Riiiiight, when you thought you had a climate change 'gotcha', you got all puffed up like a peacock in heat -- posted your climate change article In the "ENVIRONMENT" section of the USMB --- then, after you got your ass handed to you, you want to change the subject to the 2010 election?-----okeydoke. One of great things about living in America is you have the right to choose to bail out when you lose a M/B conversation, but dude, I'm SMH @U.
I think this is yours, I found it on a thread titled
"Karakoram Glaciers are expanding!!!"
Thats right...........what was I thinking?
Your side is dominating the skeptics!! After all..........the science is so compelling, the public is knocking doors down in DC to have their representatives pen legislation to cap carbon emmissions. Clearly, Cap and Trade is about to make a huge comeback!! The public is lurching towards the same mass hysteria that is embraced by the eco-nazi's...........coal will likely be shut down completely by 2013. By 2015, who knows, we may all have windmills on top of our cars and a big solar panel in our backyard!!! That half a degree has really moved public poicy to spend the 76 trilion to go green..........we skeptics dont have a leg to stand on anymore!!!!
What are you talking about?
Renewable energy sources are rapidly expanding in the United States and now represent more than 12% of today's energy needs.
I see lots-o-projection and smoke blowin' in your message but---but few facts. $76 trillion? - is $76 trillion a lot?
is $76 trillion a lot of money?
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Well, first of all, let’s break it down a bit. First up, this $76 trillion would be paid over 40 years. Second , it would be paid by all countries, the ones that are classed as “developing” as well as the ones that populate the ranks of the wealthy. Third, it would include private investment (of the
profit-making kind) as well as public expenditures aimed at covering the incremental costs of an extremely accelerated transition, which is the kind we need.
And thereÂ’s more! For example, there are good reasons to think that green investments on this scale would sharply accelerate
economic growth. Which would mean that, all things considered, weÂ’d be richer in the future where we make them than in the future where we donÂ’t. Also, that later future, the one in which we make no emergency climate / agriculture transition, is hardly going to be happy and free. It too would demand massive investments, and these would be made in the service of an extremely unstable, high-poverty world. Which would, of course, be crushingly expensive in its own way.
So maybe $76 trillion
isnÂ’t a lot of money.
Not that youÂ’d know it by reading the wires. Fox News, for example, ran a piece on the
2011 Survey under the title of
Even U.N. Admits That Going Green Will Cost $76 Trillion. And a quick Google revealed lots and lots of other right-wing screeds, with titles like
UN DEMANDS $76 Trillion: The Cost of “Going Green” Soars. This later piece was particularly interesting because it took the UN to task for raising its global climate-transition cost estimate, which indeed it has done since the
2009 Survey.
WhatÂ’s the lesson?
I can think of two. First, donÂ’t low-ball cost estimates to placate the right. As our understanding improves, cost estimates may well go up, and youÂ’ll just get attacked for raising them. Second, and more importantly, this is a game of comparisons. The cost of saving the world should be compared, first of all, to the cost of
not saving it, which will pretty predictably be a whole hell of a lot higher. And there are lots of other illuminating comparisons besides. Which is to say that the real art lies in finding better ways to think about costs, ways that don’t play into the neoliberal hysteria, ways that reveal the large numbers that characterize the climate transition literature for what they really are – small numbers.
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IOW's - pay now or pay more --a lot more-- later when emergency measures limit our choices.
It is wise to worry about tomorrow today. ~ Aesop's ant