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Richard Murphy is an idiot and so is anyone who quotes him. This *is* just like WUWT: people quote spurious “authority” for their foolish claims, and everyone nods along.
> Seems that TimW’s a money denier
This place, when talking about economics, is like WUWT when talking about science. And the sad thing is none of you know it, none of you care, you’re happy to just wallow in your errors in a warm comfortable sea of economics ignorance. You’ll all happily back each other up, and none of you will call each other out. Just like the Watties with their “science”.
> Thomas Piketty is an economics denier
TP has certainly made major errors leaning in a leftward direction, yes.
> I didn’t say this. I pointed out that Kevin Anderson argued this.
I know you didn’t say it. I didn’t say you did say it. Why are you saying that you didn’t say it when everyone knows that you didn’t say it? It is however something that you picked out from his talk, presumably because it is important.
> Perhaps closer to “ignore climate sensitivity”.
Yes, that’s closer.
> …when the social and financial system breaks down as a result of agricultural collapse or population reduction, economics, with grrrowth and interest rates becomes largely irrelevant…
The (economic) cost of the civil system breaking down entirely would be enormous; as would the death toll. Costs, even passed through discount rates, would show that. So why would you want to ignore them?
> I am interested in your moral argument to ignore the GHE in comparison.
I’ve made no such argument; I don;t understand what you’re asking.
To reply to your other point, not knowing the correct discount rate is no reason to ignore the concept. To return to the analogy with climate sensitivity: what you’re suggesting is analogous to ignoring CS entirely, because you don’t know its exact value.
> Technically, “denial” means dismissing something that is regarded as true (a consensus position) not disagreeing with what should be done, given that truth
Yes, of course. And that’s what I’m saying most-of-you do to economics. Saying, for example, “ignore discount rates” is analogous to “ignore the GHE”.
> I’m a bad, bad person.
No; but everyone has blindspots. You won’t notice them because they are blind spots, so you need someone else to point them out. As, it would seem, do all the other commentators here.
> Economics isn’t the best way to measure the significance of action in this case
Well, it certainly isn’t the *only* way; that’s for sure. That it isn’t the *best* way is surely a value judgement, so you shouldn’t state it definitively; it can only be a personal preference. No?
> discount rate may be relevant, but surely the point is that the less we ‘invest’ now, the more we will have to invest soon
Ah: this is where you go off the rails, taking ATTP with you I strongly suspect. You’re entirely within your rights to say “econ isn’t the only measure”. But you shouldn’t mix that up with “if I re-write econ (which I don’t really understand) in a somewhat muddled way, then…”. That isn’t valid; it is analogous to what the denialists do with the science.
> should be avoided at all costs (discount rate is irrelevant)
Sounds economically illiterate. Roughly equivalent to “we should believe in magic CO2 removal technology and therefore not worry”. But since it is economics, not science, it passes by your blind spot.
