Frank Ackerman: Climate Economics | AlterNet
Here are the four bumper stickers for a better climate economics:Our grandchildren's lives are important
For financial transactions within a single lifetime, it makes sense to use market interest rates as the discount rate. Climate change, however, involves public policy decisions with impacts spanning centuries. ... The choice of an intergenerational discount rate is a matter of ethics and policy, not a market-determined result.We need to buy insurance for the planet
The practical implication of infinite expected damages is that the most likely outcome is irrelevant; what matters is buying insurance for the planet, i.e., doing our best to understand and prevent the worst-case risks.Climate damages are too valuable to have prices
As the 18th-century philosopher Immanuel Kant put it, some things have a price, or relative worth, while other things have a dignity, or inner worth. No price tag does justice to the dignity of human life or the natural world.Some costs are better than others
Public investment is often necessary to support the innovation process in its early, expensive stages. ... If this is a cost, many communities would be better off with more of it.
Source: AlterNet
