Annals of global warming: Would you worry if it shrinks your paycheck?

October 26, 2015

Then worry.

Scientists estimate the impact of climate change on the world economy  - Nature

Scientists estimate the impact of climate change on the world economy, change in GDP per capita by 2100, compared to a world without climate change. – from Nature Magazine via MarketWatch

MarketWatch’s Silvia Ascarelli wrote:

Your grandchildren may pay a bigger price for global warming than you thought.

A hotter Planet Earth will cool down national economies, according to fresh research from scientists at Stanford University and the University of California, Berkeley.

Average U.S. income could shrink 36% by 2100 because of climate change from what it would be without global warming, they say. That is more than other, earlier studies have suggested.

But not all countries will suffer. Russia, Canada and countries in Northern Europe should benefit from warmer temperatures, according to the scientists’ models, because they have yet to reach what the scientists called the optimal average temperature for an economy — 55 degrees Fahrenheit, roughly where the U.S. is now.

“We were surprised at how important temperature is for the global economy,” said Solomon Hsiang, an associate professor of public policy at Berkeley and one of the co-authors of the study along with Marshall Burke, an assistant professor in earth system science at Stanford, and Edward Miguel, Oxfam professor in environmental and resource economics at Berkeley.

Global per capita gross domestic product will be down 23% at the turn of the next century if global warming isn’t slowed, the study found. The impact will be more severe in China — average income will shrink 43%—and Mexico, where average income could plunge 73%.

More at MarketWatch.

Should we worry? Can we afford global warming?


Yeah, if you put it that way, Obama is a very successful president

December 18, 2014

Got this chart from the national Democrats, The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC):

Obama is a very successful president.

Obama’s presidency is a success, by the GOP’s favorite numbers.

An old friend on Facebook told me he wants verification of the numbers, because he doesn’t feel it. Few of us below the very, very rich feel it — which is what Obama’s been saying, and what Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren, Paul Krugman and Robert Reich have been saying in various ways daily.  That’s what the struggle on income inequality is all about.

But the numbers check out.  Go see for yourself (some of the sites I list below update monthly, or daily, so if you’re not looking at this in December 2014, they may vary; look for the link to historic numbers).

I wrote:

Numbers are dated in Consumer Confidence (but much higher than I thought! See below).

But the other numbers are well published.

Dow Jones Index plugged at least nightly on NBC, ABC, CBS and PBS — hourly at least on CNN and MSNBC (I don’t get the latter two).

http://stockcharts.com/freecharts/historical/djia1900.html

Unemployment is updated monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics — and again, plugged on national news when it happens.

http://www.bls.gov/bls/unemployment.htm

GDP growth:

http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.MKTP.KD.ZG
and
http://www.bea.gov/newsreleases/glance.htm

US deficits as % of GDP:

Bloomberg press report:
http://www.bloomberg.com/…/u-s-deficit-decline-to-2-8…

St. Louis Branch, Federal Reserve:
http://research.stlouisfed.org/fred2/series/FYFSGDA188S

Consumer Confidence is tracked by the anti-Obama Conference Board:

http://www.conference-board.org/data/consumerdata.cfm

Reuters report on October Consumer Confidence report:

http://www.reuters.com/…/us-usa-economy-confidence…

As a socialist anti-free market guy, Obama is the worst in history.

Now will you listen to Obama when he tells you that we need to do something OTHER than what the GOP says, to make the growth something YOU feel? Please?

So tomorrow, and every day until January 21, 2017, when your very conservative and otherwise not stupid friends tell you we must “cut government” because “America can’t afford to be great any longer,” instead of flipping them the bird like you usually do, send them here to get the links to look at the numbers for themselves.

Don’t take my word for it, nor the DCCC’s word for it. Look for yourself, using the sites I’ve listed above.

Now ask: Why can’t Congress figure this out, and give Obama some support?