Climate Economics
by digby
There’s lots of talk today about Krugman’s article in the NY Times magazine about the green economy. Adam Siegel writes:
The New York Times Sunday magazine will feature a tour de force on climate economics by Nobel Prize winning economist Paul Krugman. Entitled Building a Green Economy, a more appropriate title might be Climate Economics 101 and it should be required reading of every single Member of Congress and any journalist who writes on the issue of costs and benefits of action to mitigate climate change. Sadly, I don’t have time to do Krugman’s excellent work full justice. He examines the costs and benefits of action on climate change, tackles issues (cogently) about the science, and highlights the critical importance of ‘insurance’ — valuing the potential, in decision-making, not just of ‘Climate Change’ but of catastrophic climate consequences — the low probability but incredible serious in impact risks.
Siegel points out some weaknesses in the article and gives some context so I’d take a look at the full post as well as Krugman’s article. But this article forms one of the core progressive arguments we should have been having for the past year about the economy and the environment. Let’s hope our politicians are listening and take this one on the road for the fall campaign.
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