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1 - yes crazy but true
2 - interestingly, economists of Nordhaus's type have no concept of dread (I asked the late Frank Ackerman)
3 - which, I think, means they have no real understanding of price, either
2 - interestingly, economists of Nordhaus's type have no concept of dread (I asked the late Frank Ackerman)
3 - which, I think, means they have no real understanding of price, either
4 - how the world actually works (here describing one of the biggest emission sources):
chron.com/life/article/H…
chron.com/life/article/H…
5 - Eugenia Kalnay, climate scientist & a student of Jule Charney (so, dating back to when Nordhaus began his work in the 1970s), has long suspected 'integrated assessment models' of economics & climate miss crucial elements. An insightful paper from her: sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
To think about the HANDY model and compress the story of the last four decades into one perspective: Trump isn't the point, left/right political issues like healthcare, gun control, or immigration are not the point, and climate action or inaction isn't really the point.
The point is the inexorable concentration of wealth, and all these other issues are just artifacts of the process. Piketty, & others, have helped clarify the process, too. The governance, or public power, that can handle climate is an impediment to the concentration of wealth.
In any case, the HANDY model explains the existence of a lot of anomalies (and one may be Nordhaus's Nobel). In order to keep the party going, the power centers need a story.
Climate was recognized as an existential problem decades back, by the same science-educated society that enabled it. nixonlibrary.gov/sites/default/…
But questioning growth was anathema to both the legacy structure of society, and to the meritocratic power structure that was supplanting it. (And economists themselves were the intellectual shock troops meant to keep things in line.)
psmag.com/magazine/falla…
psmag.com/magazine/falla…
Slowing growth would mean that the only way to concentrate wealth would be open cannibalization. (Not coincidentally...)
vox.com/policy-and-pol…
vox.com/policy-and-pol…
Understanding the role of wealth concentration and the role of elites can change the way one views climate as an issue. On this graph, elites might *always know* about climate, but not be able to shake the need to concentrate wealth. sciencedirect.com/science/articl…
This fits what we see. Just out of the latest news, Stephen Ross manages to both be on the board of WRI:
wri.org/profile/stephe…
wri.org/profile/stephe…
...and a Trump fundraiser:
nydailynews.com/news/national/…
nydailynews.com/news/national/…
John Paulson endowed Harvard's School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, @hseas, which means he can call up Dan Schrag with his climate questions.
seas.harvard.edu/directory/schr…
seas.harvard.edu/directory/schr…
Paulson is also a Trump backer:
vanityfair.com/news/2016/11/j…
vanityfair.com/news/2016/11/j…
Schwarzman at Yale, and others, are parallel examples. So are tech firms and banks. They 'know' about climate, but wealth comes first. The kind of governance necessary is an impediment. Tech in particular has low risk/hi impact ways to contribute (communications, etc) & doesn't.
The absence and/or negative effect of big tech firms is interesting, considering the enormous positive impact they could have.
And the reverse effect they are having.
nytimes.com/2019/08/11/wor…
nytimes.com/2019/08/11/wor…
An even better diagnostic is gun control; virtually everyone at the elite level would be 'against' America's epidemic of shootings, but remains a direct or tacit backer of the GOP, which in turn depends on the NRA to deliver votes that can then be used to deliver tax cuts.
Anyway. This is scary, but at least we can figure it out, and it clarifies some things. 'Science education,' just like 'gun control education,' is not really the issue at the elite level. See Paulson and Ross above, or Harvard itself, for examples. theguardian.com/environment/cl…
So let's let go of the "science education" story at least among elites, and see what else might work. Wealth concentration depends on harnessing talent. Our goal should be getting off the HANDY pathway to a bad outcome, and this may be the place to look.
This social contract problem has an amazing parallel, 2000 years ago. The Paulson/Ross/Harvard kind of apparent anomalies are well explained here.
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…
press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book…
Remember that Paulson (largest donor to @harvard) and Ross (on the board of @WorldResources) are earlier in this thread, which ends with this:
The challenge of being an oligarch is *remaining* an oligarch, and when that's at stake, apparently, anything goes. Here's an explanation: vanityfair.com/news/2019/08/t…
History gives us a tutorial on how people choose to live their lives, and the results. The lesson for Stephen Ross might be: take responsibility for your own life, and then your actions can be liberating, as demonstrated by Greta Thunberg.
In other news, YouTube has agreed to use their $1B per month profit to buy us a new planet, with a new, intact Amazon, when they are done monetizing this planet. nytimes.com/2019/08/11/wor…
