Comedy and climate change by stand-up economist, Yoram Bauman

"The best way to fight climate change is with the tools of economics,” according to Yoram Bauman, an environmental economist and comedian from Seattle who will be giving a one-off free show at the University of Victoria (UVic) Wednesday.

“Comedy, Economics and Climate Change” is being co-hosted by the Pacific Institute for Climate Solutions (PICS) and the UVic Department of Economics.
Bauman’s brand of economic comedy underpinned with environmental solutions is a popular drawcard on US and Canadian comedy and education speaking circuits. His goals are to reform economics education and implement carbon pricing – while making people laugh.

Bauman says it may surprise people to know that most economists agree about what should be done about climate change.

“Just about all economists think that putting a price on carbon (with a carbon tax or cap-and-trade system, but especially with a revenue-neutral carbon tax) is necessary, if not sufficient, in tackling climate change,” he says. “Market forces are the most powerful way to promote innovation in clean technology, and the best way to harness market forces is to put a price on carbon.”

Bauman is strong advocate of British Columbia’s carbon tax, which he has described as “the best climate policy in the world” in a New York Times opinion article in July 2012. He is part of the CarbonWA.org effort to bring a BC-style carbon tax to Washington State.

WHAT: “Comedy, Economics and Climate Change” by Dr. Yoram Bauman
WHEN: 7:00 – 8: 30 p.m., Wednesday, Oct. 9, 2013
WHERE: Room A110, David Turpin Building, UVic
LIVE WEBCAST: http://vod.uvic.ca/vod/mediaservices/uvicchannels/uvicone.html

Yoram Bauman is an environmental economist, stand-up comedian and a carbon tax Fellow at Sightline Institute in Seattle. He has a PhD in economics from the University of Washington and works in Washington state and elsewhere on climate change economics and policy, especially carbon pricing. He has appeared in TIME Magazine and on PBS and NPR, and is the co-author of the two-volume The Cartoon Introduction to Economics, with a third book, The Cartoon Introduction to Climate Change, currently in the making. His most recent academic paper (“Climate sensitivity: should the climate tail wag the policy dog?”) was co-authored with UW climate scientist Gerard Roe and appeared in the April 2013 issue of Climatic Change. His website is www.standupeconomist.com.

-- 30 --