And Now... The Rest of the Story

Warming Called Threat To Global Economy by Juliet Eilperin isn't the worst story I've ever seen on global warming; it quotes a critic saying the latest study forecasting doom underestimates the costs of taking action to solve an exaggerated threat. But the story overlooks a more serious flaw.

The lede:

Failing to curb the impact of climate change could damage the global economy on the scale of the Great Depression or the world wars by spawning environmental devastation that could cost 5 to 20 percent of the world's annual gross domestic product, according to a report issued yesterday by the British government.

The report by Nicholas Stern, who heads Britain's Government Economic Service and formerly served as the World Bank's chief economist, calls for a new round of international collaboration to cut greenhouse gas emissions linked to global warming.

The critic:

Some economists questioned the British study's projections, however, saying they overestimated the impact of global warming on the world's economies, especially those of developed nations. At the same time, these critics said the report's assertion that it would cost only 1 percent annually of global GDP to curb climate change underestimated how much spending would be required.

"There's just a very small part of GDP" in industrialized nations "that's affected by weather in a direct or indirect way," said Jerry Taylor, a senior fellow at the libertarian Cato Institute, which accepts some contributions from fossil-fuel companies. "It's very difficult to sketch out this disaster scenario."

But wait, there's more. Elsewhere. From the science policy blog Prometheus, Roger Pielke Jr. comments in a post titled Stern's Cherry Picking On Disaster and Climate Change. After noting Stern's projections of Apocalypse, Pielke says:

The source is a paper prepared by Robert Muir-Wood and colleagues as input to our workshop last May on disasters and climate change. Muir-Wood et al. do report the 2% trend since 1970. What Stern Report does not say is that Muir-Wood et al. find no trend 1950-2005 and Muir-Wood et al. acknowledge that their work shows a very strong influence of 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons in the United States. Muir-Wood et al. are therefore very cautious and responsible about their analysis. Presumably this is one reason why at the workshop Robert Muir-Wood signed on to our consensus statements...

Which include this: ...it is still not possible to determine the portion of the increase in damages that might be attributed to climate change due to GHG emissions. Pielke, who directs the University of Colorado's Center for Science and Technology Policy Research, adds:

The Stern Report’s selective fishing out of a convenient statement from one of the background papers prepared for our workshop is a classic example of cherry picking a result from a diversity of perspectives, rather than focusing on the consensus of the entire spectrum of experts that participated in our meeting....

There's more, including Pielke pointing to a comment by Richard Tol:

I do not often agree with Bjorn Lomborg, but in this case he was right.

The Stern Review was announced in the British media as the report that would bolster the green credentials of Gordon Brown, the heir-apparent to Tony Blair. Brown needs this, as David Cameron, the Tory leader, is much greener.

Surprisingly, no journalist thought it strange that a "scientific review" would a priori support a political position.

Now, after reading the report, I think that Bjorn Lomborg was wrong: The Stern Review is more alarmist and less competent than even Lomborg suspected.

I believe that's environmental economist Richard Tol. Bjorn Lomborg we know.

Comments

[buy viagra]

This so call rapture that is described to happen before the world ends is quite interesting, many people believe it is going to happen when "GOD" reach for them, other believe that some aliens will come and are going to save us, many theories but at the end no one knows what is going to happen.