. Meet effect. by thesupraman · · Score: 0, Troll

    They are making so many cause and effect assumptions here it is just mind-blowing..
    And they call it science.. Without of course a single falsifiable claim.

    This is just pure opinion politics, of a very specific type.

    The assumption that average temperature somehow controls GDP for example.. Just hilarious, and of course stupid.

  2. US CO2 emissions are strongly down by Karmashock · · Score: -1, Troll

    Enough with the tiresome political clickbait.

    The US numbers are DOWN. What do you want from us? Nuke China?

    Either say you want to Nuke China or kindly hyperventiliate into your chicken little bag instead bombarding us with this garbage.

    The economic consequences to the US for climate change are incredibly controversal. Every tropical storm, every forest fire, every winter frost, every rain storm, every drought, every sun burn, every flu outbreak is cited as climate change.

    We are far beyond the point of the boy that cried wolf with this stuff. It is beyond absurd and well into obnoxiously stupid.

    And on top of that, US NUMBERS FOR CO2 HAVE BEEN FALLING FOR MANY YEARS!!!!!!

    So... Enough. Go whine to China or possibly Europe who's numbers UNLIKE US NUMBERS are not going down.

    Look it up.

    If US numbers were climbing then you could maybe argue the US should do its part to cut back. But US numbers are going down. We're doing our part. And that's before you account for all the carbon sink qualities of US territory. Some countries emit a lot of CO2, are increasing their CO2 emissions, and have such dramatic land exploitation that all the forests etc are just getting clear cut. Complain to them.

    We've got green energy projects coming out of our ass, your emissions are falling year over year... Just enough.

    This is like listening to the B12 deficient vegans at this point. I know... you're mad... so are the vegans... and that isn't the only thing you share in common.

    --
    I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
    1. Re:US CO2 emissions are strongly down by Karmashock · · Score: 0, Troll

      I meant to include this link... slashdot does not permit editing so... here it is:
      https://www.technologyreview.c...

      --
      I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
  3. "Global social cost of carbon" - LOL by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    You mean a completely made up load of bollocks about a harmless gas that isn't causing 'catastrophic man-made global warming', because there IS no global warming going on in the first place? As if a bunch of 'scientists' would LIE in order to terrorise the public into paying them more and more money for yet more LIES about how the sky is falling in.

    www.wattsupwiththat.com
    www.climatedepot.com

  4. Approach: Made up a lot of numbers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Troll

    1. Devise a model that sounds really complex
    2. For every part of the model make up a set of numbers, label somehow
    3. Randomly pick rules on how these numbers interact
    4. Run a simulation for 1000 years
    5. Calculate average cost using our carbon cost function (tm)

    We tried many times until we got some absurd cost that make the point we want to make. In particular, US white males are the worst.