Global Warming, Politics, and the Media  

Call Date: September 21, 2011

David Roberts , Editor, Grist

David Roberts is a primary staff writer for Grist Magazine, an online environmental publication based in Seattle, Washington

Born and raised in Tennessee, he pursued a graduate degree in philosophy at the University of Montana before leaving academia for the Seattle tech industry in 1999. After several years working for such companies as Amazon.com, IMDB.com, and Microsoft, Roberts was hired by Grist Magazine in December 2003. He lives in the Seattle area with his wife and two sons.

Excerpt from Sept 2, 2011 - Conservatives Just as Wrong on Economics as on Science:
"Very little in economics is as robust as the results in the physical sciences, so it would be misleading to compare the consensus on climate economics to the one on climate science, but for economics, it's fairly robust. A few years ago, economist Nat Keohane rounded up five analyses of cap-and-trade from respected institutions: the EIA, the Research Triangle Institute, Harvard, MIT, and Pacific Northwest National Laboratories. The studies varied quite a bit -- in their projection of business-as-usual growth, for instance -- but they converged on roughly similar estimations of impact.

'A business-as-usual approach, continuing with today's policies, puts the U.S. economy on a path to reach $26 trillion in January 2030. With a cap on the greenhouse gas emissions that cause global warming, the economy will reach the same level two to seven months later.'
This modest impact, it should be noted, is far smaller than the expected negative impacts of climate change itself. And it could be mitigated with aggressive efficiency and smart investments in innovation."

Read more: David's posts at Grist Magazine

Website: http://www.grist.org/

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