Global Warming May Be a Good Thing

If the average temperature of the globe goes up by several degrees C over the next hundred years, as seems likely, that will have both good and bad consequences, but I can see no strong reason to expect the net effects to be bad, still less catastrophically bad — a point I have argued at some length here.

If anything, one might expect the opposite, for two related reasons. The first is that human habitability at present is limited mostly by cold not heat — the equator is populated, the poles are not. The second is that, for well understood reasons, global warming can be expected to increase temperatures more in cold places and at cold times of the year than in warm. Combine those two and one might guess that a somewhat warmer world would be, on the whole, more suited to humans, not less.

More on mistaken assumptions by David Friedman.

Comments (2)

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  1. Ken says:

    Good analysis by Friedman.

  2. Buster says:

    I suppose it depends upon where you live. If you own farmland in Russia, Canada, Northern Europe or Northern China, you would benefit from a warmer climate.