Tyler Cowen

Climate Change Denial Groups in Denial Tyler Cowen

Tyler Cowen is the Holbert L. Harris Chair of Economics at George Mason University and a frequent author for the Mercatus Center. The Mercatus Center at George Mason University is a university-based research center that focuses primarily on economics. Officially, they now accept the science of climate change. However, in a since deleted article published in 2001, the Mercatus Center wrote that “the evidence regarding global warming and human contribution to it is mixed…if a slight warming does occur, historical evidence suggests it is likely to be beneficial. Its current research fellows do not believe that suggested solutions are necessary or will be effective.

In a 2018 article titled “Fear Climate Change– and Our Response to It,” Cowen wrote that while “the potential costs of climate change, already the subject of heated debate, may actually be understated,” the real economic cost will be in the suggested response to climate change, saying that “we may respond to those problems in stupid and destructive ways.” Cowen does not offer any alternative policies, but rather compares unnamed, future policies to Brexit, calling it a disaster.

In 2019, Cowen wrote another article, “Want to Help Fight Climate Change? Have More Children.” This article, also published behind a paywall on Bloomberg, advocates for people to have more children because of climate change. His argument is that children “are more likely to be part of the solution than the problem.” His reasoning for this argument seems to be that having more children will make the country more populous, thus raising the chances of the United States finding a solution to climate change. However, he admits that this argument is “silly and nihilistic,” and that having more children would in fact increase the amount of greenhouse gases.

Cowen’s articles appear in Bloomberg View, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Money, American Economic Review, and The Journal of Political Economy.