I second Michael’s recommendation of Professor Reisman’s article. His argument is that the attempt to stop global warming will necessarily curtail the economic growth and technological progress that is our best means of coping with all sorts of problems we may confront, not the least of which is the possibility of global cooling and another ice age.
This issue is strikingly similar to the controversy over tax increases. The advocates of tax increases assume that the only thing that happens is that the government gets more money to spend on good programs. The trouble is that the private sector would have done far more good if the resources had been left there. With regard to climate policy, a reduction in carbon emission is similarly assumed to be the only thing that happens. Reisman shows that to be erroneous.
