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Sure there is. Economists have been on this from the beginning. Both what the consequences will be and how to minimise the cost. You are projecting your own ignorance onto everyone else.

One of the things they don't look at is people in poverty. The developing countries have people in poverty diminishing by reliable energy.



Of course there will be those who will say it is not a response to reliable energy.

Ajax wrote on May 3^rd, 2021 at 6:34pm:


Because the consequences of climate action are economic.

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The settled science is the impacts of ongoing GHG emissions. The settled economics is the cost of reducing GHG emissions: a tax is the cheapest way to reduce GHG emissions, and the cost is capped at replacing our electricity supply with a renewables based system. That is, the cost of renewables and appropriate storage is the maximum cost of climate change avoidance.

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The government should get out of the way and let it happen. How much storage we *should* have depends on how much people actually value peak electricity. At the moment people are charged the same amount regardless of the real price. The "problem" would likely disappear with more rational pricing.

It also depends how you define storage. A peaking gas fired power station with 500 years supply of gas could be counted as storage for example. As could a hydroelectric facility, even if it is not pumped storage, if it can consume water at a faster rate than enters into the dam. As could an electric car plugged into a two way charger. As could a hot water system. People will find all sorts of creative ways to store energy as soon as the need arises.

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Economists frame everything in terms of how much value people place on it. The appropriate price on GHG emissions for example depends on how much value people place on having a climate free from them and their effects. This includes both the direct financial costs (insurance premiums going up) and the value that people place on the environmental impacts.

That's the economics. But at the end of the day they are also people. Economics is not a religion. You will find just as many lunatic skeptics and extreme lefties among them as you would among lawyers, doctors etc.

But they still all agree on the economics. That's why the economist that either you or Lee recently held up as some kind of hero is in favour of carbon taxes.

Also, economists do not necessarily benefit from the new markets more than anyone else. You are inventing yet another a vague, miserable, mindless conspiracy. The good ones tend to be academics. They are not suddenly going to be running an emissions bank or trading platform by virtue of having an economics degree. The people who do have a stake are shareholders in coal mines and coal fired power plants etc. That's why they are doing their best to steer the government towards a trading scheme rather than a tax, with the expectation that they will be gifted valuable emissions rights that the government then has to buy back.

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And your point is?

Ajax wrote on May 3^rd, 2021 at 6:34pm:


well, for example, if we raise the cost of energy by, say, denying the poor in india and africa  cheap coal to cook on, they will have no option but to chop down the forrests to cook dinner.

so science is usurped by economics