Larvatus Prodeo

A scare story in the Oz today about the drastic impacts of an emissions trading scheme, with the impacts “so severe it cannot be reliably predicted by existing computer models”.

The problem is described a little more accurately, if less sensationally, a bit further on. Essentially, the scale of the changes required for the 90% cut in emissions by 2050 is large enough that the existing models can’t cope. Hence Professor Warwick McKibbin argues “That’s why you design policy with all sorts of safety valves and a capacity to adapt over time if it turns out the models were completely wrong.”

I’m no economist, let alone an econometrician, but I do know a teency bit about modelling. And this strikes me as exaggerated fearmongering by people who’ve been running similar arguments for a long time.

Continue reading ‘Modelling, schmoddeling’