Nobel Laureates count the costs of global catastrophe
Media Release, Monday 20 March 2006
Critical health outcomes of ignoring long term potential disasters and a proposal for taxing carbon emission offenders are among the issues to be discussed by two University of Melbourne Nobel Laureates tonight.
Laureates Professor Peter Doherty and Professor Sir James Mirrlees will discuss the social, medical and economic impacts of disease and catastrophes.
Professor Doherty, who received a Nobel Prize for medicine in 1996, said that for acute catastrophes like SARS and bird flu we seem to have a rapid response because people can see the real effects of such diseases.
“It causes terror and makes governments respond quickly,” Professor Doherty said.
“The grumbling problems like AIDS and even global warming unfortunately do not get such a high level of attention.”
“We are great at fight-or-flight responses but not so good at looking into the impacts of long term catastrophes, even though population increases and a massive degradation of natural resources should be forcing a rethink.”
Sir James Mirrlees, who received a 1996 Nobel Prize in Economics, believes the economic impact of challenges such as global warming can be greatly reduced.
“Tax is the short answer,” he said.
Sir James said that while people are often unwilling to consider problems stemming from long term catastrophes, it is possible to measure the economic impacts of challenges such as global warming.
He says it will have an enormous impact on agricultural production, relocation, even air conditioning; and above all deaths from disease, drought and flood
“It is impossible to know at all precisely how much global warming we will cause, but it is possible to estimate, roughly, the costs imposed on future people by what we do now.
“The commonsense response is to tax people who put carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and subsidise those who reduce them by, for example, planting trees. It also gives the right incentives for the technological developments we need.”
Laureate Professor Peter Doherty shared the Nobel Prize in Physiology or Medicine in 1996 with Swiss colleague Rolf Zinkernagel, for their discovery of how the immune system recognises virus-infected cells. He was Australian of the Year in 1997, and his main research in the Department of Microbiology and Immunology at the University of Melbourne is in the area of defence against viruses.
Laureate Professor Sir James Mirrlees was awarded the Nobel Prize in economics in 1996 with William Vickrey, for contributions to the theory of asymmetric information. He was knighted for contributions to economic science in 1997. Sir Mirrlees is Laureate Professor in the University of Melbourne’s Faculty of Economics and Commerce, Professor of Political Economy at Cambridge University and Distinguished Professor-at-large of the Chinese University of Hong Kong. His research interests are welfare economics and contract theory.
** WHAT: Public lecture: ‘Economics of Global Catastrophes.’
**WHEN: Monday 20 March 6:30pm-8pm
**WHERE: University of Melbourne’s Copland Theatre, Economics and Commerce building.
More information:
Laureate Professor Peter Doherty
Phone: 03 8344 7968
Mobile: 0408 178 697
Laureate Professor Sir James Mirrlees
Phone: 03 8344 3833
|
|
