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Save the Earth in Two Not-So-Hard QuestionsWhat Steven Landsburg doesn't understand about climate change.

By Joseph Romm
Posted Friday, Oct. 26, 2007, at 5:37 PM ET

(Continued from page 1)

Now we know what truly meaningful "quality of life" losses future generations may face: Irreversible destruction of our coasts, hundreds of millions of environmental refugees, whole regions of the planet in permanent or near-constant drought, and massive species extinction on land and sea, to name but a few. (And these impacts are the genuine threat to world peace that Al Gore has sought to warn people about, which justifies his Nobel Prize.)

Which brings us to the second question:

2. Will significant action on climate change require sacrificing our quality of life in any meaningful sense?

You don't need to be an economist to realize the answer is a definite no. I ran the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy under Clinton-Gore, and our research showed that action on climate change does mean we will have to spend a lot of money on carbon-free energy sources—but we will also save a lot of money over the long term. Consider that in terms of electricity consumption, the average Californian generates less than one-third the carbon dioxide emissions of the average American while paying the same annual bill. This has not required sacrifice, just intelligent regulations that encourage energy efficiency and clean energy.

According to a major PricewaterhouseCoopers study (PDF), we can reduce carbon emissions by around 60 percent by 2050, with a total reduction in GDP of just 2 percent to 3 percent. So, either we sacrifice one year of economic growth over the next four decades, or else the next 50 generations will have to sacrifice a livable climate. And this is very similar to the Stern Review's conclusion that Landsburg endorses in his final paragraph. Not a very tough choice—even for noneconomists.

Landsburg seems to believe that only economists can discuss climate change seriously, while the rest of us are wasting everyone's time: "If you're not talking about discount rates and levels of risk aversion, you're blathering." Landsburg's piece proves that you can talk about those things and still be blathering.

Steven E. Landsburg responds:

Nothing that Joe Romm (or Al Gore) can tell us about the dire effects of global warming can tell us how much we ought to spend to combat it. Should we spend 1 percent of our incomes? Five percent? Twenty percent? "A whole lot" is not a useful answer to that question.

Because future generations are among the beneficiaries of climate control, the appropriate expenditure level depends critically on the questions Mr. Romm would prefer to ignore: How much do we care about those future generations? How likely are they to be around in the first place? And how rich are they likely to be?

Those are hard questions. But a refusal to confront them is a refusal to take climate issues seriously. I think climate policy is important enough to think about. Mr. Romm, apparently, prefers to bury his head in the sand.

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Joseph Romm is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, where he runs the blog ClimateProgress.org. He is a former acting assistant secretary of energy and author of the recent book Hell and High Water Global Warming—the Solution and the Politics.
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