Re:Room Temperature Superconductor Drama and Hope
by dredmorbius on Sunday July 30, 2023 @07:41PM
(#36937213)
The question was "pray tell are your objections to the economic theory behind the DICE models?" Which Keen's essay addresses.
Addressing the shifted goalposts in your "by Keen's math" follow-up: if you're referring to the "rational function" introduced before the fourth-to-last paragraph, note what the context is:
A model that only applies in conditions where it is not needed, when you don’t have an alternative when it is needed, is worse than useless. ... This can easily be illustrated by replacing Nordhaus’s quadratic with a very similar one that does have tipping points.
And Keen specifically chooses a tipping point of +4°C, based on the paper Nordhaus himself cites and Nordhaus's admission that business as usual (BAU) would lead to a +4°C temperature rise by 2100.
The equation also fits observed data.
The point isn't to demonstrate that this is the correct equation, but to show that on the same basis as Nordhaus used to choose his own modeling function, very different results can be demonstrated.
Which Keen makes more than abundantly clear:
Contrary to Nordhaus’s assertion that caution is needed “when using [his model] for large temperature increases”, his model is unreliable for temperatures that are well within the levels on which he has made pronouncements about what global warming will do to GDP.
Addressing the shifted goalposts in your "by Keen's math" follow-up: if you're referring to the "rational function" introduced before the fourth-to-last paragraph, note what the context is:
A model that only applies in conditions where it is not needed, when you don’t have an alternative when it is needed, is worse than useless. ... This can easily be illustrated by replacing Nordhaus’s quadratic with a very similar one that does have tipping points.
And Keen specifically chooses a tipping point of +4°C, based on the paper Nordhaus himself cites and Nordhaus's admission that business as usual (BAU) would lead to a +4°C temperature rise by 2100.
The equation also fits observed data.
The point isn't to demonstrate that this is the correct equation, but to show that on the same basis as Nordhaus used to choose his own modeling function, very different results can be demonstrated.
Which Keen makes more than abundantly clear:
Contrary to Nordhaus’s assertion that caution is needed “when using [his model] for large temperature increases”, his model is unreliable for temperatures that are well within the levels on which he has made pronouncements about what global warming will do to GDP.