To the AC who missed this most important half of the gasoline "wealth redistribution program", you fail economics. To the moderator who modded Chas's post as "troll", get off my internet. This is a basic observation about the oil trade that everyone should acknowledge from the start.

The two weren't correlated so your crystal ball would be broken.

Well, how much is an island worth? Again, I don't see anyone paying very much to protect these things. If it's not valuable to anyone else, then it's not valuable to me.

And if we're paying for our own externalities, shouldn't we also get compensated for our own externalities with the opposite sign?

How about the Stern report where you take the estimated cost of global warming and divide it by ten. Then take the estimated cost of carbon dioxide emission reductions and multiply them by ten? That's a report that probably has more accurate cost/benefit analysis than the original report.

No, it is a better idea because it reduces highway deaths (in the US) without a significant increase in the cost of driving.

Many tens of millions of people are already banned from driving in the US due to age, driving history, or current state of impairment. What's known about the US situation is that a considerable fraction of accidents in the US come from drivers who are already banned from driving either by not having a license or insurance or by driving while impaired. Something like half of all US accidents involve people who shouldn't be driving at the time due to some combination of these factors.

Here's a counterexample from Texas concerning uninsured drivers.

Partly responsible. Otherwise, I agree. So what? My argument hasn't been that AGW doesn't exist, but that there isn't compelling reason to act on it in a costly way.

What's your willingness to pay out of your own wealth to protect these things? That tells me exactly how valuable these things are. And that's how you transform any preference into a purely economic question.

Here's a propaganda lesson for you. These are first past the post arguments from authority. Just because they existed before most counterarguments were formulated. doesn't mean that they were the best arguments even at the time of their creation. For example, the Stern report's flawed time value factor was readily apparent, meaning that reinterpreting the study through a more appropriate time value is already at the time of the publishing of the Stern report, is already better than the Stern report was.

Huh, I've googled that phrase and have been told it's part of the "Summary for Policy Makers" for the IPCC Third Assessment Report (TAR). But when I actually look at the "Summary for Policy Makers", I see either the 0.2/decade increase for that scenario, baldly presented without error bars (see page 11 of the above link) or presented with far larger error bars (0.1 to 0.3 C/decade presented as 1C to 3+ C increase by end of century and the IS92a predicts near linear increase) than your statement suggests. So why do we have a graph with 0.1 to 0.3 C/decade and a written statement with 0.1 to 0.2 C/decade?

Also, let it be noted that IS92a scenario is not a scenario of the the TAR, but of a previous assessment report. Instead, the TAR presents its own scenarios depending on degree of adoption of non-fossil fuel energy technologies and global dependence on high tech industry. These scenarios uniformly predict a higher temperature increase per decade in the near future than IS92a does, even the scenarios that are more conservative in CO2 emissions.

Looks to me like someone took the boring prediction of 0.1 to 0.2 C per decade in the IS92a scenario and sexed it up to 0.1 to 0.3 C per decade for the graphs, forgetting to change the old written prediction. Here, we need more than merely being in line with inflated expectations. We also need someone who isn't consistently exaggerating the expectations.

There's some glaring abuse of charts as well. The chart on page 17, which claims that the effects of CO2 emissions will even in the face of substantial reductions in CO2 emissions from today will remain at elevated levels indefinitely even over the course of a 1,000 years. But there's nothing on the Y axis. It's touchie feelie curve drawing mixed with a huge assumption about how carbon sinking won't work.

You know, when I get told a story that just doesn't ring true, then I call people on it. And if you really want to be consistent, why don't you take your own advice?

These are non sequiturs. There is evidence in climatology. And economics is a science, should we choose to treat it as such.

I think there's a better chance of a good outcome waiting on a demonstration of the supposed dire nature of global warming. Keep in mind that there's plenty of evidence indicating that the effects of global warming are long in coming, slow to occur, and moderate in effect. It is near trivial for a human civilization to adapt under those circumstances. I don't see the compelling reason to act that a significant, likely asteroid impact would have.

Sure, it is, if they're willing to go through the effort. I don't buy at all the claim that one can't improve their circumstances. I can buy that they aren't sufficient interested in improving their circumstances to go through the effort.

That's moderately unconventional, actually. I doubt most IT people still work in IT. It's a tough field with tough work conditions which is not for most people.

Look at that. Seven categories of choices right there. You already figured it out.

The "right work"? That sounds pretty naive to me right there. My view is merely that you can shop for a better job or merely a different job. Even if you're looking for a characteristic which can't completely go away (such as absence of stress or doing work as you feel like doing it), you still can look for work that is more suited to your desires.

Finally, my observation is based on the bald fact that the developed world, despite the problems it has created for employers, is still a pretty open market for workers. If your current job sucks a lot, you have ready means to look for better work.

So what? I tire of this fake helplessness. Sure, it matters to them how things seem. Sure, it matters that there are negative consequences to be overcome. But how much more of our societies can we afford to sacrifice to people who choose not to better their own lives?

It is a choice that anyone can make in the developed world.

Yes, that is a choice. You can also start your own business or get IT work elsewhere. Now, if you really are so incompetent that you can't do any better than McDonalds as an alternate job, then your employer deserves your gratitude not your spite for giving you a job so much better than what you could find on your own.

I don't see any sign of that. China, for example, is a great supporter of the developed world cutting back at China's benefit. In fact, I think this particular game boils down to the developed world committing economic suicide while China builds up for its chance at being a superpower.

Sure, they do. Just because there are mild, short term, negative consequences doesn't mean you don't have a choice. This whining reminds me of PvP games where people complain that someone who has played the game for a couple of years just so happens to be a better player than the person who signed up yesterday. So here's the usual advice given for delicate flowers: man up, L2P, and flush your victim card down the toilet.

' And workers collude on what they want as well. Not really seeing the reason to care here. This temporary advantage of employers is due both to the considerable increase in supply of global labor over the past few decades and remarkably short-sighted labor policy in the developed world over that same period.