There was an excellent Op-Ed piece in the Washington Post this morning by Kristen Sheeran and Mindy Lubber that puts the reverse spin on economist Robert Samuelson's piece there on April 27th was itself a take-down of a number of models proposed for re-engineering the economy.
His argument -- as they note -- behind the pundirty is basically head in the sand: don't know, don't do; until we know how to proceed, we shouldn't change anything. As I noted at the time, that is not how the most effective bureaucracy we have (the military) works.
As one general was quoted as saying about climate change: if we waited for total certainty before we acted, we'd be dead. There is never "enough" information.
One of the odd things is that what Sheeran and Lubber point out is standard market lore -- that given distortion free signals, markets adapt, and so do the consumers that drive them. That Samuelson would not agree with that is astounding to me.
This piece is simple and to the point, and the core concept of it is indeed the core of our problem: carbon (and other ecosystem resources and services) have been priced at zero, and that distorts the market that so the cost of doing nothing about CO2 emissions is too cheap (in market terms) while fixing the problem is by definition more expensive.
As a rule, I always check my spreadsheets for common sense before I rely on them to make important decisions becauuse the assumptions you make, and the formulae that calculate the results often contain hidden errors. (Oddly, that is the structure of Samuleson's piece: don't trust models.) I'm sorry, but common sense -- and my own 35 years working outdoors -- tell me we need to do something, and forward looking economists have known what it is for a long time: knock down the economic transaction box that creates externalities by excluding some classes of sources and sinks (ecosystemic, mostly) and separates micro from macro-economics (and both from the still more inclusive ecological economics.
We need to, as Sheeran and Lubber say in The Cost of Climate Inaction, start down a greener road, and the first step is setting a price on carbon. Once the market swallows that we need to move on to others kinds of emissions, like nitrogen, and then further still to price all ecosystem services. Only then will we have the Great Economy of Berry, that truly reflects the cost of our lifestyle.
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