March 12, 2015 10:02AM # Global Warming: Good for Bad and Bad for Good? By [Paul C. “Chip” Knappenberger](https://www.cato.org/people/chip-knappenberger) and [Patrick J. Michaels](https://www.cato.org/people/patrick-michaels) --- SHARE Another day, another negative impact from pernicious global warming caused by humanity’s relentless quest for self-betterment. Today, it is our [coffee](http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2015/mar/11/climate-change-puts-coffee-risk-epa-chief-warns/) supply that is in jeopardy. Earlier this week, global warming was melting [mummies](http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/global-warming-could-be-destroying-the-worlds-oldest-mummies-10101717.html) in Chile. Last week, it was blamed for [war](http://mashable.com/2015/03/02/global-warming-syria-civil-war/) in Syria. Turns out that global warming is a highly selective beast—it only harms the things we love, while enhancing the things we don’t. [Penguins](http://www.livescience.com/46595-global-warming-threatens-emperor-penguins.html)? [Polar bears](http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/11/26/why-the-polar-bear-is-still-a-pretty-good-icon-for-global-warming/)? [Songbirds](http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/songbirds-as-a-casualty-of-warming/?_r=0)? [Coffee](http://green.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/10/songbirds-as-a-casualty-of-warming/?_r=0)? Harms. Harms. Harms. Harms. [Jellyfish](http://www.isciencetimes.com/articles/5368/20130610/jellyfish-blooms-rising-population-sign-oceans-trouble.htm)? [Poison ivy](http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/060530-warming.html)? [Ragweed](http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/21/us-climate-ragweed-idUSTRE71K5HD20110221)? [War](http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/syrias-civil-war-linked-partly-to-drought-global-warming/2015/03/02/bd44b55e-c11a-11e4-a188-8e4971d37a8d_story.html)? Helps. Helps. Helps. Helps. Mummies are sort of a special case. If they were roaming around attacking people, we’d imagine that global warming would empower them. But in this case, the mummies are harmlessly laying around in the (apparently poorly climate-controlled) vaults in a museum in Chile. There, they are a natural treasure. So, predictably, global warming is causing harm. \[Gotta wonder what warming could do to poor old Lenin lying entombed in Red Square. Our greener friends might want him reincarnated, while others would hope he would begin to leak like the Chilean mummies\]. And the list goes on and on—something that we’ve pointed out previously (see [here](http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2005/08/09/global-warming-bad-for-good-and-good-for-bad/) and [here](http://www.worldclimatereport.com/index.php/2008/02/20/more-bad-for-good-and-good-for-bad/), for example). Consequently, the news of the past week should hardly come as a great surprise. We’re pretty used to it by now. But what may come as a surprise is that according to U.K. economist [Richard Tol](http://www.sussex.ac.uk/profiles/289812), recent studies into the economic impacts of climate change find the positives to be increasing and the negatives to be decreasing. Tol [writes](http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/dr-richard-tol/post_9146_b_6816124.html?utm_hp_ref=tw): > Since 2009, however, more estimates of the economic impact of climate change have been published…The new trend shows positive impacts for warming up to about two degrees global warming, just like the old trend did. The new trend, however, shows markedly less negative impacts for more profound warming than did the old trend. In other words, in the last five years, we have become less pessimistic about the impacts of climate change. Couple this result with the [bevy](https://www.cato.org/blog/collection-evidence-low-climate-sensitivity-continues-grow) of new scientific findings indicating the future climate change is likely to be on the low side of climate model projections and we have some good news about climate change’s impact on something that we all like—money! Got to wonder why it is that you only find this result highlighted in these pages and not headlining the front page of the *Washington Post* or *New York Times*. ##### Related Tags [Energy and Environment](https://www.cato.org/research/energy-environment) [![Creative Commons License](/build/cato_2020/images/creative-commons.svg)](http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/) This work is licensed under a [Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0/).