Calculating the cost of climate change.

(a) If GDP per person (the affluence term in the IPAT relation) grows at 3 percent per year, how many times larger than today will it be after 100 years?

(b) Imagine that addressing climate change reduces economic growth from 3 percent to 2.9 percent over the century. How much smaller is our GDP per person in 100 years?

(c) How many additional years of growth at 2.9 percent need to occur until the GDP per person is as large as 100 years of growth at 3 percent?

(d) Put yourself in the shoes of a future citizen: Given how much richer people will be in 100 years (that is the answer to part (a)), should we be concerned about the loss of wealth due to a reduction in growth from 3 percent to 2.9 percent that we calculated in part (b)?