My first post here was a sketch of my view of the consequences of climate change, that there are both good and bad effects and we do not know enough to say whether the net effects is positive or negative. It now occurs to me that I can say a little more. There are two approaches to answering that question. The first is to ask whether there are general reasons to expect climate change along the predicted lines, a gradual increase in average temperatures due mainly to increased CO2 in the atmosphere, to have net negative effects. The second is to look at specific externalities, make some rough estimate of their size, and add them up. That is a short run effect, relevant over decades but not centuries. Over centuries people can adjust what crops they grow and how they grow them, where they live, how they heat and insulate their houses. More warmth is generally a good thing when you are cold, a bad thing when you are hot. Due to the physics of the greenhouse effect, it warms cold times...
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