Climate Shock by Gernot Wagner

Author:Gernot Wagner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Princeton University Press
Published: 2015-06-29T16:00:00+00:00

Epilogue

A Different Kind of Optimism

The evidence is overwhelming: levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are rising. Temperatures are going up. Springs are arriving earlier. Ice sheets are melting. Sea level is rising. The patterns of rainfall and drought are changing. Heat waves are getting worse as is extreme precipitation. The oceans are acidifying.

THESE WORDS COME FROM the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS a.k.a. “triple-A, S”). The report is surprising only for the direct language it uses. None of these conclusions advances science itself. As the title of the report suggests, they simply describe “What We Know.”

WHAT WE KNOW IS BAD, WHAT WE DON’T IS WORSE

Any homeowner would be well advised to fix the boiler in danger of overheating or the leaky valve at the gas stove, lest either end in catastrophe. But in addition, most homeowners take out fire insurance for the unlikely event that the entire house burns down in a freak accident.

That’s not wishing for catastrophe to strike. It’s not alarmism. It’s the prudent move. In the unlikely event of a fire destroying the entire home the cost would be too large to skimp on the insurance premium.

Ironically, it’s precisely those insurance premiums for catastrophic events like floods and droughts where the effects of climate change on our wallets may be hitting home the soonest. Federal flood insurance is heavily subsidized for all sorts of messy political reasons. It shouldn’t be, as it encourages homeowners to build in particularly risky areas. And it won’t take many more hurricanes hitting New York City to lead to necessary reforms of the entire system, which will make it that much more expensive to own a home in a flood zone.

Increasingly intense hurricanes, more floods, more droughts, not to say anything of rising temperatures and rising seas are what we know is happening and will continue to happen. Tallying those effects—at least the bits we can, in fact, put a dollar figure on—results in a minimum cost of $40 per ton of carbon dioxide we pump into the atmosphere today. But on average, the world isn’t considering anything close to these costs. The average global price is closer to negative $15 per ton, considering the massive fossil fuel subsidies in many countries.

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