A new paper by Maximilian Auffhammera and Richard T. Carson suggests that China’s greenhouse gas emissions are rising much more quickly than presumed in the IPCC’s emissions scenarios. A reminder that
- The IPCC’s “mistakes” don’t all break in one direction. The common rhetorical conception has the IPCC’s errors uniformly overstating the effects of greenhouse emissions and climate change, but this one has rather the opposite effect.
- Economists are good for something, despite what some might say.
(h/t Tim Haab)
Well, as Yogi Berra reputedly said, “Predicting is hard, especially about the future”. He was indeed correct, and mistakes will surely be made. Yet another reason to be skeptical about any predictions that are more than about a decade in the future. Something unexpected usually happens: see, for example, The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb.