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

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

#61
post #41

As others have commented, $14.5 trillion USD (even with inflation) is nothing compared to the US's current outgoings. What I _never_ see costed is the other side - what negative cost will the climate policies have on GDP? I imagine that number to be far greater. For example: Great, you increased fuel tax and got less people driving. Now people can't get to work, deliveries are now too costly, the cost of living incre…

> single most concerning thing

You're not supposed to say it out loud when you're concern trolling. We've had the other side non stop from every politician and all media for decades. Even the 'left' politicians only do the bare minimum most watered down measures after decades of public pressure and ironclad science and not even that if there's a remote chance it could hurt their donors.

Solar is cheaper than any other option after ten or twenty years of serious investment. Initiating the cost drop has been an option for at least fifty and possibly 100 (as the first commercial PV panels were a technology with good cost efficiency and 5% energy efficiency and were produced decades before the photoelectric effect was discovered -- the creator thought they were thermoelectric initially) years simply by not actively propping up fossil fuel interests at immense cost and instead putting a fraction of that money into renewables.

Cars are the single biggest dead weight loss in any economy by orders of magnitude. Families are spending upwards of 30% of their income and a quarter to half of their productive hours on being able to participate in cities or towns that were intentionally demolished and rebuilt to make them unlivable without one at immense cost. Building walkable towns, trains, and density in place of cars reduces commute times, reduces deaths by hundreds of thousands per year and avoids millions of injuries and illnesses in a country the size of the US.

Without enforcing car ownership, land can be used much more effectively and housing can be far cheaper without dedicating more of a town's land to the car than the residents.

Then there are the trillions spent on destabilizing and invading countries with fossil fuel reserves to ensure they will sell it for a pittance only in USD and not give their workers livable conditions.

Insulation (and sharing 1-3 walls with your neighbors) is an unmitigated benefit to everyone, and all it would have needed is minor policy change.

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

#62
post #41

As others have commented, $14.5 trillion USD (even with inflation) is nothing compared to the US's current outgoings. What I _never_ see costed is the other side - what negative cost will the climate policies have on GDP? I imagine that number to be far greater. For example: Great, you increased fuel tax and got less people driving. Now people can't get to work, deliveries are now too costly, the cost of living incre…

An enlightening book I read on this topic is "False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet" by Bjorn Lomborg. The book explores the cost of: doing nothing to fight climate change vs doing everything to fight climate change vs doing something in the middle that optimizes global GDP (the book uses GDP as a "human welfare" metric). My biggest take away from the bo…

An interesting review of your enlightening book: https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/a-closer-examin....

He's a political scientist, not a climate scientist but he seems to be working backwards from the agenda of "climate change is a liberal hoax" vs "we have a serious problem and need serious solutions to it".

I'd read it if I felt like there's valid knowledge to glean (i.e., ok, so what are the best thing to do) but not to put money in a denier's pocket.

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

#64

That’s all? That’s half a year of GDP. Vs 50 years of investment in climate change reduction?

Yeah lets print 14.5T and then stop having to hear about it! Modern monetary theory says this should work.

Those people are starting to realize China pranked them pretty good

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

#65
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An enlightening book I read on this topic is "False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet" by Bjorn Lomborg. The book explores the cost of: doing nothing to fight climate change vs doing everything to fight climate change vs doing something in the middle that optimizes global GDP (the book uses GDP as a "human welfare" metric). My biggest take away from the bo…

An interesting review of your enlightening book: https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/a-closer-examin... . He's a political scientist, not a climate scientist but he seems to be working backwards from the agenda of "climate change is a liberal hoax" vs "we have a serious problem and need serious solutions to it". I'd read it if I felt like there's valid knowledge to glean (i.e., ok, so what are the best thing…

I mostly found the book enlightening because it was a calm, rational voice amidst the constant stream of the-world-is-ending-by-fire/water/drought/heat/cold news that my tech bubble sends my way.

I didn't find anything in the book about liberal hoaxes. Rather I found the author to be diligently addressing a topic they find to be quite serious. Their argument is not against climate change (they very much acknowledge we have to address it), but against what they view to be ineffective (i.e. very costly, not gonna do much to affect temperature rise) policies.

A good portion of the book is dedicated to the author's ideas for more effective ways to deal with climate change in the long run, like pumping a lot more money into R&D, looking into nuclear more, helping developing nations shed climate-aggravating technologies faster, drafting local "adapt to the climate" policies, etc. The author is in favor of a carbon tax. Another idea explored is how making the right growth-promoting improvements in developing countries during the next 20 years could enable them to deal with climate change better over the subsequent 50 years (vs short-term growth-slowing policies that might look great during elections, but don't do much to move the needle by 2100).

I read the article you linked and found it hard to interpret it as anything other than a hit piece with an almost hysterical focus on painting the book and its author in the most negative light possible. It was quite a contrast from the book where the author makes their criticisms in the vein of "I think we can do better".

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

#66
post #41

As others have commented, $14.5 trillion USD (even with inflation) is nothing compared to the US's current outgoings. What I _never_ see costed is the other side - what negative cost will the climate policies have on GDP? I imagine that number to be far greater. For example: Great, you increased fuel tax and got less people driving. Now people can't get to work, deliveries are now too costly, the cost of living incre…

An enlightening book I read on this topic is "False Alarm: How Climate Change Panic Costs Us Trillions, Hurts the Poor, and Fails to Fix the Planet" by Bjorn Lomborg. The book explores the cost of: doing nothing to fight climate change vs doing everything to fight climate change vs doing something in the middle that optimizes global GDP (the book uses GDP as a "human welfare" metric). My biggest take away from the bo…

Question for the crowd: I read HN often but rarely comment, so I'm curious what I did wrong in my comment to merit the downvotes.

I was initially excited to see someone asking a question about a topic that I had _just_ read a book on (I also discussed the book for a few hours in a book group). It seemed like sharing that was a goodwill thing to do.

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

#68
post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we take that as true, then either the top commenter or the UN is utterly incompetent to perform this very predictable prediction. Because the UN predicts steady US population growth over the next few decades, not a collapse. The Census Bureau predicts similarly. I can't find any serious prediction of imminent collapse.

True, the population is aging (people live longer) and birth rate is collapsing. The result is that it’s not apparent when you look at population. But aging is having a massive effect on the economy, the job sector, etc. At some point it’s going to collapse, but because we have been below replacement for a long time it’s not going to stop anytime soon. Look at Japan, Italy to see what is coming (they are a bit ahead)…

Some data: Look at the evolution of birth rate from 1950 to today. As countries develop and become more urban birth rate plummet.

So we have more living people but they are older and older. At some point it will fall unless we find more and more way to extend lifespan. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/children-per-woman-by-gdp...

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

#69
It’s laughable that people still think this is something that human intervention can stall without the entire planet going back to a Neolithic lifestyle.

The focus needs to be developing ways to mitigate the impact. Climate is never static. One major geologic event can do more climate harm than hundreds of years of human industry.

Commercial whaling probably did more climate harm than anything we’re doing now because it broke the iron cycle that is vital to plankton blooms

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

#70
post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

An interesting review of your enlightening book: https://www.lse.ac.uk/granthaminstitute/news/a-closer-examin... . He's a political scientist, not a climate scientist but he seems to be working backwards from the agenda of "climate change is a liberal hoax" vs "we have a serious problem and need serious solutions to it". I'd read it if I felt like there's valid knowledge to glean (i.e., ok, so what are the best thing…

I mostly found the book enlightening because it was a calm, rational voice amidst the constant stream of the-world-is-ending-by-fire/water/drought/heat/cold news that my tech bubble sends my way. I didn't find anything in the book about liberal hoaxes. Rather I found the author to be diligently addressing a topic they find to be quite serious. Their argument is not against climate change (they very much acknowledge w…

I agree that civil dialog is always preferable, but there's plenty of it out there that is polite in tone however anything but such in content. Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson come to mind.

I'll read the link I shared (again) to compare and contrast, as well as look for other reviews.

I'm in the camp that is terrified of what Climate Change has in store for us, and I want to understand it to understand what is truly scary versus what is being ginned up. While the media loves to get us excited I have to say that this time they're justified from what I know so far.

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