Useful to read some challenge to thinking, but always critical to weigh new point evidence against the full set.
The contention from Stanford is that some farmers may find increasing crop prices beneficial. And this could well be true, just as the Southern UK should expect warmer summers and colder winters on the whole (which we might like).
On the weighing evidence front, it is good to see that someone has done the painstaking work of going through all of the references in detail of Bjørn Lomborg’s book Cool It. It doesn’t make for great reading. Lots of what we might call rhetorical tricks that could make us believe references are supporting a position that is in fact opinion not evidence-based.
Review of Lomborg’s Cool it by Ackerman, worth reading,
http://www.ase.tufts.edu/gdae/Pubs/rp/Hot_its_not08.pdf
The Stanford study is interesting, but you can’t read too much into it as it appears to be only talking about changes by 2030, can go into this argument more if you’re interested.
cheers
S
Si,
The Ackerman is a good paper: especially the piece around uncertainty.
You’re right to counsel caution on the Stanford study.
Why mention it at all: I like to have potentially positive things to say about climate change to run an argument something like this:
Them: Myth (e.g. glaciers aren’t retreating or “I’m cold this winter therefore no climate change globally”)
Me: Well, not really. You can argue that Good Thing (e.g. farming, briefly), yes, but Bad Thing. Oh and Myth is a myth.
Tom