CPR Member Scholar Frank Ackerman has an interesting piece in the November/December issue of Dollars and Sense magazine. He points out that the opponents of genuine action to prevent climate change have shifted their principal line of argument in an important way. Rather than arguing as they did through much of the 1990s and the first part of this decade that climate change isn’t real, or that it’s overstated, or that it’s a natural phenomenon about which we should not be concerned, or that we're all a bunch of extremist environmental wackos for worrying, they’re now arguing that doing much of anything about climate change will do violence to the economy.
Ackerman observes that opponents are making what is essentially a cost-benefit argument against meaningful action, suggesting that, at most, we should take baby steps so as to minimize economic impact.
Ackerman argues that the conventional cost-benefit analysis just isn’t up to the task of assessing the value of action to prevent further climate change. He writes:
What will it take to build a better economics of climate change, one that is consistent with the urgency expressed by the latest climate science? The issues that matter are big, non-technical principles, capable of being expressed in bumper-sticker format. Here are the four bumper stickers for a better climate economics: Our grandchildren’s lives are important; We need to buy insurance for the planet; Climate damages are too valuable to have prices; and Some costs are better than others.
Ackerman has written for CPR on cost-benefit analysis, including several projects with CPR Member Scholar Lisa Heinzerling. He’s also recently published a book on the failings of cost-benefit analysis in the context of toxics, Poisoned for Pennies: The Economics of Toxics and Precaution.” He and Heinzerling had previously published Priceless: On Knowing the Price of Everything and the Value of Nothing.
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Matthew Freeman | December 10, 2008
CPR Member Scholar Frank Ackerman has an interesting piece in the November/December issue of Dollars and Sense magazine. He points out that the opponents of genuine action to prevent climate change have shifted their principal line of argument in an important way. Rather than arguing as they did through much of the 1990s and the […]
Matt Shudtz | December 10, 2008
Sometime this month, EPA is expected to reach a final determination on regulating perchlorate in Americans’ drinking water. Every indication is that the agency will conclude, despite ample advice to the contrary, that there’s no need for a national standard for the chemical – a component of rocket fuel and munitions. That, even though, by […]
James Goodwin | December 9, 2008
One of many areas in which the Bush Administration has sought to throw sand in the gears of the regulatory process is by tampering with the methods of risk assessment used by regulatory agencies as part of their process of gauging how much regulation, if any, is needed in a certain area. More specifically, […]
Matthew Freeman | December 8, 2008
Shortly before Thanksgiving, a quartet of heavyweight health organizations issued their annual “Report to the Nation on the Status of Cancer.” The principal finding of the study from the National Cancer Institute, the American Cancer Society, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the North American Association of Central Cancer Registries is that the […]
Matt Shudtz | December 5, 2008
Dan Rosenberg of NRDC has an excellent new post up on Switchboard that lays out some ideas for reforming U.S. chemical policies in the wake of the Bush Administration. The ideas include improving the risk assessment process EPA uses to develop its IRIS database, strengthening chemical security measures, re-invigorating right-to-know policies under the Toxic Release […]
Shana Campbell Jones | December 4, 2008
On Tuesday, the U.S. Supreme Court heard oral argument in Entergy Corp. v. EPA. The case involves a challenge by electric utilities to new EPA regulations requiring power plants to protect aquatic life by regulating “cooling water intake structures” at existing power plants. Billions of fish, shellfish, and other aquatic organisms are drawn into these […]
James Goodwin | December 3, 2008
Perhaps no other consequence of global climate change kindles the public’s fears like the prospect of catastrophic sea-level rise. For years now, climate scientists have recognized the potential for increasing global surface temperatures to produce certain kinds of feedback loops that would accelerate the collapse of massive ice shelves in Greenland and Antarctica, leading to […]
Shana Campbell Jones | December 2, 2008
Chief Justice Earl Warren once said he always turned to the sports section of the newspaper first. “The sports page records people’s accomplishments,” he explained. “The front page has nothing but man’s failures.” The Chesapeake Bay has been in the news a lot lately, and its fans aren’t cheering. When it comes to Bay cleanup […]
Margaret Clune Giblin | December 1, 2008
The “land disposal” laws line up on the pages of U.S. history books, reminders of a bygone era when the government of a young nation was striving to find ways to encourage people to move west by giving away public lands at bargain-basement prices. The Homestead Act of 1862, for example, gave settlers title to […]