How will reducing greenhouse gas emissions affect the American economy?

Question

Yale has produced a calculator whereby you enter what you consider the likelihoods of various different variables (for example, if you think there's a 75% chance that climate change will result in economic damages to the United States if U.S. emissions are not reduced, you enter 0.75), and it calculates the US economic growth rate over the next 20 years based on that scenario.

http://www.climate.yale.edu/seeforyourself/

Try it out. How will reducing greenhouse gas emissions affect the American economy?

Answer 1

Yale has a lot of smart people, gee, I guess I should believe everything that they say, because well, I didn't go to Yale, and well, I don't have a Masters in Science.

Reducing greenhouse gases to below current levels would be admirable, but let's not forget that China just surpassed the United State for the production of Co2 and 'greenhouse' gasses.  Why not get hardline China, who opposes freedom of speech, freedom of movement and oppresses other countries like Tibet as well as propping up the DPRK and it's horrible dictatorship.

I tend to believe that every question you ask is a loaded question.  So I believe that a lot of the questions you ask are really to perpetuate the falicy that is AGW or GW.

Funny how all that global warming leads to frozen tulips, isn't it? And isn't some ski resort well on the way to breaking 1000 feet of snow for the year?

Remember 30 years ago when "Masters of Science" were saying this:

•“...civilization will end within 15 or 30 years unless immediate action is taken against problems facing mankind,” biologist George Wald, Harvard University, April 19, 1970.

• By 1995, “...somewhere between 75 and 85 percent of all the species of living animals will be extinct.” Sen. Gaylord Nelson, quoting Dr. S. Dillon Ripley, Look magazine, April 1970.

• Because of increased dust, cloud cover and water vapor “...the planet will cool, the water vapor will fall and freeze, and a new Ice Age will be born,” Newsweek magazine, January 26, 1970.

• The world will be “...eleven degrees colder in the year 2000. This is about twice what it would take to put us into an ice age,” Kenneth Watt, speaking at Swarthmore University, April 19, 1970.

• “We are in an environmental crisis which threatens the survival of this nation, and of the world as a suitable place of human habitation,” biologist Barry Commoner, University of Washington, writing in the journal Environment, April 1970.

• “Man must stop pollution and conserve his resources, not merely to enhance existence but to save the race from the intolerable deteriorations and possible extinction,” The New York Times editorial, April 20, 1970.

• “By 1985, air pollution will have reduced the amount of sunlight reaching earth by one half...” Life magazine, January 1970.

• “Population will inevitably and completely outstrip whatever small increases in food supplies we make,” Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.

• “...air pollution...is certainly going to take hundreds of thousands of lives in the next few years alone,” Paul Ehrlich, interview in Mademoiselle magazine, April 1970.

• Ehrlich also predicted that in 1973, 200,000 Americans would die from air pollution, and that by 1980 the life expectancy of Americans would be 42 years.

• “It is already too late to avoid mass starvation,” Earth Day organizer Denis Hayes, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.

• “By the year 2000...the entire world, with the exception of Western Europe, North America and Australia, will be in famine,” Peter Gunter, North Texas State University, The Living Wilderness, Spring 1970.

Oh, and by the way.  Still have 1-2 ft of ice on the lakes here in MN.  Snowed less than 3 days ago.  Spring is 3-4 weeks behind here in MN.  Do you want me to continue, or do I need to remind you that it snowed in Bagdad this past winter, in Jeruselem this past winter.  Do I also need to remind you that Montreal and Vancouver also experienced the worst winter in over 100 years...  Or that Wisconsin, Michigan and Colorado experienced the snowiest winter on record...

Oh, but that's just weather right...?  Just like when it gets 'warm'...

Of course, Al Gore is right, every time a BIG storm happens he is the proverbial ambulance chaser, claiming that AGW or GW is right on target...  I bet he'll fly there on his private jet to see the damage for himself...  The Goracle...  Ooohh  Ahhh....    Why does Al Gore ban all media from  his speeches?  What does he have to hide...?   I think it's neat that he got a Nobel for Peace, note that it was a Nobel prize for Peace, NOT for science...  Is that because GW or AGW isn't based on sound scientific principles?

Oh, and one more thing.  The production of Ethanol for use in cars as a fuel alternative to petroleum based gas, isn't working too well.  I say we drill more domestically, refine more domestically, and build more nuclear power plant, at least 30 of them.

Nice question, but there are more important issues right now than a fancy calculator that was the basis of a Doctoral project.  I'd like to think that lowering the price of oil back to less than $50 per barrel and gas prices down to 1/2 of what they are now would have an even greater affect on the American economy.  Don't you?  If you don't agree with that then you're not as smart as I thought you were.

Answer 2

i think we can assume the worst case scenario, and it looks all fine and dandy to me.....

Answer 3

Almost all of the actions that would reduce greenhouse gas emissions would not only provide more directly tangible environmental and social benefits, but would also serve to re-localize and decentralize the American (as well as the world) economy.

If you're looking to cut fuel use and emissions, what makes more sense, a local farm, or a giant corporate farm in Chile?

What creates more jobs? What provides better quality food? What gets more people involved with knowledge of where their food comes from.

The same can be said of any industry, not just food of course.

Answer 4

I see you have examples, so I won't duplicate them.

I also see that the formula was developed by Robert Repetto, Professor in the Practice of Economics and Sustainable Development, so it's not surprising that his formula would justify the promise of sustainable development.  Nothing wrong with that, and it's good to have people like him looking at the problem.

To interpret the numerical results you have to know what they mean.  If GDP is a what the rate describes, GDP = C + I + G + (X-M).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gdp#The_com...

C = private consumption in the economy. This includes most personal expenditures of households such as food, rent, medical expenses and so on.

Given the huge increases in the prices of food and health care lately, and the outlook for oil increasing the prices of food and housing.  It's not surprising that measures of the economy would go way up.  The estimates of Robert's formulas may be way too low.

So GDP goes up sharply due to escalating prices, but does that mean that citizens are better off?  No, their purchasing power has been destroyed by the cost of survival, plus a global warming tax of $2000/year for a family of four.

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles...

Since a shift of spending has occurred away from other consumer goods (also in C), away from capital/savings, people lose jobs.  When people fall off the time limit of unemployment benefits (if they weren't excluded by the rules int eh first place), they're no longer even counted in the statistics, as if they don't exist.

So beware of government statistics and university formulas.  They paint a rosy picture, but do not necessarily reflect the experience of real people.

Here's what Greenspan says of the current Lieberman global warming tax proposal:

“There is no effective way to meaningfully reduce emissions without negatively impacting a large part of an economy,” Greenspan wrote. “Net, it is a tax. If the cap is low enough to make a meaningful inroad into CO2 emissions, permits will become expensive and large numbers of companies will experience cost increases that make them less competitive. Jobs will be lost and real incomes of workers constrained.”

http://www.businessandmedia.org/articles...

So to put this all in tangible human terms, in 2006 the median annual household income was $48,201.00 according to the US Census Bureau.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_i...

Personal savings rates have dropped to close to zero.

http://www.bea.gov/briefrm/saving.htm

A global warming tax alone would throw millions of average households into negative cash flow, wipe out their discretionary spending, seriously challenge peoples' ability to afford health care, and further challenge the ability of people to save for retirement (creating a future health care and social service nightmare as broke Baby Boomers retire).  That's all before increasing oil prices rise further, and food prices follow in step (they've followed in lockstep in the past, and food is severely underpriced at the moment, even after 40% rise in the past year... it's still catching up to recent oil increases).

I'd like to know what people are smoking that leads them to say that the United States is "rich", or to lead them to conclude, from a misleading statistic such as "the economy (GDP), that we, as people trying to scrathc out a living, will be fine.  It's delusional, and to follow such a smoke screen into the future with no plan to acknowledge or address the underlying issues can only bring tremendous turmoil.

The cap it all off, a piecemeal solution to tackle global warming that does not include developing countries cannot be effective:

"Global problems require global solutions," said EDF atmospheric physicist Dr. Michael Oppenheimer. "For the treaty to be an environmental success, all greenhouse gases must be reduced and a pathway must be created toward the participation of all nations."

http://www.edf.org/pressrelease.cfm?Cont...

We will destroy the lives of real, average Americans, for nothing, since unchecked carbon, soot, deforestation and population growth in developing nations will wipe out developed nation carbon savings.  Through the current misguided and myopic approach we will only succeed in wiping out the capital that we need to apply towards adaptation, until developing nations see the need to get on board a common solution.

Answer 5

Reducing greenhouse gas emissions, primarily CO2 even though it's the weakest of all greenhouse gases, will have costs that are difficult to plug into a calculator. Obviously  we will move to greater energy efficiency, that's always been the trend. The problem is that even though our devices are more energy efficient, we have far more of them than we used to have.

In 1950 there was one black and white tv per household, usually with a tiny screen. It ate a lot of energy. Today's tvs are much more efficient, solid-state electronics, but there are two or more in each household and they consume power even when they're turned off. That's hard to put into a calculator, though Yale seems to have made an attempt. It's ridiculous for them to claim that reducing CO2 by 40% by 2030 will yield a net gain, the EPA has very different figures for that scenario. Even a much more modest decrease in CO2 will reduce our GDP by up to $2.856 Trillion a year by 2050, not counting the taxes and subsidies that will be required.

Joecool, the problem isn't that simple. It's been shown that in the UK, it's actually better (in terms of energy efficiency) to import many goods from New Zealand because it takes so much less energy to grow food, wool and other products there. The energy savings more than offsets the energy used to transport them north. Buying locally may sound good but it isn't always the best answer.

This is a lot like the anti-smoking ads. I'm a life-long non-smoker but when they start to lie to discourage smoking it's more than irritating, it's infuriating. The ends do not justify the means and they never have. I agree we should stop using fossil fuels if for no other reason than they cause air pollution and they're essentially irreplaceable. But the distortions from the IPCC and their friends in the media prevent me from agreeing to any of their proposals. When they feel it's necessary to concoct horror stories that keep kids from sleeping well at night so they'll accept the UN's agenda, they've gone too far.

Answer 6

The calculator is interesting, however J.S. is right on this one.  Economics on a national scale (macro) has so many variables including the human equation, I just would not place a lot of credibility in the conclusions.

Answer 7

My Goodness!  My variables were very pessimistic.  For instance "How likely is it that national policies that make carbon fuels more expensive will stimulate technological innovation that raises energy efficiency or makes renewable energy alternatives less expensive?"  I think the exact opposite is true.  Higher prices mean higher profits, and suppression of alternate energy.  That's all we've seen and that's all we're going to see.  We wouldn't still be using petroleum if anything else were true.  

My predicted outcome was 2.989% growth versus the "business as usual"  (do nothing) outcome of 3.0% growth.

Answer 8

I would but I don't want to condone the premise... Greenhouse gases are a lie.

We do not need to do anything about them any more.

Watch the following BBC documentary.

Answer 9

Sillier than a climate model.

I'd expect that from the Ivy league.

Answer 10

Since energy relies on releasing CO2, then let's say you want to reduce the level of CO2 by 50%. You must then reduce energy consumption by a drastic amount (may not be linear). So tell the manufacturing firm that they can only use their production line 50% of the time. Does production go down? If so, then they lose money and must lay off employees. Multiply this by all the different companies out there, and tell me there will be no effect on the economy. Tell Amazon.com that their servers can only run 50% of the time. Do they lose business? If so, then being that employees make up the majority of business' expenses, where are they going to cut first?

The idea of cutting energy levels is idiotic. we should be working to make energy cheaper and more efficient. I would agree that we should expand nuclear power as it is the most efficient energy. Wind, solar, etc are considerably more expensive. If costs go up, what gets cut first? You got it, employees. Hopefully they can just cut the Pro AGW people and leave the more reasonable employees.

As far as Carbon caps, how about you pay my portion of this bill. That seems fair as you are pushing the agenda.

http://prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl...

Answer 11

To cut green house gasses, you will develop a lot of new industries to which will manufacture solar cells, wind mills, electric cars etc. This will employ a lot of labor, engineers and managers. Now these new industries will create a lot of new jobs and this can only help the American economy.

Also by being one of the pioneers in this clean energy field, you can get a lot of new market overseas and sell your products to other countries and reduce the deficit that is building up in the US economy.

There is no way US economy can prosper by using fossil fuels.

Answer 12

Well, one thing is for certain.  In a few years we will find out.  If you are right, great.   If you are wrong as I and so many others believe, the recession we are in now, will seem like a boom, compaired to what is to come.  For those who seem naive enough to think that when the power plants shut down, and the nation goes dark, that everyone will 'plug' in their solar panels and everything will be fine and dandy well, that is just foolish.  I would love to know how you and those who think as you do, explain how a 100,000,000 people who MUST drive to work and who are currently barely treading water, will be able to run out and buy one of those great new electric cars that does not exist yet.  How if we could, you would charge the batteries on those cars, since part A of your plan is to shut down most of the coal fired power plants?  But that's OK, you forget the hundreds of thousands who work to keep those plants running today, the coal miners, the truckers who haul the coal, the trains that haul the coal, the countless business that provide, the tools and machinery to mine the coal to start with.  Then you have all of the secondary business that reap income form the mining, the restaurants, grocery stores, the auto sells, the schools, the home builders and on and on and on.  Lets not forget the power plant operators and all those involved in keeping them up and running.  millions of people you want to send home.  Do you really think that they will be able to sit right down and start making solar panels?  panels that don't even work?

But that's OK, they are just American jobs right?

Lets look at your auto side of the deal, most can not and will not be able to just buy a 'gas free car'  but as they are fazed in how many will you be willing to put out of work for that?  Who cares if our autos are all made in japan right?  

As far as the answer about food, sure, I cant wait to see NY, or LA or Atlanta when the shelves are empty.  Why?  for the simple fact that if you think you can feed a city of 1, 5, 8 ,million people on locally grown food, you are a complete fool.  Lets see New York when there's no bread, or milk,  I haven't seen too many wheat fields in Yonkers lately.

So, you are going to get your way, and as our nations crumbles and dies, while China Russia India and 80% of the rest of the world, stubs their nose at our insanity, I hope you are around to see it.

I hope you reap exactly what you have sown on the rest of us, who you will force into starvation and poverty.

Answer 13

It will move our economy in a new direction. Greater sustainability, cleaner energy and a move to a more local as opposed to centralized (mega mall/Walmart superstore) economy. Small business will boom and more jobs will be created. The health of the nation will benefit as more people begin to walk to their destinations and at the same time our health care expenditures will be reduced. We will save more energy and be able to re-direct those resources into other areas.

Someone please show me how that is bad.

EDIT - Joecool, I'm not plagiarizing your economic thoughts. I totally agree with you, but I didn't see what you wrote until I was finished..

Answer 14

IT WONT,    IT WAS JUST PART OF AL GORES SCAM TO GET MORE MONEY OUT OF THE PUBLIC, SINCE ALL GAS RISES AND DECIPATE. THE MORE THIN AIR THERE IS THE FASTER IT DECIPATES.

Answer 15

Less is more!

LOL