Costs and Benefits

Song (repeat): Wilco "You Never Know" 

"Come on, children, you’re acting like children

"Every generation thinks it’s the end of the world"

As you know, I'm not a fan of the hyperbolic and dishonest rhetoric of the climate crazies. It is truly immoral how people who should know better are traumatizing a huge swath of sensitive young people. There is simply no reason to contend that we're all going to die in the world of tomorrow. And it isn't about rich white people - it is all about those currently living in poverty. But you don't hear economic development being pushed to help those people; just the opposite.

I bring all this up because I found someone with an actual track record of thinking about the future making note that there are actually benefits to increased CO2 concentration (example*) to go along with the well-publicized costs: Externalities, Population, and Climate. (Follow-up. More detail on uncertainty.)

Not necessary to read if you already accept that things aren't apocalyptic. Just nice to know there are others out there trying to view the future with some balance.

*We consistently find a large CO₂ fertilization effect: a 1 ppm increase in CO₂ equates to a 0.4%, 0.6%, 1% yield increase for corn, soybeans, and wheat, respectively. In a thought exercise, we apply the CO₂ fertilization effect we estimated in our sample from 2015-2021 backwards to 1940, and, assuming no other limiting factors, find that CO₂ was the dominant driver of yield growth—with implications for estimates of future climate change damages.