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We’re all going to be massively rich, according to anti-emissionist Steve Hatfield-Dodds:

The most important thing to understand about climate change is that deep cuts in emissions do not mean the end of economic progress. Economic growth will continue even with very large reductions in emissions, along with increases in income and employment.

Recent modelling of Australian emission reductions of 60 per cent to 100 per cent found, for example, that GDP almost doubles by 2030 and more than triples by 2050. Real income per person increases about 150 per cent; employment is up more than 70 per cent.

As is well-known, however, wealth causes global warming. Our emission-free nation will destroy the planet.

UPDATE. Steve Hatfield Dodds was born Stephen Dodds:

Steve and Lin decided to blend their family names and use the combined “Hatfield Dodds”.

Lucky he didn’t marry a McCoy.

UPDATE II. Hatfield-McCoy marriages aren’t unknown, although generally they don’t feature suckworthy name-blending: “‘Folks Surprised When a Hatfield Wed a McCoy,’ Parkersburg News, 2-24-1974.”

UPDATE III. I am a moron.

Posted by Tim B. on 03/19/2008 at 10:53 AM
  1. Recent modelling of Australian emission reductions of 60 per cent to 100 per cent found, for example, that GDP almost doubles by 2030 and more than triples by 2050.

    Wow, that’s an astounding 2.6% CAGR for Australia’s GDP through 2050.  Considering Australia has had an estimated 3.0% CAGR for GDP over the last five years, I fail to see how this is considered a good thing.

    Posted by charles austin on 2008 03 19 at 11:18 AM • permalink

  2. “Stick with me, kid, and you’ll be farting through non-GM silk handwoven by caring abo artisans earnikng their way out of rehab…”

    Posted by richard mcenroe on 2008 03 19 at 11:38 AM • permalink

  3. I suppose if everyone is reduced to digging in the dirt with sticks in order to grow turnips and cabbages for food, that could be onsidered full employment.  I wouldn’t call it massively rich, though.

    The only way for deep cuts in emissions to provide economic progress is if the technology is continually improved upon.  And you can’t do that if you just stop everything in order to cut emissions.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2008 03 19 at 11:39 AM • permalink

  4. Drat.  My “c” fell off.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2008 03 19 at 11:40 AM • permalink

  5. ”... emissions trading will take the carbon out of energy, without taking the energy out of the economy.”

    The whole basis of this arguement is that ‘trading’ somehow will reduce carbon emmissions. I have yet to see any trading scheme that is anything other than a highly elaborate shell game. Idiots.

    Posted by gajim on 2008 03 19 at 11:55 AM • permalink

  6. Oh, this is such utter bull shit.  We are not talking about a closed economy here.

    This so called economist attributes the lack of a substantially detimental effect on the Australian economy to emissions trading.  But emissions trading will only have the effect of transferring wealth from Australian citizens and businesses to Russia and other countries that have emission credits to sell.  Emissions credits will increase the cost of manufactured products and any goods or services in which energy is an important ingredient or greenhouse gasses are generated.

    Compare the soon-to-increase prices of goods and services produced by Australian companies with those produced by China, India, and developing countries who don’t give even lip service to curbing greenhouse gasses.  Which products will Australian consumers (for domestic sales) and foreign consumers (for exports) choose to buy?

    This will most certainly have a terrible impact on Australia’s GDP.

    Posted by wronwright on 2008 03 19 at 11:59 AM • permalink

  7. #5 gajim

    Shhh! You’re not supposed to notice that!

    Don’t tell me, let me guess: Steve Hatfield-Dodds is in the carbon credit business?

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 03 19 at 12:00 PM • permalink

  8. There’s something very wrong if your nation does not make “Hatfield-Dodds” a new synonym for “imbecile”.

    Posted by Harry Bergeron on 2008 03 19 at 12:22 PM • permalink

  9. In Hatfield-Dodds’s defense, his economic models are based off the same climate models that predict the Earth’s oceans will boil off yesterday. See, it all comes down to forcings: solar panels are given a $5000 per-week income forcing, while a single wind turbine generates 300 jobs. Most encouraging, crystal energy provides free health care, the power of positive thinking feeds the world’s poor, and government regulations grant immortality. Really, with economic models like this, how can you NOT want a carbon-free future?

    Posted by JSchuler on 2008 03 19 at 01:02 PM • permalink

  10. Hmmmm.

    @ RebeccaH

    Drat.  My “c” fell off.

    Ummmmm.  Is this some salacious Australian slang with which I am unfamiliar?

    Please?

    Posted by memomachine on 2008 03 19 at 01:29 PM • permalink

  11. #10, I misspelled “considering” in my first post.  And I’m a Yank.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2008 03 19 at 01:33 PM • permalink

  12. Drat again.  Actually the word was “considered”, and considering I was born and raised in Texas, “Yank” is perhaps not right either.

    Posted by RebeccaH on 2008 03 19 at 01:34 PM • permalink

  13. UPDATE. Steve Hatfield Dodds was born Stephen Dodds:

    Steve and Lin decided to blend their family names and use the combined “Hatfield Dodds”.

    Oh gawd, how “New Age” squishy can one get? I’ll bet that if any of their offspring should misbehave, they’ll arrange an “encounter group” to discuss it.

    Posted by Spiny Norman on 2008 03 19 at 01:37 PM • permalink

  14. Steve and Lin decided to blend their family names and use the combined “Hatfield Dodds”.

    In other words, he’s a limp wrist pussy.

    Posted by wronwright on 2008 03 19 at 01:41 PM • permalink

  15. Mark Twain, in “Roughing It” mentioned a particularly bleak Nevada silver-rush town where a pair of resolute Irish laundresses eked out a precarious living taking in each other’s washing ... 

    Something about Steve’s economics that troubles me… not sure what it is, can’t quite put a finger on it, but I think he needs to give it a bit more thought.

    Posted by Celaeno on 2008 03 19 at 01:56 PM • permalink

  16. The idea that by harming the economy benefits will flow is known as the broken window fallacy. This idea has been thoroughly debunked by economists since Bastiat called attention to it in 1850. Sadly, like the plastic turkey, the Broken Window will never die.

    Posted by ErnieG on 2008 03 19 at 02:09 PM • permalink

  17. Last week I asked my wife for some money but all she could give me was $1 in her purse.
    Today I asked again and she had $5.
    At this rate in a year I’ll be a tycoon.

    Posted by Merlin on 2008 03 19 at 02:18 PM • permalink

  18. Tie-coon?

    Cheers

    Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2008 03 19 at 03:23 PM • permalink

  19. Um, you mean lucky SHE didn’t marry a McCoy- he would merely be Stephen McCoy Dodd, still no feud there that I know of.

    Posted by docweasel on 2008 03 19 at 04:15 PM • permalink

  20. Lin - Head of ACOSS

    Stephen - Global Warmenizing shyster

    What a pair of parasites on a productive economy. 

    Can you imaging what they would be teaching their kids!?

    Posted by Apparatchik on 2008 03 19 at 05:02 PM • permalink

  21. Re: Update II Wedding Headlines:

    Manly is close to the small Iowa town of Fertile which has led to the wedding headline “Manly man marries Fertile woman”

    Posted by ErnieG on 2008 03 19 at 05:11 PM • permalink

  22. #21

    In Australia, Manly is about 5 miles from Sydney, and 1,000 miles from care.

    Apparently.

    Posted by kae on 2008 03 19 at 05:38 PM • permalink

  23. The Bulletin magazine’s 28 October 2003 edition named Hatfield Dodds in its inaugural ‘Smart 100’ list of leading Australian innovators

    -Wikipedia

    And look where it got the Bulletin

    Posted by Contrail on 2008 03 19 at 06:23 PM • permalink

  24. employment is up more than 70 per cent

    Given that we already have one of the highest workforce participation rates in the world, the only ways to increase employment by 70% are to kick kids out of school at age 10 and put them to work (preferably down the solar panel mines, or dumping toxic waste on aboriginal sacred sites), and to increase the retirement age to 90…. plus importing about another 5 million immigrants.

    And they of course will all require water, power, sewerage (which needs water, so more dams), food, cars, public transport, telephones, air conditioners and so on - and don’t forget the 19 gabillion air miles required to get them here.

    Sounds like their economic modelling is as good as their climate modelling.

    Posted by mr creosote on 2008 03 19 at 07:02 PM • permalink

  25. Maybe he means that his employment will be up by more than 70%. Quite conceivable, anyway, given the massive amount of time he appears to have available for intellectual wanking.

    Posted by PW on 2008 03 19 at 07:10 PM • permalink

  26. GDP almost doubles by 2030 and more than triples by 2050

    Yes, that might be true.  If we assume real GDP growth of 3% per year, the compounding effect sees GDP 91% higher in 2030 and 3.5 times higher by 2050.  It took me 1 minute to calculate that using an economic model called “excel”.

    Posted by mr creosote on 2008 03 19 at 07:22 PM • permalink

  27. ”... emissions trading will take the carbon out of energy, without taking the energy out of the economy.”

    This reminds me of the old story about three guys marooned together on a desert island.  When they were rescued, years later, all three were immensely wealthy from having each other hats during their stay on the island.

    And that’s about the same way “emissions trading” will work to “produce wealth”.

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 03 19 at 07:56 PM • permalink

  28. ...having TRADED each other hats

    PIMF.  Sorry!

    Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2008 03 19 at 07:57 PM • permalink

  29. OK To employ the same tactics as the enviro-mentalists, i.e. name calling and appeal to authority, look-see:

    Steve Hatfield-Dodds, a senior economist with CSIRO Sustainable Ecosystems, will speak at the environment session at the New Agenda for Prosperity conference in Melbourne next week

    Hatfield is not a climatologist and is a fully paid-up wanker. What was he paid, or were his freebees, for attending this wank-fest? Clearly he is in the big pay.

    Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2008 03 19 at 08:03 PM • permalink

  30. New Agenda for Prosperity

    The agenda for their prosperity.

    Everything increases by however much which is positive.
    But they don’t say how much it falls prior to increasing.

    Posted by kae on 2008 03 19 at 08:09 PM • permalink

  31. “Recent modelling of Australian emission reductions of 60 per cent to 100 per cent found, for example, that GDP almost doubles by 2030 and more than triples by 2050.”

    It looks to me like they are using the Climate Models for economic predictions now.

    Posted by bobzorunkle on 2008 03 20 at 12:05 AM • permalink

  32. #31
    And extrapolating using Lancet formulae.

    Posted by kae on 2008 03 20 at 12:10 AM • permalink

  33. #16 ErnieG, spot on. Keynes fell for it too:

    ‘If the Treasury were to fill old bottles with banknotes, bury them at suitable depths in disused coal mines which are then filled up to the surface with town rubbish, and leave it to private enterprise on well-tried principles of laissez-faire to dig the notes up again (the right to do so being obtained, of course by tendering for leases of the note-bearing territory), there need be no more unemployment and with the help of the repercussions, the real income of the community, and its capital wealth also, would probably become a good deal greater than it actually is.’

    J.M. Keynes, The General Theory of Employment, Interest, and Money. Macmillan & Co. LTD (1964), p. 129.

    Of course the modern day equivalent is the myth that bulldozing coal-fired power stations and replacing them with solar and wind power will create industry, jobs and exports.

    Posted by Art Vandelay on 2008 03 20 at 01:08 AM • permalink

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