The deadly hidden risks within the most prominent economic model of climate change

Global warming is an emergency, not a trifle to be dealt with decades hence

Water and money.
(Image credit: Illustrated | ikryannikovgmailcom/iStock, Jun/iStock, DickDuerrstein/iStock)

Is climate change a crisis demanding immediate aggressive action to smash down carbon emissions, or is it an annoying inconvenience that can be dealt with slowly over decades?

Most climate scientists are in the former camp — as shown in the recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report advocating for an eye-watering 50-percent cut in emissions by 2030. But many economists are in the latter camp, taking a relatively cavalier attitude about climate change. They have built models showing the economic damage of warming will not be that great, or that the costs of mitigation could be even greater, and therefore we shouldn't be too aggressive in keeping emissions down — which could be even worse than doing nothing, by their lights. As a result, they generally serve to advance policy responses centered around putting a price on carbon, or, in other words, using market mechanisms to gradually wean our existing economic structures off fossil fuels, but foregoing any sort of massive intervention that would disrupt the status quo.

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Ryan Cooper

Ryan Cooper is a national correspondent at TheWeek.com. His work has appeared in the Washington Monthly, The New Republic, and the Washington Post.