Who’s Up For A “Green Interest Rate”?

If you want authoritarian/socialism, this is authoritarian/socialism, whereby the federal government uses some sort of Scary Thing manufactured by government to inject itself even more heavily into the economy and the lives of citizens. It’s really what’s called Progressivism, otherwise known as Fascism

A ‘green interest rate?’ Fed digs into climate change economics

In their deliberations on monetary policy, Federal Reserve policymakers need to consider many factors, but up to now, climate change has not been one of them.

But as worries about the warming planet increase, the U.S. central bank is taking a closer look at the economic impacts of higher temperatures, more frequent severe weather, and rising sea levels.

A “green interest rate” is one of the ideas on view Friday as the San Francisco Fed convenes the U.S. central bank’s first-ever conference on climate change and economics. The event is so oversubscribed a webcast has been created to meet demand.

While the Fed lags central banking peers such as the Bank of England in making climate change an explicit part of its financial stability remit, the conference is the latest sign the Fed has started to take the risks and costs of global warming seriously.

“It’s important for us from a monetary policy perspective to know what the potential growth rate of the economy is and if climate events or climate risk is going to shave that off, even if it’s over the long term,” San Francisco Fed chief Mary Daly said in New York earlier this week.

The weather, and, yes, the climate, has always had an effect on economic progress. And usually tends to do much better during Holocene warm periods than the cool ones.

Papers to be presented at this week’s conference provide that perspective in a range of ways. One estimates climate change could subtract 7% from real world per capita GDP by 2100; another finds that subsidies for green energy like wind and solar are not an effective tool against global warming, but carbon taxes, if implemented in many parts of the world, would be. Others papers map out how climate change affects asset prices and show trade policy subsidizes greenhouse gas emissions.

I’m glad these big wigs could take fossil fueled trips to San Francisco to discuss taxes. Perhaps they should remember than the vast majority refuse to spend even $10 a month to “solve” anthropogenic climate change. It’s nice to know that they think subsidies for “green” energy are worthless, though.

Scientists are in broad agreement that carbon dioxide from cars, power plants and other human sources are behind the climate change that’s already making powerful hurricanes, severe drought, and other weather extremes more frequent.

Duckspeak. Without scientific proof.

At the conference, Carnegie Mellon University professor Nicholas Muller will outline a “green interest rate.” Simply put, he suggests interest-rate setting should take into account the economic drag that greenhouse gas emissions are projected to cause.

“Rates should be lower when pollution damages are rising,” Muller said in an interview. His paper also shows how judicious use of rate policy can skew investment in ways that could aid environmental goals and save human lives.

Was the Great Galveston Hurricane of 1900 caused by “pollution”? Perhaps we should start by creating carbon taxes that specifically target those who push carbon taxes, like universities, the news media, and so on, see if they’re so gung ho at that point.