[potash]

> There may be a market opportunity for an economist to write a big Piketty-style book on climate change.

Yale economist Bill Nordhaus' Climate Casino is that book. And his research with integrated assessment models concluded:

> The consequences of [climate change] will be costly for human societies and grave for many unmanaged earth systems; the balance of risks indicates that immediate action should be taken to slow and eventually halt emissions of CO2 and other greenhouse gases.

And, by the way, this analysis doesn't even take into account tipping points!

[danieltillett]

Until we as a society face the fact that doing something about climate change required compensating the owners of fossil fuels for not letting them extract them then we are going to get nowhere.

[rgbrenner]

Why would we need to compensate them (Saudi Arabia, Venezuela and other owners) when it's our demand that gives them the ability to sell their product. Since the value of their oil reserves is tens (if not a hundred+) trillion dollars.. it would be cheaper to simply give everyone in the US and Europe a free electric car.

Edit: 100 trillion is so much money.. that we could literally replace every car in the entire world (1 billion cars) with a free tesla and still have money left over.

[danieltillett]

Yes the money involved is massive, but the way politics works is those with something to lose have far more power than those that will gain from any change. This is why tax reform is so difficult. The owners of all the fossil fuels are effectively able to veto all change unless we pay them off. If this is the case lets get on with buying them off.

[swatow]

I'm willing to face any fact that is true, but which owners in particular must be compensated, and why?

What is your specific critique of the carbon tax that the book proposes?

[danieltillett]

The reason why we need to compensate the owners of the fossil fuels is that otherwise they will block any attempt to do anything about climate change. Just considering oil there is around $100 trillion worth still to be pumped out of the ground in the next 30 years. All of this oil is owned by someone and all these someone's are not going to sit back and let their oil be made worthless (this is what would happen if we were to actually do something serious about climate change). Unless we pay off the fossil fuel owners they will continue to block any effective progress.

[swatow]

I disagree. There is no reason to think that just because oil owners stand to lose a lot of money, they will be able to block changes. After all, if they were able to effect arbitrary changes, they could simply force the government to give them another $100 trillion dollars.

The reason countries resist a carbon tax is not the value of oil per se, but the total economic impact, which is primarily from the reduced consumption of fossil fuels etc. (note all existing carbon taxes are on the burning of fossil fuels, not their extraction). The economic impact comes from people being forced to pay for more expensive alternatives. High oil prices don't actually benefit a nation, unless that oil is exported, in which case a national carbon tax won't effect it.

So the real barrier to carbon taxes is international cooperation. But the book argues that the easiest way to create international cooperation is with a global carbon tax (rather than global cap and trade).

[rwallace]

Have the governments of Saudi Arabia, Venezuela etc. actually been blocking progress? If so, how? As far as I can see, the primary blockers of progress on carbon dioxide reduction have been:

1. Environmentalists, interfering with nuclear energy which is the only full substitute available now. (I'm optimistic about solar and wind, but there is much work to be done before they will be more than partial substitutes.)

2. Zoning laws, particularly in the US, encouraging people to drive far more than should be necessary.

3. The US government blocking (for what reason, I don't know) the introduction of a tax on aviation fuel that would cause the price of airline tickets to accurately reflect the real cost.

What are the other major ones? I'm letting the Chinese off the hook for the amount of coal they're burning because they have actually been making a lot of progress; I don't know of any gratuitous blockers there.

[danieltillett]

Yes the governments of OPEC along with the other owners of large oil deposits have been actively blocking progress. Where do think the whole climate change "skeptical" message comes from? The playbook being used is identical to what the tobacco companies used to block effective action on smoking for decades. As a society we would have been far better off buying the tabacco companies out and winding the industry up over time. If we had done this millions of people would still be alive.