The Economic Consensus on Climate Change Legislation?
Agnostic readers will be relieved to see that I have an IER post that does not mention the Holy Spirit:
The Institute for Policy Integrity (IPI) recently released a survey [.pdf] of 144 leading economists who have published peer-reviewed articles on climate change. In the media blitz accompanying the release of the study, IPI spokespeople sold its results as a “consensus” among expert economists comparable to that of the climate scientists. They gave the average person the impression that only a fool or a tool of big business could possibly oppose the Waxman-Markey or Kerry-Boxer bills.
This is completely misleading. It is true that the vast majority of the surveyed economists believe that climate change poses a threat to the economy. However, this alone doesn’t mean that their work endorses the pending legislation. In fact, we will show that many of the responses in the survey underscore that Congress’ proposed “solutions” to climate change violate the recommendations of even those economists who are very concerned about climate change.
