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Inaction on Climate Change Could Cost the US Economy $14.5T by 2070

www2.deloitte.com

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Re: Inaction on Climate Change Could Cost the US Economy $14.5T by 2070

#21

Post by civilized »

celtain wrote: post #15
whb07 wrote: post #3

I’d like to see this same report circa 1970: “Inaction will lead to an ice age costing $X by 2020” meanwhile there’s another thread here about a “Contrarian VC” investing in climate change…

There was never a scientific consensus that there was a coming ice age. There were already more papers being published about global warming than about global cooling throughout the 1970s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Global_cooling

Scientists used to believe in phlogiston, so who can really say if oxygen is real? /s

Re: Inaction on Climate Change Could Cost the US Economy $14.5T by 2070

#22

Post by alfor »

Deloitte is able to predict the climate in 50 years?

In 50 years we will have a massive population collapse, the US have been below replacement level for 50 years. China is even worse.

Prepare yourself to see massive employees shortage getting worse and worse.

The only thing keeping population aflot is longevity extension but 80yo don’t produce or consume much.

Re: Inaction on Climate Change Could Cost the US Economy $14.5T by 2070

#23

Post by rileymat2 »

civilized wrote: post #20
dgs_sgd wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. It's hard to take any prediction more than 5-10 years into the future seriously. Not because the predictors are being insincere or deceptive, just the inherent inability for prediction models to account for unknown unknowns.

Predictions of the actual future are hard, but predictions of the future we will encounter if we stay on the path we're on can be very straightforward and reliable. If I move a shovel full of dirt to the same place in my backyard every day for 20 years, I'm going to have a big pile of dirt there. It's the same for climate. If we keep dumping CO2 into the atmosphere, physics says we're going to warm the planet. It's a…

> If I move a shovel full of dirt to the same place in my backyard every day for 20 years, I'm going to have a big pile of dirt there.

Not that I disagree with your general point, But this is why prediction is tricky, because unexpected flooding and your prediction is false.

Re: Inaction on Climate Change Could Cost the US Economy $14.5T by 2070

#24

Post by civilized »

alfor wrote: post #22

Deloitte is able to predict the climate in 50 years? In 50 years we will have a massive population collapse, the US have been below replacement level for 50 years. China is even worse. Prepare yourself to see massive employees shortage getting worse and worse. The only thing keeping population aflot is longevity extension but 80yo don’t produce or consume much.

Why so skeptical of Deloitte's climate prediction and so confident in your population one?

Re: Inaction on Climate Change Could Cost the US Economy $14.5T by 2070

#25

Post by jeremyt »

civilized wrote: post #24
alfor wrote: post #22

Deloitte is able to predict the climate in 50 years? In 50 years we will have a massive population collapse, the US have been below replacement level for 50 years. China is even worse. Prepare yourself to see massive employees shortage getting worse and worse. The only thing keeping population aflot is longevity extension but 80yo don’t produce or consume much.

Why so skeptical of Deloitte's climate prediction and so confident in your population one?

Because demographics are very predictable and the climate is less so.

Re: Inaction on Climate Change Could Cost the US Economy $14.5T by 2070

#26

Post by wilg »

ccooffee wrote: post #17

> If global warming reaches around 3°C toward the century’s end, Deloitte’s analysis indicates that economic damages would grow and compound, affecting every industry and region in the country. I'm betting we overshoot +3c by a fair bit. Given how little progress has been made (emissions are still _accelerating_), I'm at least pleased to see some resource that doesn't merely talk about +1.5c. We've passed that point…

Doesn't look like GHG emissions are still accelerating: https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions

Re: Inaction on Climate Change Could Cost the US Economy $14.5T by 2070

#27

Post by alfor »

civilized wrote: post #24
alfor wrote: post #22

Deloitte is able to predict the climate in 50 years? In 50 years we will have a massive population collapse, the US have been below replacement level for 50 years. China is even worse. Prepare yourself to see massive employees shortage getting worse and worse. The only thing keeping population aflot is longevity extension but 80yo don’t produce or consume much.

Why so skeptical of Deloitte's climate prediction and so confident in your population one?

You can look at the data on birth to know where it’s going (no human appears at 30yo)

For climate in 50 years... Where humans will be. Consider that the internet was at the beginning 20 years ago.

Where was solar and EV 20 years ago.

I am bullish on human creativity, much less so on Deloitte and the governments.

Re: Inaction on Climate Change Could Cost the US Economy $14.5T by 2070

#29

Post by pclmulqdq »

civilized wrote: post #20
dgs_sgd wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. It's hard to take any prediction more than 5-10 years into the future seriously. Not because the predictors are being insincere or deceptive, just the inherent inability for prediction models to account for unknown unknowns.

Predictions of the actual future are hard, but predictions of the future we will encounter if we stay on the path we're on can be very straightforward and reliable. If I move a shovel full of dirt to the same place in my backyard every day for 20 years, I'm going to have a big pile of dirt there. It's the same for climate. If we keep dumping CO2 into the atmosphere, physics says we're going to warm the planet. It's a…

> Predictions of the actual future are hard, but predictions of the future we will encounter if we stay on the path we're on can be very straightforward and reliable

This is completely false. We are not interpolating with climate science, we are extrapolating. That is why the variance in the models is so wide (and expands rapidly). That variance, also, only applies to the known mechanisms: when a new important factor shows up, that can cause the predictions to be very wrong. This happened with ocean acidification in the early 2010's - the climate models had predicted increasing temperature, but it didn't materialize because the oceans were absorbing a lot more CO2 than we thought.

In your example, an earthquake, a tornado, a flood, a strong storm, another person stealing your dirt, or even a heavy wind can make your projection false. You can keep doing the same thing, but you will have no idea how big that dirt pile will be 20 years from now.

Re: Inaction on Climate Change Could Cost the US Economy $14.5T by 2070

#30

Post by dgs_sgd »

civilized wrote: post #20
dgs_sgd wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Exactly. It's hard to take any prediction more than 5-10 years into the future seriously. Not because the predictors are being insincere or deceptive, just the inherent inability for prediction models to account for unknown unknowns.

Predictions of the actual future are hard, but predictions of the future we will encounter if we stay on the path we're on can be very straightforward and reliable. If I move a shovel full of dirt to the same place in my backyard every day for 20 years, I'm going to have a big pile of dirt there. It's the same for climate. If we keep dumping CO2 into the atmosphere, physics says we're going to warm the planet. It's a…

I don't think you're wrong to say that if we keep dumping CO2 into the atmosphere then we're _eventually_ going warm the planet to the point predicted in the article.

But > 10 years out, unpredictable technological innovation (either improvements to decarbonization tech or other tech that would make a lack of decarbonization irrelevant) would almost certainly change the path we're on to a point where projecting the current path isn't useful. To that point, Deloitte's finding of "insufficient action" on climate change couldn't possibly take into account actions happening today that could build toward useful climate change solutions if their only concept of action is applying existing tech to the problem.

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