No, but real economists know that the rate of change will not give us time to adapt properly or environmental changes will limit where to plant stuff and setting new cropland is not cheap.
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2012/03/02/434413/economist-william-nordhaus-slams-global-warming-deniers-cost-of-delay-is-4-trillion/
Here is Nordhaus’s answer in full:
On this point, I do not need to reconstruct how climate scientists made their projections, or review the persecution of Soviet geneticists. I did the research and wrote the book on which they base their statement. The skeptics’ summary is based on poor analysis and on an incorrect reading of the results.
The first problem is an elementary mistake in economic analysis. The authors cite the “benefit-to-cost ratio” to support their argument. Elementary cost-benefit and business economics teach that this is an incorrect criterion for selecting investments or policies. The appropriate criterion for decisions in this context is net benefits (that is, the difference between, and not the ratio of, benefits and costs).
This point can be seen in a simple example, which would apply in the case of investments to slow climate change. Suppose we were thinking about two policies. Policy A has a small investment in abatement of CO2 emissions. It costs relatively little (say $1 billion) but has substantial benefits (say $10 billion), for a net benefit of $9 billion. Now compare this with a very effective and larger investment, Policy B. This second investment costs more (say $10 billion) but has substantial benefits (say $50 billion), for a net benefit of $40 billion. B is preferable because it has higher net benefits ($40 billion for B as compared with $9 for A), but A has a higher benefit-cost ratio (a ratio of 10 for A as compared with 5 for B). This example shows why we should, in designing the most effective policies, look at benefits minus costs, not benefits divided by costs.
This leads to the second point, which is that the authors summarize my results incorrectly. My research shows that there are indeed substantial net benefits from acting now rather than waiting fifty years. A look at Table 5-1 in my study A Question of Balance (2008) shows that the cost of waiting fifty years to begin reducing CO2 emissions is $2.3 trillion in 2005 prices. **If we bring that number to today’s economy and prices, the loss from waiting is $4.1 trillion. Wars have been started over smaller sums.**1
My study is just one of many economic studies showing that economic efficiency would point to the need to reduce CO2 and other greenhouse gas emissions right now, and not to wait for a half-century. Waiting is not only economically costly, but will also make the transition much more costly when it eventually takes place. Current economic studies also suggest that the most efficient policy is to raise the cost of CO2 emissions substantially, either through cap-and-trade or carbon taxes, to provide appropriate incentives for businesses and households to move to low-carbon activities.
Apparently it takes one more qualified than Charlie Chaplin to understand the concept of sustainability.
j666
October 20, 2012, 1:58am
103
j666:
You misunderstand; for many of us, it is not NIMBY, but NOMP.
I have been an environmental chemist; I have worked on superfund sites; I do not understand why people assume very dangerous waste can be easily managed when it never has been in the past.
And every type of waste we generate seems to be worse than the last.
GIGObuster:
The situation is like that because the sites for the disposal are not ready yet and delayed by many NIMBY efforts, but once again I do think the costs involved in dealing with the risks are not priced adequately, I do think that for all that have to live close to those places the industry should pay their mortgage or land value or give them free or very cheap energy.
That does not address my point. It just ignores my point.
Maybe I wasn’t clear - I disagree with you. The problem with the waste is not the cost of dealing with it; there is no way to deal with it. People are not opposed to it in their back yard, they don’t want it on their planet
I say you are wrong. I say the waste from nuclear power is dangerous, and completely unnecessary.
j666:
That does not address my point. It just ignores my point.
Maybe I wasn’t clear - I disagree with you. The problem with the waste is not the cost of dealing with it; there is no way to deal with it. People are not opposed to it in their back yard, they don’t want it on their planet
I say you are wrong. I say the waste from nuclear power is dangerous, and completely unnecessary.
Nope, on this one you are truly wrong, people in other places of the planet and even in the USA can deal with the stuff, thank you very much.
http://news.discovery.com/earth/nuclear-waste-site-volunteers-120126.html
Congress picked Yucca Mountain, Nev., as a permanent repository in 2002, but the Obama administration nixed the plan in 2010 after disputes with state officials. Even with the closure, the Department of Energy will have spent $10 billion on Yucca Mountain by 2020, according to estimates by the General Accountability Office.
The nuclear waste panel said that it’s better to convince a local town or tribe to take the facility, rather than selecting a site and then trying to convince local residents afterward.
“I don’t have a secret recipe,” said Allison Macfarlane, a panel member and environmental science professor at George Mason University. “But the community should get what they want, jobs, university scholarships, the options are endless.”
Macfarlane cited two successful examples. In the 1970s, residents of Carlsbad, N.M., agreed to host a disposal site for waste generated by the nearby nuclear weapons labs. After decades of delays, the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) began taking shipments in 1998.
The town got 1,300 jobs, several factories and a youth sports complex – as well as $300 million in highway funds.
In Sweden, federal officials tried several times to site a long-term waste disposal site until they asked for volunteers. Two communities vied for the project, which is now underway.
It is really unreal and illogical to accept the current state of affairs that includes nuclear waste piling up next to nuclear reactors when there are very few places where one can dispose of it. The unreality comes by acting like if there is no responsibility whatsoever of the current state of affairs by the people that oppose disposal sites when they claim levels of risk that are not reasonable or logical at all.