Overview

"Soon, we're going to be living in a much hotter world. In ""Climatopolis"", one of the world's leading urban and environmental economists tells us what our lives will be like. We have released the genie from the bottle: climate change is coming, and there's no stopping it. The fundamental question then becomes how our lives will play out in the hotter world. Some claim that our future is bleak. The 2008 Nobel Laureate Paul Krugman has argued that we are like a frog in a boiling pot, lamenting that while he knows that the climate pot is getting hot, we frogs are blissfully ignorant of the coming doom that climate change will cause. In contrast, Matt Kahn is optimistic about the quality of our lives in the city of the future, despite very different climate conditions than we face today. Urban life will go on in a hotter world. At the heart of his belief is our individual freedom of choice: not to mitigate but to adapt. Unlike birds and butterflies, we have a much wider variety of choices and options that allow us to protect ourselves from climate change. This personal freedom opens up pathways that will greatly help urbanites to cope with climate change. As climate change unfolds, billions of households will seek out strategies for protecting their families from harm. Some will move to higher ground to areas that are unlikely to flood while others will seek out products ranging from more energy efficient air conditioning to higher quality building materials to protect themselves from climate change's blows. This will play out differently around the world, and Kahn will take us on a tour of the world's major cities, from Los Angeles to New York to London to Mumbai, to see how different parts of the world along the economic development spectrum will fare in our hotter future."

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Reviews

Ray Fisman, co-author of Economic Gangsters <br> Figuring out why I disagree with Matt Kahn's arguments leaves me seeing the world in a different way. That's rare. And Kahn writes so well that it's always a fun ride regardless of where the journey ends. Climatopolis is no exception. Read it for one vision of our hot, humid, hazy future. <br><br>Richard Florida, author of Rise of the Creative Class , and Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto<br> How will we cope with a hotter, more crowded, and spikier world of bigger and bigger cities? Let Matt Kahn's thoroughly researched and well-written Climatopolis be your guide to our collective urban future. The Economist <br> It is refreshing... to read books which look at the warming to come not as a frightful warning, nor as a fait accompli, but as something to which, at some levels of change, people will have to adapt--and which in some settings they may adapt to rather well. <p>Edward L. Glaeser, New York Times Economix Blog<br> [E]ngaging and provocative... Professor Kahn's book provides a helpful middle ground between the extreme climate Cassandras and those who snort at climate change. <p> Science News <br> . ..[M]ore vivid and accessible than a typical policy tome on global warming. Perhaps many looming climate problems can be solved with a dose of the heady cocktail that is one part human ingenuity and one part profit motive. <p> Foreign Policy<br> . ..an increasingly realistic-looking thought experiment: What if we accept that environmental changes will occur, and look instead at how humanity would face a change in the planet's temperature? . . . .it would be wrong to downplay the role of market mechanisms in adapting to new environments. If indeed some form of climate change is inevitable, we will need to learn to adapt to the new conditions through responding to our own self-interest. <p>

"Ray Fisman, co-author of Economic Gangsters ""Figuring out why I disagree with Matt Kahn's arguments leaves me seeing the world in a different way. That's rare. And Kahn writes so well that it's always a fun ride regardless of where the journey ends. Climatopolis is no exception. Read it for one vision of our hot, humid, hazy future."" Richard Florida, author of Rise of the Creative Class, and Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto ""How will we cope with a hotter, more crowded, and spikier world of bigger and bigger cities? Let Matt Kahn's thoroughly researched and well-written Climatopolis be your guide to our collective urban future."" Ray Fisman, co-author of ""Economic Gangsters"" ""Figuring out why I disagree with Matt Kahn's arguments leaves me seeing the world in a different way. That's rare. And Kahn writes so well that it's always a fun ride regardless of where the journey ends. ""Climatopolis"" is no exception. Read it for one vision of our hot, humid, hazy future."" Richard Florida, author of ""Rise of the Creative Class,"" and Director of the Martin Prosperity Institute at the University of Toronto ""How will we cope with a hotter, more crowded, and spikier world of bigger and bigger cities? Let Matt Kahn's thoroughly researched and well-written ""Climatopolis"" be your guide to our collective urban future."" ""The Economist"""" """"It is refreshing... to read books which look at the warming to come not as a frightful warning, nor as a fait accompli, but as something to which, at some levels of change, people will have to adapt--and which in some settings they may adapt to rather well.""Edward L. Glaeser, ""New York Times ""Economix Blog ""[E]ngaging and provocative... Professor Kahn's book provides a helpful middle ground between the extreme climate Cassandras and those who snort at climate change."" ""Science News"" .."".[M]ore vivid and accessible than a typical policy tome on global warming. Perhaps many looming climate problems can be solved with a dose of the heady cocktail that is one part human ingenuity and one part profit motive."" ""Foreign Policy .""."".an increasingly realistic-looking thought experiment: What if we accept that environmental changes will occur, and look instead at how humanity would face a change in the planet's temperature? . . . .it would be wrong to downplay the role of market mechanisms in adapting to new environments. If indeed some form of climate change is inevitable, we will need to learn to adapt to the new conditions through responding to our own self-interest."""

Author Information

Matthew E. Kahn, one of the world's leading experts on both cities and the economics of the environment, is a Professor at the UCLA Institute of the Environment, the UCLA Department of Economics, and the UCLA Department of Public Policy. He blogs on environmental and urban topics at greeneconomics.blogspot.com-one of the Wall Street Journal's top 25 economics blogs. He lives in Los

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