Skeptics sometimes say that there’s no need to rush in addressing climate change — that our constantly increasing wealth will eventually make the problem relatively inexpensive to solve. Thanks to some careful mathematical research, that argument is looking increasingly wrong.

Placing a value on something that may happen 50 or 100 years from now isn’t easy. Economists typically rely on market interest rates, taking a historical average and projecting it into the future. If, for example, $10 would compound to $100 over the next century, then they’ll estimate that avoiding $100 of climate-related damage in 2116 is worth just $10 today.