This book is intended to offer value to anyone interested in the science and economics of climate change. The text is suitable for use in an interdisciplinary course on climate science and economics. The comprehensive framework presented here could also provide value for scientists, economists, and policy analysts who already have a thorough knowledge of some aspects of climate issues. The work incorporates a survey of the latest journal articles, working papers, and books on climate change issues as of the time of writing. For anyone who has tried to absorb the thousands of pages written by the Nobel-prize winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, the presentation below will hopefully be seen as mercifully concise yet still informative.

The analysis also reflects a unique perspective of the author. Although I have long been deeply interested in earth sciences, I worked full time on climate issues only in the last several years. For nearly two decades prior to that, I held a day job as an economist at the Federal Reserve Board – an officer responsible for some of the staff work on interest rate management. The history of the Federal Reserve and of central banking around the world holds important lessons for climate policy. Communicating those lessons is one key motive for writing this book.

Since its creation early in the twentieth century, the Federal Reserve has made numerous mistakes in the conduct of monetary policy.