Tyler Cowen notes that a Cato Institute scholar named Indur Goklany has produced a paper opposing a carbon tax and instead proposing increased spending on a raft of policies most folks wouldn't have a problem with: "better water policy, drought prevention, anti-malarials, sea level protection, and so on."

Cowen rightly asks why the recommendation is to pursue one of these noble courses without including the other. Further, he muses about whether this report changes doctrine for Cato, the libertarian standard-bearer thinktank. Interestingly, Goklany asserts that the savings -- in terms of human mortality -- would be greater if the developed world did a bunch of things to ameliorate the impacts of climate change in process rather than use a carbon tax to disincentivize the output of greenhouse gases.

One of the projects that the GII's Continuous Progress consultancy is supporting with evaluation assistance is an effort to force governments to develop plans and dedicate funds to helping the people -- largely poor people in less developed countries -- who will be first affected by climate change, usually in the form of severe weather, loss of inhabitable land and changes in the agricultural outputs of the land. While Goklany's recommendations seem to dovetail with this important work, I generally see these as a good way to highlight the importance of action to slow climate change (so we won't just be waiting for Bangladesh to disappear before we do anything about it).

However, I do worry about sending the message to policymakers who have ignored climate change saying, essentially, "It's too late; care to fight malaria in the scores of places where it will be endemic now that they are partially submerged?"

This good discussion triggers all sorts of good questions. I'm not an economist, but I'm going to venture deeper into Goklany's paper to try and figure out my own answers. Do follow the comment thread at Cowen's post because his commenters are fantastic. Opinion without unnecessary histrionics, reasoned debate without rancor, so refreshing.

One think I picked up from the comments: It seems like a strange topic to be tackling from a libertarian perspective, because it seems a little disingenuous to oppose a carbon tax when the entire energy subsidy system should be positively abhorrent to libertarians (as agriculture subsidies are).