Cities are on my mind because I have been reading Climatopolis: How Our Cities Will Thrive in the Hotter Future, by Matthew Kahn. It is a short, accessible, engaging book of a sort that can be either good or bad, depending on the knowledgeability of the author. Climatopolis, as it happens, is very good. Kahn, an economist at the University of California at Los Angeles and a protégé of Gary Becker (of the University of Chicago), has extensive experience in carbon policy and a solid grounding in climate science.
There’s not the slightest doubt in Kahn’s mind that global warming is underway and that it is essentially irreversible. On the expected response to it, he distinguishes between the views of behavioral and neoclassical economists. Behavioral economists, he says, “have a fundamentally pessimistic view of humans as lazy and myopic and unwilling to sacrifice for their long-term good.” In contrast, he says, “neoclassical economists view people as forward-looking and willing to make choices today in response to anticipated threats.”
I’m not certain that the distinction is nearly as simple as that. And I doubt that Kahn is entirely correct when he writes, “We’re not all on board one big ship that we can save through one big collective decision. Instead we’ll be ‘saved’ by a multitude of self-interested people armed only with their wits and access to capitalist markets.” I have a hunch that social choice and collective action are going to turn out to be pretty important, too. (He doesn’t mention, for example, the 1987 Montreal Protocol aimed at limiting substances that deplete the ozone layer.)
via www.economicprincipals.com
I've almost finished reading Mistress of the Art of Death [I was up 'til 12:30 am last night when things got good] and next up is Climatopolis. Stayed tuned for a chapter by chapter evisceration (kid-ding!).
