A few quick climate hits today:
- The US Congressional Budget Office estimates (pdf link) that the climate legislation recently passed by the US House of Representatives would have a negligible impact on the economy in the near term, reducing GDP “by roughly one-quarter percent to three-quarters of a percent in 2020.” By comparison, CBO expects the economy overall to grow by 30 percent over the period—which makes the effects of Waxman-Markey climate legislation little more than a rounding error. And, besides, as the CBO analysts note, these figures don’t even consider the potential economic benefits of reducing the risks of climate change.
- Meanwhile, the Congressional Research Service chimes in on the climate debate with this piece of wisdom: “Long-term cost projections are at best speculative, and should be viewed with attentive skepticism.” True ‘dat. Anybody who claims to “know” that Waxman-Markey—or anything else, for that matter—will kill the economy is full of it. (Though I suppose the uncertainty applies to the CBO projections as well…)
- Finally, The Onion, America’s finest remaining newspaper, writes about new, previously-unnoticed risks created by melting arctic ice.
