October 30, 2006 11:26

The Scary Economics of Global Warming

People who like to paint global warming as an overblown threat often point to the huge costs of trying to fix it. What if we spend billions or trillions to stave off a threat that isn't there? And even if the problem is real, argue iconoclasts like Bjorn Lomborg, the self-styled Skeptical Environmentalist, humanity faces more immediate troubles that demand more immediate spending.

But those arguments are false, says a new report out of the United Kingdom. Put together by economist Sir Nicholas Stern, the study pegs the likely economic hit from human-induced climate change at a whopping 20% reduction in global economic output over the next several decades, due to such things as massive droughts, hundreds of millions of refugees from rising sea level, the widespread extinction of species. That's comparable, says the report, to the devastation caused by the Great Depression, or one of the World Wars.

The good news, says Stern, is that this economic disaster, which he deems very probable based on a survey of scientific evidence, can be largely staved off with an investment of about 1% of the world's GDP in carbon-reduction and other schemes. The bad news is that we have to start pretty much right away. And while Tony Blair has hailed the new report and promised that the U.K. will take serious measures, there's pretty much no response out of the White House. Could he be miffed that Al Gore  has signed on as an adviser on climate change to the British government? Maybe he wanted Gore's wisdom on this side of the Atlantic. On second thought.....nah.

Sphere Related Blogs & Articles

|