Analysis
Climate Change
Our position
Climate change is real, caused by human greenhouse gas emissions and land use change, and a wicked problem that will be managed rather than solved. But representations of climate change as an existential threat to humanity have broken loose from scientific assessments. Long-run emissions trends track macroeconomic forces and technological change, not the stringency of climate rhetoric or targets. Weather-related disaster impacts upon humans and the economy hinge far more upon wealth, resilient infrastructure, and government capacity than they do upon the level of warming, emphasizing the critical importance of adaptation measures and human development. Catastrophism persists not because the evidence demands it or because of any meaningful political results it produces, but because professional incentives and political identity reward vivid rhetoric.
Start here
Three pieces the team says to read first
Ten Words You Can't Say About Climate Change
There Is No Climate Tipping Point
Analysis
Do Climate Attribution Studies Tell the Full Story?
Climate Change work
Research, analysis and everything we have put on the record: comments, testimony, statements, letters and endorsements.
Showing 55–60 of 79
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Analysis
When Activist Research Contradicts the Consensus
A new paper attacks the established consensus on the costs of climate change and is welcomed with open arms
· Alex Trembath, Patrick Brown
Analysis
Gaslighting Intergenerational Equity
What Policy Choices Reveal About the Social Discount Preferences of the Climate Movement
· Ted Nordhaus
Analysis
Are Floods Dramatically Increasing Due to Climate Change? (Part Two)
On flood exposure and vulnerability
· Patrick Brown
Analysis
Are Floods Dramatically Increasing Due to Climate Change?
Part one of a two-part series: The natural hazard of floods.
· Patrick Brown
Analysis
The Social Feedback Loops That Constrain Climate Science
Self-reinforcing feedback loops in the climate system garner a lot of attention, but less-appreciated social feedback loops affect the generation of climate science itself, with real consequences
· Patrick Brown
Analysis
The Gas Bridge Revisited
Even Leaky Gas is Better Than Coal
· Alex Trembath, Jonah Messinger
55–60 of 79
Who to talk to
Ted Nordhaus
Founder and President Email
Latest: The Original Environmental Economist: RIP Uncle Bill
Questions
Is climate change real?
Yes. Earth’s global average temperature is warming, primarily because human activities have increased atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations.
How much of climate change is caused by humans?
The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) concludes that essentially all observed global warming since the late 19th century is attributable to human influence. Greenhouse gas emissions have caused substantial net warming that dwarfs the effects from natural factors.
Can climate change be reversed?
Climate change can be slowed and eventually stabilized through decarbonization. However, due to the long residence time of carbon dioxide and some other greenhouse gases in the Earth’s atmosphere, reversing climate change after stabilization has been achieved will be very difficult without carbon removal at vast scales.
Will the world still be livable in 2050?
Climate change will create serious challenges but will not make the world uninhabitable by 2050. Pathways for the Earth’s future warming diverge relatively later in the 21st century, such that climate and weather variability in 2050 will feel relatively indistinguishable in most regions from the climate of today.