In this audio podcast, I talk about a 2024 PNAS paper. First some background; David Keith has received plenty of attention about his work and his advocacy for geoengineering. In short, he wants to launch some major scientific field experiments to cool our planet to mitigate the consequences of climate change.
In 2024, he and his co-authors published this paper in PNAS. You can read it here.
In this audio podcast, I discuss his claims about global mortality caused in the year 2080 by extreme heat. The economic benefits of geoengineering is larger if he is correct that the death count from high heat will be this high. I reject his claim. He ignores endogenous adaptation progress. In this podcast, I explain.
If my arguments interest you, take a look at my 2021 Yale University Press book and my 2010 Climatopolis books.
Many climate scientists who make long run predictions ignore endogenous technological change in conducting their analysis. We have strong incentives to anticipate the emerging challenges we face and to seek out market solutions to help us to adapt. Entrepreneurs have strong incentives to design these products for us. This dynamic Hayek process protects us. Yes, this process is messy but it occurs each day. Doom and gloom predictions thus over-state the future consequences we will experience because we will be better prepared for these future punches then today’s climate scientists believe. We are not passive victims here!
A final thought here. Don’t forget the concept of option value. Suppose that in the year 2060, we learn that the world has heated up more than we expected AND the mortality rate as a function of temperature has not flattened over time. In this case, high heat does pose a death risk. At that point, we can roll out the geoengineering options and I bet that by that time that we will have improved geoengineering strategies. So, there is a real option value to develop geoengineering strategies but not to launch them yet. Using AI, researchers such as Keith must be able to simulate their projects in the lab but for now avoid the field.
Take a look at this “flattening mortality/temperature gradient” across the USA in recent decades. The black line shows the ever declining relationship between high heat in a state and the state’s death rate. We have an increasing ability to insulate ourselves from the heat!
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