In a previous post, I walked through one of the take-away messages from the latest IPCC report: Using middle-of-the-pack projections, the likely damages from climate change are actually less than what reputable studies estimate as the costs of government action to curb carbon dioxide emissions, such as a carbon tax or cap-and-trade scheme. In other words, even stipulating the entire IPCC framework and numbers, one can make a strong case that “on average” the various proposals to tax and regulate emissions would be a cure worse than the disease: They would cost more in terms of forfeited economic growth than they would save in terms of reduced climate change damages. Far from being a slam-dunk case as it is often portrayed in the media, aggressive government action to slow emissions does not pass a standard cost/benefit test.