2015 Articles

Climate Change: Like an Asteroid

Wagner, Gernot; Weitzman, Martin L.

The threat of climate change must be taken far more seriously, before it is too late.

If a civilization-as-we-know-it-altering asteroid were hurtling toward Earth, scheduled to hit a decade hence, and it had, say, a 5% chance of striking the planet, we would surely pull out all the stops to try to deflect its path.

This essay is adapted from “Climate Shock: The Economic Consequences of a Hotter Planet” by Wagner and Weitzman (February 2015).