Global warming alarmists steadfastly refuse to consider the costs and benefits of climate change mitigation despite (or perhaps because of) evidence that expensive-energy policies to fight global warming are worse for human welfare than rising temperatures. Whenever a reputable economist states the obvious-that “greening” the global economy is expensive and difficult-environmentalists respond by noting that an economist is not a climate scientist, and the science is settled, because there is a consensus. The environmentalist’s riposte is gibberish, of course, but it has the effect of subtly smearing the aforementioned economist and obscuring the economic consensus that climate change mitigation is economically harmful.

In light of this tactic, it is interesting that Rajendra Pachauri, the head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, told the Guardian that “the cost” of fighting global warming, “could undoubtedly be negative overall.” That is, we can make money by enacting expensive energy policies to fight global warming, presumably by having the government create millions of so-called “green jobs.”

How would Mr. Pachauri know? He is neither an economist not a climate scientist. In fact, he is a railroad engineer by trade, which, evidently, is a suitable background for the head of the world’s preeminent body of global warming scientists.