Don't Exaggerate the Costs of Global Warming

Pretend there’s a problem with your sink that prompts you to call a plumber and ask for his advice (you may even consult one plumber for information and then use another one to perform the repairs to avoid giving the first an incentive to exaggerate estimates of what’s wrong). If you don’t know anything about sinks or pipes, it’s very unlikely that you will argue with his conclusions about what to do. Yet this is exactly what happens in American politics all the time. Experts give their advice, and then completely unqualified people voice angry opinions about their own preferred solution to the problem. 

This means that inaction on global warming would, under very conservative parameters, cost us less than 1% of total economic gain during this time. Remember this number comes from assuming that the world economy does not grow each year and that the damage done by CO2 is estimated at the highest credible value.

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