Climatopolis provides a micro-economist’s vision of how our cities will continue to thrive despite the costly challenge of climate change.Joe Romm is not a subtle writer. Even though his review of Climatopolis was not as favorable as those in The Economist, The Financial Times, or Nature [$ubreq], I’m thrilled that he “reviewed” my book. I thank Joe for his constructive suggestions. He highlights several points where the footnotes can be improved. In my next edition, I will address all of his points. But in no way do his points affect the book’s core logic.
I’m disappointed that Romm didn’t bother to restate my book’s core thesis. In his review, he doesn’t mention the words “incentives,” “choice,” “innovation,” “capitalism,” “markets,” or “expectations.” But in a nutshell, these are the guts of my economic approach for thinking about climate-change adaptation.
To highlight this economic approach, consider the summer 2010 heat wave in Moscow. Thousands died as this extremely rare event unfolded. In Climatopolis (written months before the even... Read more
