Basics of Climate Change Economics via Paul Krugman

I tend to keep Paul Krugman as a columnist at arm's length, but his recent long-form piece in the NY Times Magazine caught my attention for the quality and comprehensiveness of his analysis and the simplicity of his writing in summing up the climate change issue:

Let’s be clear. We’re not talking about a few more hot days in the summer and a bit less snow in the winter; we’re talking about massively disruptive events, like the transformation of the Southwestern United States into a permanent dust bowl over the next few decades.

He clearly explains the economics behind pollution, cap and trade, and carbon taxation in layman's terms and lays out some workable ideas for policy changes.

He also gets a shot in at the conservative troglodytes in office who oppose any climate action by railing against government regulations of business in principle:

This reaction — this extreme pessimism about the economy’s ability to live with cap and trade — is very much at odds with typical conservative rhetoric. After all, modern conservatives express a deep, almost mystical confidence in the effectiveness of market incentives — Ronald Reagan liked to talk about the “magic of the marketplace.” They believe that the capitalist system can deal with all kinds of limitations, that technology, say, can easily overcome any constraints on growth posed by limited reserves of oil or other natural resources. And yet now they submit that this same private sector is utterly incapable of coping with a limit on overall emissions...

Its good to see Krugman can still think like an economist, I've not been impressed with his column since he morphed into a reactionary Keynesian cheerleader during the stimulus debates.