You know who understands risk? Actuaries. And guess what they're saying: "... the plausible worst-case hit to global economies would be 50% in the two decades before 2090." I'm bad at budgeting, can someone tell me whether 50% is a lot? - ThreadSky

volts.wtf • 37 days ago

You know who understands risk? Actuaries. And guess what they're saying: "... the plausible worst-case hit to global economies would be 50% in the two decades before 2090."

I'm bad at budgeting, can someone tell me whether 50% is a lot?

Comments

joeville5.bsky.social•37 days ago

It means write a lot of checks! And hurry

rayhoang.bsky.social•33 days ago

Maybe, but how did they calculate it, and why is it different than the social cost of carbon being at $60 bucks a ton?

aukehoekstra.bsky.social•37 days ago

Very interesting. There is a long standing difference between economists (who underestimate long tail damages) and actuaries (who estimate damages for a living).

aukehoekstra.bsky.social•37 days ago

But "plausible" is a very vague quantification. Furthermore it seems to be based on calculations by the NGFS, so that's the underlying source. And the main source of the NGFS calculations (estimating 1/3rd less GDP growth) is contentious (see picture).

aukehoekstra.bsky.social•37 days ago

And in figure 2 of the report we see a strong jump from old to new damages but the explanation speaks about a mean blue line ending at -15% that isn't there.

To be honest, it seems so me we basically still don't know if it's minus 2% of minus 60% of GDP.

aukehoekstra.bsky.social•37 days ago

But even if its minus 2%, its still clear that transitioning faster will have lower societal costs. So faster is better, even if we don't know how much better. And we are playing Russian roulette if we are going slow.

My 2cts.

thimbles.bsky.social•37 days ago

Ahh, remember the good old days when we were all talking about that paper where the authors were being accused of overestimating the Social Cost of Carbon because they calculated a figure 6 times higher than accepted because of extreme events?
https://x.com/drvolts/status/1798417124005933105
Good times.

susankayequinn.bsky.social•37 days ago

chrisbno.bsky.social•37 days ago

Precisely!!! I simply don't understand why people can't see this! I'm actually incapable of it - because I simply can't see any upside to not doing it!

susankayequinn.bsky.social•37 days ago

To build a better world you gotta admit that ours is filled with pollution and risk. You gotta fight the powerful who want to keep extracting $$$ from it. Easier to *not* do those things for sure. Incredibly, heartbreakingly STUPID, but easier.

susankayequinn.bsky.social•37 days ago

People are out there trying to "short" the climate crisis rn

curiouskittyk.bsky.social•37 days ago

Most humans only react to what’s in front of them 2070 etc. is too far in the future, most will always take the easy option & kick the can down the road. The bizarre thing about humans is - we know what our children will face who we claim to love more than anything else & yet we ignore the evidence

chkn314159.bsky.social•37 days ago

Can we just get the oil companies to pay for it all? They seem to be doing fine financially, but I think that ducking over the future loan might be coming due.

oysteinsjolie.bsky.social•37 days ago

The IPCC thinks that there will be fewer, maybe far fewer people risiking hunger in 2050 than today. What are they missing?

volts.wtf•37 days ago

"At 3C or more of heating by 2050 [which is roughly where we're headed], there could be more than 4 billion deaths, significant sociopolitical fragmentation worldwide, failure of states (with resulting rapid, enduring, and significant loss of capital), and extinction events."

Seems bad?

klippenstein.bsky.social•37 days ago

“Breaking news from the Heartland Institute, savings from infirm and elderly deaths will reduce retirement entitlement costs, we need to cut more taxes now…” 🤦‍♂️
[Their smoking playbook, basically.)

volts.wtf•37 days ago

I appreciate the kind of work @hausfath.bsky.social is doing here, but I really worry that "we've averted high-end scenarios" is being used by a lot of folks for false comfort. The "mid" scenarios -- 3 degrees -- are plenty apocalyptic!

hausfath.bsky.social•37 days ago

I agree that its important to emphasize that current policy outcomes are still disastrous for many human and natural systems. But the fact that we've already bent the curve down to ~2.7C means that its more possible to envision bending it further down to <2C.

prince1999.bsky.social•37 days ago

Um Trump is President, I think we can now go worse case scenario

energycheckup.bsky.social•35 days ago

These models, as good as they are, bear little resemblance to the reality we see unfolding. Still, I’m inclined to agree, CO2 will not peak so high as once feared, but I no longer have faith in a “soft landing”. In famine, pandemic, war, revolution, and economic collapse I now trust.

labradorice.bsky.social•37 days ago

My thought process has become that warming is probably ~2.5°C instead of 4°C like when I started at University. However, the expected impacts of 2.5°C warming are far worse than predicted back then. 4-5°C now looks borderline apocalyptic.

eligit.bsky.social•37 days ago

Yep.
We maybe overestimated how many degrees rise we’d end up with.
While underestimating the negative consequences of that slightly less than expected warming.

troutish.bsky.social•37 days ago

Have we actually bent the curve down to there though? Or have we made commitments that aught to bend the curve, if they're delivered?

davefernig.bsky.social•37 days ago

I have seen no change in data that reduces the slope, if anything it may be accelerating.

rtmlepage.bsky.social•37 days ago

How much of bending the curve down was due to updated models and a few extra years of input data vs meaningful action? The Keeling curve hasn't changed that much, as I recall.

hellerexposed.bsky.social•37 days ago

3C by 2050 would be insane. More like 2C.

troutish.bsky.social•37 days ago

3C by 2050 is entirely possible if we don't rapidly alter course.

hellerexposed.bsky.social•37 days ago

That would mean trends jump from current .2C per decade to over .5C per decade. Not going to happen.

troutish.bsky.social•37 days ago

Tipping points make the possibility of a rapid doubling or tripling of the rate of greenhouse effect eminently plausible.

hellerexposed.bsky.social•37 days ago

No. There is no plausible tipping point that would cause anything like this.

troutish.bsky.social•37 days ago

And yet, it is entirely possible.

zoesamuel.bsky.social•37 days ago

3C by 2050 is an outlier projection though. Those 4 billion deaths most likely wouldn't happen until like 2100 and who's gonna be around to worry about it then, y'know, besides everyone currently under the age of 10 and all their children...?

/s

scottleibrand.bsky.social•36 days ago

Unless global economic growth stops (which would require a separate non-climate catastrophe), in 50-75 years we’ll have 3-10x as much productive capacity (or more if AI increases the growth rate). By that point both adaptation and mitigation get correspondingly cheap relative to today’s incomes.

zoesamuel.bsky.social•36 days ago

Yes, it's not 50% relative to today, but it's still a lot whenever it happens

cascio.bsky.social•37 days ago

Yeah, but in the meantime I'll make so much money!

Right?

tedfickes.bsky.social•37 days ago

Seems optimistic though there's money to be made in rehousing and moving the serfs around.

mattyyyk.bsky.social•37 days ago

Absolutely terrifying. Just makes my heart ache for my littles.

moreaugabarain.bsky.social•37 days ago

Overly optimistic

greenprofgreen.bsky.social•37 days ago

But climate policy is too expensive!!!

thierryaaron.bsky.social•37 days ago

billmckibben.bsky.social•36 days ago

I mean, glass half full

peterbosshard.bsky.social•36 days ago

Ouch!

climatehottopic.bsky.social•37 days ago

Just consider for a moment the number of deaths that also entails ... you cannot have an economic contraction like that without significant human suffering. The cost of not addressing climate change is far higher than the cost of addressing climate change.

dennissp.bsky.social•37 days ago

I guess I better start self-insuring to avoid those risk-based premiums

ianrobo.bsky.social•37 days ago

well we all know what is coming but voters eh ? sorry but so many are fooled easily ... by crap usually that matters not one bit

lanzen.bsky.social•37 days ago

The possible worst case is closer to 99.999999% than 50. Believe me, I may be bad at budgeting too but I do understand two things : ecology and that humans need food.

robertferry.bsky.social•37 days ago

Another place the number 50% turns up is in the amount of water we use just to cool thermal power plants. If we are concerned about conserving water to fight future fires (and we are) then let’s change the way we make electricity, because yes, 50% is a lot.

fishpeddler.bsky.social•37 days ago

"I'm bad at budgeting..."
Wait a second -- are you the person I read about the other day who drives 3 hours one-way to buy slightly cheaper bread?

hellerexposed.bsky.social•37 days ago

The good news: emissions will drop like a stone.

billkitchen.bsky.social•37 days ago

State Farm understands actuaries very well, which is why they've stopped insuring so much of California and Florida.

What's maddening and scandalous is State Farm's continual investing in fossil fuels.

Why is this getting so little media attention
https://www.commondreams.org/opinion/state-farm-ad-patrick-mahomes-andy-reid

nature-ali.bsky.social•32 days ago

Uh. Going to be a lot sooner than that. The positive feedback loop is here and global temperatures will escalate exponentially as the permafrost releases gigatons of methane.

rchrdbkr.bsky.social•37 days ago

Hmmm, I'm sure there will be a sizeable contingent of 'insuring against risk is gambling and an affront to the Lord' folks along to pour cold water on actuarial data before long

stojboj.bsky.social•36 days ago

It is & it isn’t. If we only slow to 50% of positive, maybe not so bad. If we go negative for a significant period, not so good.

victor-laszlo.bsky.social•37 days ago

Sh*t!

nodanaonlyjules.bsky.social•37 days ago

For context, it's about half as bad as 100%.

krisve.bsky.social•37 days ago

I think they said this about 20 years ago. Ag and Insurance multinational corporations have been making internal forecasts (to protect their own interests and get rich off of it) this since at least the early 2000’s.

thegoodplacesewing.bsky.social•37 days ago

I worked for a large national P&C insurer for 15 years, yes actuaries absolutely know that climate change is real&getting worse. The fact that insurers aren’t screaming from the rooftops sounding the alarm is baffling. Eventually they will all be bankrupt. Not a sustainable business model.

ckarion.bsky.social•37 days ago

It’s not so surprising. They just stop insuring stuff that it don’t make economic sense to insure. Remember that insurance is offered yearly. Their main problem is that the pie of profitably insurable things is shrinking, but that is a slow process and not so different from ordinary competition.

zodle77.bsky.social•37 days ago

Bring it. Humans are trash and I won’t lose sleep if we go extinct.

el-intrepido.bsky.social•37 days ago

Fuck Climate Shock - how about DonOLD tRump’s Market Collapse?!?

righteoushazard.bsky.social•37 days ago

Actuaries don't fuck around. AFAIK they are the only applied math people that intimidate actual mathematicians*.

*Well, probably not the really smart ones. Me at least. I am a mathematician and actuary friends get over on me every damned game night.

bicycle-tim.bsky.social•37 days ago

rhonnie-72.bsky.social•37 days ago

With no proof at all except common sense, I postulate that actuaries are too optimistic and we do not have nearly that long.

cosmologist.info•37 days ago

Is this 50% of the result of compounding growth to 2090, so actual 2090 worst case GDP could still be higher than today? (GDP obviously very limited measure…)

microsofty.bsky.social•37 days ago

Actuaries are the people who can't handle the excitement of being accountants.

microsofty.bsky.social•37 days ago

Actuaries do not understand risk. Or they wouldn't be actuaries. They would be investors.

rebeccaamccoy.bsky.social•37 days ago

Certain people might not believe in climate change, but insurance companies sure do.

kdjs-1.bsky.social•37 days ago

GOP answer?
drill baby drill & give more tax breaks to billionaires... ☠️

usefuldesign.bsky.social•36 days ago

I first started ringing actuaries and reinsurers in the 90s when I had my idea for https://tuflies.com*. I found them very secretive about what they knew and didn't know about climate prognosis and risk data back then.

usefuldesign.bsky.social•36 days ago

* tuflies was a satirical take on 90s site https://tucows.com, my website concept where speculation for profit on natural disasters would occur, charitable funds would be issued as 1% of profits to greenwash the entire sh!tshow.

andyo.bsky.social•37 days ago

It's almost like allowing global warming to run rampant is a very expensive decision or something.

trexpushups.bsky.social•37 days ago

Global self annihilation because people would rather burn the world than let it change.

urband1.bsky.social•37 days ago

Dude! You can make up the difference with tax cuts to billionaires and corporations you silly goose.

lanzen.bsky.social•37 days ago

It will all trickle straight down the biological carbon pump and magically make nature recover and everyone happy. Surely.

arjafi.bsky.social•37 days ago

An optimistic actuary would say that in the worst case, the global economy will *retain* 50% of its GDP.

colinboyle.bsky.social•37 days ago

Obviously that’ll mainly be made up of subsistence agriculture plus military to keep the losers from stealing your food, but it’s a living I suppose.

felker.dev•36 days ago

Even at a slow growth rate, the economy will be twice the size in 2070. Cutting that in half gets us to where we are today.

ckarion.bsky.social•37 days ago

I suspect most models don’t factor in costs of strife from migration because it’s assumed that climate refugees from the middle east, Sub-Saharan Africa, and South Asia will be contained by surrounding militaries.

melhogan.bsky.social•37 days ago

🎙️ Anyone interested in this should listen to my chat with Jathan Sadowski on The Data Fix. That episode out Feb 10.

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