Further thoughts on carbon taxes
Jun 4, 2012
Bishop Hill in Climate: other, Economics, Tax

After I posted the carbon tax piece last night I was struck by a thought. The argument apparently goes that the uncertainty in climate change means that we should insure against it.

Now, let's suppose that I come up with a theory that our world is in danger of being taken over by a superrace of green lizards from the planet Beetlegeuse. Should we insure against that too?

I guess the question I'm asking is, what are the criteria that determine when a hypothesis of impending danger is sufficiently well-supported that insurance is required.

If a bunch of scientists say their models predict that there's a problem but their models seem unable to forecast anything very much, is that sufficient?

 

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