Economic Principals reviews Nordhaus' A Question of Balance:
No issue throws off more apprehension and confusion among a certain set than does global warming. Since the Norwegians last year propelled Al Gore’s film documentary, “An Inconvenient Truth,” into the stratosphere by awarding half a Nobel Peace Prize to the former presidential candidate ..., the proposition that continuing industrialization is going to require some extensive mitigation of its effects on the atmosphere has become much more widely accepted.
But what? How much? Where? And when?
A new book, A Question of Balance, by William Nordhaus, casts more intense light on these matters than any other. Nordhaus, of Yale University, is a master economist, a gifted expositor, a canny rhetoretician. Most important, he is a scientific diplomat. He has been in constant touch for many years with a wide range of experts in other fields, not just natural scientists ... and social scientists ..., but designers of the human-built world as well .... It is unlikely that we will see a better framework for discussion of these issues for many years.
