Climate Economics: News & Media
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In the News
A sampling of recent media mentions of our team members and our work. Some sites may require registration.
Frank Ackerman in The Hill on oil use and climate legislation
The Washington, D.C.-based newspaper The Hill quotes Frank Ackerman on the United States' oil dependence, how proposed climate legislation would affect it, what is really needed to significantly reduce oil use. For more on the topic, see Frank's post on the CPR blog, "Would Passing Climate Legislation Reduce Our Dependence on Oil?"
Solutions review of Can We Afford the Future?
Richard B. Howarth, editor-in-chief of the journal Ecological Economics, reviews Frank Ackerman's 2009 book Can We Afford the Future? The Economics of a Warming World in the latest issue of Solutions, published June 28, 2010. He calls it an "important" book that frames climate economics as an lively and compelling narrative informed by a "comprehensive and fully up-to-date understanding" of the academic literature." Read the review here.
Frank Ackerman on Grist
Grist, the environmental news and opinion website, has a new article by Frank Ackerman, "What would happen if we admitted to the high risk of deepwater drilling?" The piece, published June 28, 2010, and widely circulated online, asks what would happen to oil prices if we admitted that the era of cheap, safe oil is over, and that maintaining a steady supply now requires extraordinary risks. Read the article here.
Coverage of The Social Cost of Carbon
"The social cost of carbon," guest post by Kate Sheppard on Ezra Klein's blog, WashingtonPost.com, June 1, 2010
"Government Lowballing 'Social Cost of Carbon' in Regulations, Economists Charge," by Dave Levitan, SolveClimate, May 25, 2010
"U.S. economists fear setting social carbon cost may go astray," by Nuel Navarrete, EcoSeed (green news Web site), April 6, 2010
"What is the right price for carbon?" by Evan Lehmann, ClimateWire, also posted on Scientific American (Web only), April 2, 2010
"Study: US setting cost of carbon perilously low," Greenbang (blog), April 2, 2010
"Economist network speaks up on carbon pricing," Sustainable Business Oregon, April 1, 2010
TIME.com: Putting a Price Tag on the Melting Ice Caps
An April 3, 2010, article on a recent study by our E3 Network colleague Eban Goodstein includes Frank Ackerman's perspectives on the social cost of carbon and its role in climate policy. Read it here.
Frank Ackerman on "Your Call," KALW 91.7 FM (San Francisco)
National Public Radio affiliate KALW 91.7 FM, in San Francisco, invited Frank Ackerman on its "Your Call" show on April 6, 2010, to speak about President Obama's energy policies, offshore drilling and nuclear power, and how U.S. climate policies are taking shape. Learn more about the show here, or visit the show's blog for a recap and a podcast (MP3).
Op-ed: In Copenhagen, all eyes are on us
In this op-ed article, published Dec. 13, 2009, in The MetroWest Daily News (Framingham, MA) and 10 other newspapers as far as Oklahoma and Minnesota, Frank Ackerman explains why the 15th United Nations conference on climate change is so important, and urges President Obama to offer serious U.S. emission reductions plans and substantial new investments in climate solutions, at home and abroad. Read the op-ed here, or download a PDF here.
Washington Post Op-Ed: We can afford to save the planet
In this op-ed article, published Oct. 23, 2009, in The Washington Post, Eban Goodstein, Frank Ackerman and Kristen Sheeran argue that in light of new science suggesting that only a reduction to 350ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere can avert potential catastrophic climate change, we need to "rethink what is possible" and aggressively curb emissions. Drawing on the findings of The Economics of 350, they argue that investments of roughly 1 to 3 percent of global GDP would ensure a successful transition to clean and renewable energy sources, replenish global forests, and stabilize the climate. Download a PDF of the article here.
On the Web
New Blog: Public Goods: The economics of climate, equity and shared prosperity
Liz Stanton has started a blog on climate economics, with multiple posts per week covering public policy, recent research and more, with occasional guest posts by Frank Ackerman and other economists. Visit the blog here; to follow Liz on Twitter, go to twitter.com/publicgoods.
Frank Ackerman on the TripleCrisis blog
Our colleagues at GDAE, the Economic Research Foundation, and the Heinrich Böll Foundation have launched a blog on the "triple crisis" faced by the world with finance, development, and the environment, and Frank Ackerman is contributing to it. Visit the TripleCrisis blog here, or go directly to Frank's author page here.
Real Climate Economics website
Frank Ackerman played a leading role in the development of RealClimateEconomics.org, a new website launched in April 2009 by the Economics for Equity and the Environment Network (E3) to show the large body of economics analysis in peer-reviewed literature that supports immediate, large-scale policy responses to the climate crisis. Click here to visit the site.
Multimedia, Audio & Video
What's Wrong with Cost-Benefit Analysis?
June 3, 2010
Abt Associates is one of the largest research and consulting firms in the world, used as a resource by a wide range of public and private entities to help solve complex problems, often using cost-benefit analysis. But how effective a tool is is cost-benefit analysis when trying to decide, say, how much workplace safety and health are worth, or what we should do about climate change? In this presentation, for an internal seminar series at Abt, Frank Ackerman explains where cost-benefit analysis falls short. Click here for a PDF of his PowerPoint presentation, or click here to listen his presentation (MP3 stream).
The Social Cost of Carbon
May 24, 2010
How can we quantify future damages from carbon emissions? Frank Ackerman was one of three featured speakers in a webinar hosted by Climate Change Economics, a program to support state legislatures' work on environmental issues, on the social cost of carbon. Largely inspired by the recently published white paper by Ackerman and Liz Stanton, The Social Cost of Carbon, the event also featured Laurie Johnson, an economist at Natural Resources Defense Council, and Peter Dorman, an economist from Evergreen State College in Washington. Click here to watch a video.
Climate and the Regional Economics of Development
May 19, 2010
There's a growing acknowledgment that to be effective, climate policy must go beyond controlling emissions and putting a price on carbon; it must also consider countries' economic needs and the need for equity. Working with analyst Ramón Bueno, Frank Ackerman has developed a model, CRED (Climate and the Regional Economics of Development), to show how different choices would affect outcomes around the world. This PowerPoint presentation, updated from a previous version posted here, explains the model.
Tisch Library Author Talk: Can We Afford the Future?
February 25, 2010
Frank Ackerman, who in 2009 published Can We Afford the Future? The Economics of a Warming World (London: Zed Books), outlined some of the key ideas in the book, complete with slides and a Q&A period, as part of the Tisch Library's Author Talk series. Watch a video recorded by members of the Tufts Roundtable.
Cap and Trade: A Critical Look at Carbon Trading
December 15, 2009
The Waxman-Markey bill approved by the U.S. House of Representatives in June has been praised but also criticized for its proposal to create a cap-and-trade mechanism for carbon dioxide emissions permits in the United States.
At the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen, Frank Ackerman joined Larry Lohmann from Corner House in a Democracy Now! TV debate on the pros and cons of the bill. Watch the full discussion here, or watch it in two parts on YouTube: Part 1 and Part 2.
An introduction to climate economics
April 28, 2009
As a guest speaker at Boston University, Frank Ackerman offered a brief, easily accessible introduction to climate economics introduction to climate economics, drawn in part from his 2009 book, Can We Afford the Future? The Economics of a Warming World (London: Zed Books). Watch a
video on the BU website.