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The Economists’ Voice: Top Economists Take On Today's Problems Page 5 (13 of 328)
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CHAPTER 1
Climate Change: The Uncertainties,
the Certainties, and What They
Imply About Action
Thomas C. Schelling
FIRST THE UNCERTAINTIES; then the certainties; then the urgencies;
and fi nally, what do uncertainties imply about waiting for their reso-
lution before acting?
The uncertainties are many and great. How much carbon dioxide
may join the atmosphere if nothing is done about it? That depends
on projections of population, economic growth, energy technology,
and possible feedbacks from warming that reduce albedo—ice and
snow cover, for example.
Next, how much average warming globally is to be expected
from some specifi ed increase in the concentration of carbon dioxide
Winner of the 2005 Nobel Prize in Economics, Thomas C. Schelling has published
widely on military strategy and arms control, energy and environmental policy, cli-
mate change, nuclear proliferation, terrorism, or ga nized crime, foreign aid and
international trade, confl ict and bargaining theory, racial segregation and integra-
tion, the military draft, health policy, tobacco and drugs policy, and ethical issues in
public policy and in business.
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