Climate Rationality: From Bias to Balance - Softcover

Johnston, Jason S.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1108401759 ISBN 13: 9781108401753

Publisher: Cambridge University Press, 2021

Synopsis

Most environmental statutes passed since 1970 have endorsed a pragmatic or 'precautionary' principle under which the existence of a significant risk is enough to trigger regulation. At the same time, targets of such regulation have often argued on grounds of inefficiency that the associated costs outweigh any potential benefits. In this work, Jason Johnston unpacks and critiques the legal, economic, and scientific basis for precautionary climate policies pursued in the United States and in doing so sheds light on why the global warming policy debate has become increasingly bitter and disconnected from both climate science and economics. Johnston analyzes the most influential international climate science assessment organizations, the US electric power industry, and land management and renewable energy policies. Bridging sound economics and climate science, this pathbreaking book shows how the United States can efficiently adapt to a changing climate while radically reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

About this title

About the Author

Jason Scott Johnston is the Henry L. and Grace Doherty Charitable Foundation Professor of Law and Director of the Olin Program in Law and Economics at the University of Virginia Law School. He has been awarded a Bosch Fellowship at the American Academy of Berlin and a Simon Fellowship at the Property and Environment Research Center. Johnston has also served on the Board of the American Law and Economics Association, the Searle Civil Justice Institute, and the Social Science Grant Review Panel of the National Science Foundation. His research has appeared in journals such as the Journal of Law, Economics and Organization and the Yale Law Journal, and he is the editor of the Institutions and Incentives in Regulatory Science (2012).

Edition details

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Publication date: 2021
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1108401759
• ISBN 13: 9781108401753
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 656