Letters to the editor from the June 2020 issue of Scientific American
CALCULATING CATASTROPHE
“What Should Carbon Cost?” by Gilbert E. Metcalf, is unsuccessful in answering the question of how to calculate the most appropriate carbon tax rate. The uncertainties are too great. And probable impacts of climate change are beyond the scale of usual economic analyses. The use of integrated assessment models (IAMs) to calculate climate damage is like employing Newtonian physics to analyze phenomena far outside its range of applicability.
