In relation to climate change we always hear about the same reasons this increase in global temperature could be devastating to the entire planet. . Information from NASA suggests that sea level would rise, animals would have to move to respective land where they can function in that climate, severe weather conditions, and it could cause heat waves as well as other consequences. However another consequences looms around the corner…
According to a article from The New York Times there will be a substantial economic impact if climate change continues to progress as it has been doing. Due to the underestimation by scientists of the speed of climate change naturally economists would underestimate the costs of this disaster as well. Usually economists will use stationary, past experience of supply and demand of a good or service, to determine how this good or service will preform in the future. However, since the increase in temperature, greenhouse gasses, and carbon dioxide is greater than we have ever experienced we can not use stationary to determine the impact on the economy climate change will truly have. Another problem with the way that economists predict the effect climate change will have is that when they make their assessments of opportunity costs they often omit or assign the value zero to the factors they can not solidly identify. Lastly, one effect that climate change could have on the economy would result in a continuing cascade of problems which would increase the hypothetical problems.
According to the EPA “the uncertainty inherent in economic analyses of environmental regulations is magnified by the long-term and global scale of the problem.” So with this information on exactly how clueless we are about the impact of climate change on our economy how comfortable do you feel with our current situation? What do you think economists could do to change their calculations to better estimate the impacts of climate change?