Cold Words for Global-Warming Report
Re: “Pact Casts Cloud of Uncertainty on U.S. Economy,” Dec. 11: The spin is on. Art Pine and Faye Fiore’s best-case economic scenario for the implementation of the recent global-warming agreement is egregiously myopic, reflecting the failure of neoclassical economics and its adherents to account for the value of services, such as carbon cycling, provided by the environment and the threat that unchecked global warming poses to these services.
As noted in other recent reports in The Times, global warming could lead to: a rise in the mean sea level, inundating coastal areas and low-lying islands; the spread of tropical diseases; widespread agricultural losses due to insect infestations; and increasingly violent storms, with resultant property damage. Attenuating the economic devastation posed by these threats (inexplicably ignored by the authors) represents just part of the value generated by the recent agreement. Pine and Fiore, and The Times, do a disservice by viewing the global-warming agreement in narrow terms.
MICHAEL COHEN
Sherman Oaks
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