Think of the increased energy costs and how that will effect both business – especially small business (80% of the American job market) and consumerism. Then ask yourself how much more of a hit in those areas can our economy accommodate.

You see there’s more to the costs involved than just the raw GDP figures. There’s what segments of the economy will be hit by those costs and what the “ripple effects” will likely be.

The Stern Review’s original estimate was 1% of GDP per year, and was later raised to 2% per year on the basis that climate change was accelerating. But that investment is not all cost to the economy, since it would increase resilience and reduce exposure of economies to swings in oil prices. We won’t have a sense of how valuable that is until we know how tight the oil markets will be, or how limited reserves actually are (but the overwhelming view is that reserves are tighter than has generally been thought). And there is quite a high likelihood that this investment will create new forms of innovation. Do you have other data or evidence?

Andrew

Even, if the planet is warming and even if Man is a significant cause of it, the methods of supposed remediation are ridiculously costly and are often not based upon any rational model.