Nobody Cares About Biden’s Energy Policy. Great!
The plunging costs of solar and wind power have greatly simplified the problem of getting to a low-emission economy. At this point it no longer appears that drastic reductions in emissions will require major changes in the way we live,…
To Ease the Climate Crisis, First Figure Out What Works
This article is part of Climate Solutions, a special report on efforts to make a difference, coinciding with The New York Times Climate Forward conference and Climate Week NYC. For Esther Duflo, a worrying sign of how wealthy nations will…
Pace of Climate Change Sends Economists Back to Drawing Board
Economists have been examining the impact of climate change for almost as long as it’s been known to science. In the 1970s, the Yale economist William Nordhaus began constructing a model meant to gauge the effect of warming on economic…
Why We Don’t Have a Carbon Tax
Three and a half years ago, an open letter that more than 3,600 economists eventually signed declared that “climate change is a serious problem calling for immediate national action.” The signatories included 15 former chairs of the Council of Economic…
This Pioneering Economist Says Our Obsession With Growth Must End
Growth is the be-all and end-all of mainstream economic and political thinking. Without a continually rising G.D.P., we’re told, we risk social instability, declining standards of living and pretty much any hope of progress. But what about the counterintuitive possibility…
The Heat Is Already On
Last week Stuart Kirk, the head of responsible investing (!) for HSBC’s asset management division, gave a talk titled “Why investors need not worry about climate risk,” in which he declared that it’s no big deal: “Who cares if Miami…
Coal Stocks Rise, Even as the Planet Warms
These phenomenal stock returns are awkward, to say the least. The long-term needs of the planet are clear, if the world is to avoid the most catastrophic effects of climate change: Burn much less coal, and cut back on it…
Do We Need to Shrink the Economy to Stop Climate Change?
This article is part of the Debatable newsletter. You can sign up here to receive it on Tuesdays and Thursdays. If there is a dominant paradigm for how politicians and economists today think about solving climate change, it is called…
El mejor truco de la humanidad es trabajar juntos
Grosso modo, la historia de la humanidad tiene que ver con la cooperación. Por separado, nosotros los primates lampiños de cerebro grande somos criaturas bastante ridículas, presa fácil para cualquier Simba con cuerpo de papá que deambule por las llanuras….
What if Humans Just Can’t Get Along Anymore?
At the broadest level, human history is a story about cooperation. Individually, we big-brained, hairless primates are fairly ridiculous creatures, easy pickings for any dad-bod Simba roaming the plains. But get us together and we achieve dominion over land and…
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