Friedman Reviews Nordhaus on Global Warming
20th March 2012
David Friedman is a wellspring of good sense.
Even if one takes seriously the output of that sort of procedure, there is a striking asymmetry in their approach. They do not appear to have asked any experts what the chance is that preventing global warming would cause a catastrophe—or, to put it differently, that global warming will prevent one. Yet, as I keep pointing out, earth’s climate was not designed for us, hence there is no a priori reason to assume that large negative results due to a few degrees of warming are more likely than large positive ones.
In other words, we have no clue whether the total effect of ‘global warming’, assuming that it even exists, will be a bad thing rather than a good thing.
Be sure to read the comments.