If Climate Change Were Your Project, You’d Be Fired

The Mismanagement of Climate Change as a Global Project

In project management, assumptions shape everything — from risk assessments and benefit estimations to planning and decision-making.

Imagine working on a project based on these bewildering assumptions:

• climate change barely touches the global economy because 87% of GDP is generated indoors;
• if California’s temperature and GDP are linked, then any area warming to California’s level will have a similar GDP.

Outrageous as they may seem, these assumptions come from a Nobel Prize-winning economist.

When Idiot Savants Do Climate Economics

Major organizations like the IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, along with universities and financial experts, have all used his ideas to evaluate the cost of taking action against the risks of inaction.

It is not an exaggeration to say that the lives of billions depend on the correctness of his projections.

Assumptions and Estimations in Projects