The left loves to scare monger over the threat global warming presents to the United States. Last year the Natural Resources Defense Council put out a report claiming global warming would cost the U.S. $3.8 trillion annually. The report was full of fanciful assumptions and its conclusions had no basis in reality.

Actual scientists from MIT and Northwestern University recently examined annual variations in climate to determine the impact of temperature changes on national economies. And what did they conclude:

Our main results show large, negative effects of higher temperatures on growth, but only in poor countries. In poorer countries, we estimate that a 1?C rise in temperature in a given year reduced economic growth in that year by about 1.1 percentage points. In rich countries, changes in temperature had no discernable effect on growth. Changes in precipitation had no substantial effects on growth in either poor or rich countries. We find broadly consistent results across a wide range of alternative specifications.

U.S. News James Pethokoukis comments:

So if you do buy into the theory of man-made climate change, the next logical move would surely be to do nothing that would slow growth and technologcal advancement in rich countries — such as a cap-and-trade regulatory system or onerous carbon taxes — and do more to accelerate growth in poor ones through free trade and the exporting of democratic capitalism.