Alligators in the Arctic and How to Avoid Them: Science, Economics and the Challenge of Catastrophic Climate Change

Description

Climate change is a matter of extreme urgency. Integrating science and economics, this book demonstrates the need for measures to put a strict lid on cumulative carbon emissions and shows how to implement them. Using the carbon budget framework, it reveals the shortcomings of current policies and the debates around them, such as the popular enthusiasm for individual solutions and the fruitless search for 'optimal' regulation by economists and other specialists. On the political front, it explains why business opposition to the policies we need goes well beyond the fossil fuel industry, requiring a more radical rebalancing of power. This wide-ranging study goes against the most prevalent approaches in mainstream economics, which argue that we can tackle climate change while causing minimal disruption to the global economy. The author argues that this view is not only impossible, but also dangerously complacent.

Peter Dorman is Professor Emeritus of Political Economy at the Evergreen State College in Olympia, Washington.

'In this book, at once sophisticated and eminently readable, Peter Dorman cuts through the fog to explain the economics of climate change. His sobering tour de force, graced with rays of hope, should be read by all who care about our planet's future.' James K. Boyce, University of Massachusetts Amherst 'A thoughtful economist's hard-headed assessment of the costs of climate change, the costs of doing something about it, and how we can move forward in the context of our current political system.' Andrew Gelman, Columbia University 'It's the carbon, stupid. Peter Dorman understands the science of our climate crisis, and the economics. He says they don't fit. Because the kind of climate feedbacks that once put alligators in the Arctic lurk again; and because the rich people in charge of climate policy don't want us to know the truth. If it comes down to the wire, in a battle between carbon and capital, carbon will win every time. Dorman has some ways out. But, like the doctor said, 'this will hurt.'' Fred Pearce, University College London