The Economics of Climate Change

[tbewick]

Though I've posted on this subject before, I thought that this report prepared by the UK House of Lords Economic Affairs Select Committee is really worth looking at:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/12i.pdf

It drew on evidence provided by a large number of experts, along with academic/research institutions and businesses:

Professor Dennis Anderson (Imperial College, London), Dr Terry Barker (Cambridge University), Mr Christopher Beauman, (former adviser, Cabinet Office), BP, Dr Leonard Brookes (Fellow of the Energy Institute), Sir Ian Byatt, Dr Ian Castles (Australian National University, Canberra), CSERGE (the Centre for Social and Economic Research on the Global Environment), Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), Professor Paul Ekins (Policy Studies Institute), George C Marshall Institute (Washington DC), Dr Indur M Goklany, Professor Michael Grubb (Imperial College, London), Dr Dieter Helm (New College, Oxford), Dr Cameron Hepburn (St High’s College, University of Oxford), Professor David Henderson (Westminster Business School), Mr David Holland, MIEE, Dr Chris Hope (University of Cambridge), Sir John Houghton, International Council for Capital Formation (ICCF), International Policy Network, Sir David King (Chief Scientific Adviser to the UK Government), Professor Richard Lindzen (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), Professor Bjorn Lomborg (University of Aarhus), Professor Angus Maddison, Dr David Maddison (University College London), Professor Ross McKitrick (University of Guelph, Canada), Professor Robert Mendelsohn (Yale University), Professor Nils-Axel Morner (Stockholm University), Professor Julian Morris (University of Buckingham), Professor Nebojsa Nakicenovic (IIASA and Vienna University), Dr R Pachauri (Chairman, IPCC), Dr Peter Read, Professor Paul Reiter (Institut Pasteur, Paris), Research Councils UK, Professor Colin Robinson (University of Surrey), Ms Rosemary Righter (The Times newspaper), The Royal Society, Professor S Fred Singer (University of Virginia), Professor Richard Tol (University of Hamburg), Mr Paul Johnson (HM Treasury), Mr Adair Turner (Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research).

All of their written and oral evidence (including the questions posed by the committee) is available here:

http://www.publications.parliament.uk/pa/ld200506/ldselect/ldeconaf/12/1202.htm

I found this a good resource because, with regards to the climate change debate, the witnesses effectively cover the full scientific and economic spectrum.

The 'hockey-stick' temperature study - talked about in this report - has recently been scrutinised by the US House of Representatives Committee on Energy and Commerce:

http://energycommerce.house.gov/108/Hearings/07272006hearing2001/hearing.htm

 

[mtrycrafts]

Again, thanks for this post. Perhaps some will climb over the fence here, or not.
Unfortunately we tend to put things off until we are in extremes. Too bad.

 

[masak_aer]

It's a good read. Somehow, many of the ideas have been thought of before by many "common" people (no name professors, students, environmental groups, etc. etc.). It's just that it is presented to you in a nice words and form by some Lords and Sirs make it look like it's a newly thought thing.

 

[tbewick]

Yesterday I decided to get round to looking through the transcript of the oral evidence for the House of Representatives investigation into the 'hockey stick' graph. I thought that it would be quicker to look this thread up rather than having to use Google.

What has happened is that the old link no longer works and instead redirects to a 2004 article that criticises the work of Dr Mann, an author who worked on the hockey stick. This article isn't even a governmental report, but is just an informal piece of journalism. I find this utterly bizzare and wonder how this could have happened.

I'm not going to bother re-posting a link to the site, which I eventually found again, because the same thing might happen again. If anyone's interested, the written evidence from three scientists (John Christy, Ralph Cicerone, Jay Gulledge) supported Dr Mann's work. Jay Gulledge argued that the statistical errors in Dr Mann's original paper had a minimal effect on the results of the analysis. Stephen McIntyre, a mathematician, disputed this and said that Dr Mann's work was flawed. Edward Wegman, a statistician, felt that future work of this sort should be more open to independent verification.

 

[pikers]

Of course, since mass climate change takes thousands of years, I guess we can blame Republican cavemen feces emitting too much methane as the impetus.

This is what really annoys me about this issue. How a naturally-occurring phenomenon can be turned into a political issue is beyond me. Next, we'll be measuring the level of change in the colors of leaves during the Fall and attributing that to the occurrence of the RNC.