The environmental economist’s biggest strength was in knowing what we do not know
, one of his colleagues observed last year, was not an economist you would expect to encounter on the 7am plane from Boston to Washington. That was not because the retired Harvard University professor, who died on August 27th, lacked influence. On the contrary, his research was cited by policymakers around the world. Nor was it because he objected to flying, although he might have done on the basis of his field, environmental economics.
Uncertainty was the theme that ran through Mr Weitzman’s career. It was also another reason to avoid that Washington shuttle: how could an economist ever make a precise recommendation in such a complex world? He would provide the intellectual machinery for thinking about a problem; others would have to choose the precise settings. For example, perhaps the biggest debate in environmental economics in recent years has concerned discount rates.
Mr Weitzman thought this approach problematic. Climate change, he argued, does not lend itself easily to cost-benefit analysis. Despite advances in climate science, the sensitivity of global surface temperature to atmospheric carbon dioxide remains uncertain. Even if the central case is that a given amount of pollution produces a manageable eventual rise in temperatures, a cataclysmic event, such as global warming of over 6°C, remains worryingly possible.
France Dernières Nouvelles, France Actualités
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