Although leading climate economist William Nordhaus tries to cast himself as the messenger of objective science, his attempt to rebut the "global warming skeptics" is itself filled with misleading arguments
William Nordhaus is a professor at Yale University and one of the pioneers in the economics of climate change. Earlier this year Nordhaus wrote a piece in the New York Review of Books entitled, "Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong." Because of Nordhaus' stature in the profession, and because of his supposedly definitive claims, the article was an instant hit in certain circles, even being assigned by economics professors as an excellent introduction to the case for policy activism to fight climate change. Yet as I'll demonstrate in this post, Nordhaus' position isn't nearly as airtight as he leads the reader to believe. There really are good reasons for being skeptical of massive government intervention to fight climate change.
