Yet another weird SF fan
 I'm a mathematician, a libertarian, and a science-fiction fan. Common sense? What's that?Go to first entry

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 Yet another weird SF fan

### A Quantitative Way to Look at Global Warming

We can look at global warming in terms of the social cost of carbon. If we translate the claims of the various sides into claims of beliefs about the social cost of carbon, we can translate “97% of scientists agree global warming is a problem” to “97% of scientists agree the social cost of carbon is greater than zero.” This is not an argument against someone claiming that the social cost of carbon is only $10 per ton of carbon. In the other direction, “the activists won't stop until they collapse Western Civilization” can be translated into “the activists won't stop until they impose a carbon tax of over$1000 per ton of carbon.” This is not an argument against someone claiming that the social cost of carbon is \$100 per ton of carbon. Can we turn the argument into a discussion of which social cost of carbon is correct?

Disclaimer: It looks like some of the calculations in my last post on the topic confused cost per ton of carbon and cost per ton of CO2. You may want to do your own calculations.

Addendum: An analogy that just occurred to me. You can think of the cap-and-trade vs. carbon taxes controversy as a controversy about dealing with negative externalities by means of commanding that a quota be filled vs. monetary payments. In other words, it resembles the 1960s/1970s controversy of conscription vs. paying enough for a volunteer army (which was a controversy about dealing with positive externalities by means of commanding that a quota be filled vs. monetary payments).