Well, Great Britain’s got it right– Global Warming is a critical issue.
This is the first time an Economist has written an in-depth analysis of the cost of Global Warming. Bottom line is that we can all bite the bullet to the tune of 1% of GDP now, or pay as much as 20% or more of it later. According to the article on BBC,
The Stern Review says that climate change represents the greatest and widest-ranging market failure ever seen. And on the basis of this intellectually rigorous and thorough report, it is hard to disagree.Sir Nicholas Stern, a distinguished development economist and former chief economist at the World Bank, is not a man given to hyperbole.
Yet he says “our actions over the coming few decades could create risks of major disruption to economic and social activity, later in this century and in the next, on a scale similar to those associated with the great wars and the economic depression of the first half of the 20th Century”.
His report gives prescriptions for how to minimise this economic and social disruption.
His central argument is that spending large sums of money now on measures to reduce carbon emissions will bring dividends on a colossal scale. It would be wholly irrational, therefore, not to spend this money.
Though somehow I doubt Wall St. will pay attention. Short term profits are always more attractive to the financial weenies. Who cares what kind of economy our kids will be stuck with, or if they’ll be breathing air out of a bottle, or eating soylent green?
Now, if only our backward looking, corporate ass kissing politicians would wake up and smell the cappucino . . . But no, we instead have a president and cabinet that GUT the EPA, close down the EPA libraries so they can spend more of our tax dollars on twenty dollar bullets for the soldiers and so lawyers can’t make cases against polluting corporations, and vote in the rape of the Alaskan Wilderness so soccer moms can drive SUVs and keep the Bush Buddies eating caviar. Where’s tax incentives for alternative energy? Where’s the green tax here?
Please vote next week. Please.
Technorati Tags: Environment, Global Warming, Stern Report, alternative energy, oil
