A few further thoughts about climate economics. I've noted before that a peculiar thing happens to conservative brains when they consider policies to mitigate pollution 1/ vox.com/2020/1/23/2107…
Ordinarily, the right has infinite faith in the creativity and adaptability of the private sector. But it somehow believes that businesses would simply curl up into sobbing balls if faced with, say, a carbon tax — as opposed to finding innovative ways to respond 2/
We've seen this movie before. Business groups warned that measure to limit acid rain would be catastrophically costly; they overestimated the costs at least tenfold 3/ blogs.edf.org/climate411/201…
And for what it's worth, there's overwhelming support — bipartisan support, although sensible conservatives are, I believe, in denial about what the GOP has become — among economists for carbon pricing 4/ clcouncil.org/economists-sta… 
I'd argue that the Econ 101 argument for pollution control actually understates the case: the tail risks of climate change are huge, while induced innovation makes reducing emissions even cheaper than standard econ suggests. But you don't have to believe me to debunk Mnuchin 5/
