From Common Tragedies:
Today, Yale’s School of Forestry & Environmental Studies posted a new website developed by economics professor Robert Repetto. In a way that anybody can easily understand, it synthesizes the results of thousands of policy simulations from 25 economic models being used to predict the economic impacts of reducing U.S. carbon emissions. To try this new website, just click on http://www.climate.yale.edu/seeforyourself. This website identifies the seven key assumptions accounting for most of the differences in the models’ predictions. It shows that even under the most unfavorable assumptions regarding costs, the U.S. economy is predicted to continue growing robustly as carbon emissions are reduced. Under more favorable assumptions, the economy would even grow more rapidly if emissions are reduced than if they are allowed to continue to increase as in the past. Even better, this new website allows site visitors to decide how likely they think each of the seven key assumptions are, and on that basis see for themselves what economic impacts all the leading economic models would predict, if carbon emissions are reduced by specific percentages over the next two decades. If you visit this site, you can make your own assumptions about the key factors that will influence the costs of stopping climate change and see the results.
I took the survey and under my assumptions (1, .8, .4, .7, 1, 1, .6 and 20%), as advertised above, the economy will grow faster than under business as usual (click on the thumbnail). I don't believe this can happen due to the concepts of scarcity and opportunity cost. Please explain. Will gains in labor productivity explode (are Americans that unhealthy right now?). Will new technology lead to cold fusion?
