CLIMATE CHANGE - "Climate Shock"

"How the benefits of climate action may outweigh the costs" PBS NewsHour 12/3/2015

Excerpt

SUMMARY:  For two economists, the probability of true catastrophe due to human-caused global warming prompted them to write "Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet," which examines looming dangers and possible solutions.  Economics correspondent Paul Solman takes a look at how we might weigh the costs and benefits of taking serious action to prevent disaster.

JUDY WOODRUFF (NewsHour):  Diplomats in Paris have spent much of this week trying to work on a new accord on climate change and emissions cuts.  Much of it is aimed at holding the rise in global temperatures to about two degrees Celsius.  Last night, William Brangham explained why that threshold is so important.  Tonight, Economics Correspondent, Paul Solman reprises his look at an even more dire scenario.  It’s part of our weekly segment “Making Sen$e”, which airs every Thursday on the Newshour.

MARTIN WEITZMAN, Harvard University:  So, look, you can start to see erosion along here.

PAUL SOLMAN (NewsHour):  Economist Marty Weitzman thinks his property on a marsh in Gloucester, Massachusetts, is washing away due to climate change.

MARTIN WEITZMAN:  The water has risen a couple of inches in the time, in the 40 years I have been living here.

PAUL SOLMAN:  Right.

MARTIN WEITZMAN:  And what’s happened is that it’s caused erosion at the edge of the lawn.

PAUL SOLMAN:  Well, but a couple of inches doesn’t seem like much.

MARTIN WEITZMAN:  Maybe that wouldn’t be, but it’s really a couple of feet that we’re headed for.

PAUL SOLMAN:  A couple of feet, or conceivably, several dozen, says Gernot Wagner, a former student of Weitzman's who’s now at the Environmental Defense Fund.

GERNOT WAGNER, Environmental Defense Fund:  Last time concentrations of CO2 were as high as they are today, we did in fact have sea levels up to 66 feet higher than today.  Well, 66 feet and this house is gone.

PAUL SOLMAN:  Now, Weitzman and Wagner can’t know for sure, of course, that manmade higher temperatures are rising the tides here or anywhere else, but a plausible probability of true catastrophe was enough to prompt “Climate Shock,” about the dangers that lurk, dangers Weitzman wasn’t worried about when he first went into environmental economics years ago.