Paul Krugman says that some of the doom and gloom scenarios of global climate change may only be years away from affecting the Southwestern United States. If this is true, then why isn't climate change the dominant public policy issue here in the US? In one paragraph Krugman sums up why we can't seem to take big steps towards curbing greenhouse gas emissions and global warming:
But the larger reason we’re ignoring climate change is that Al Gore was right: This truth is just too inconvenient. Responding to climate change with the vigor that the threat deserves would not, contrary to legend, be devastating for the economy as a whole. But it would shuffle the economic deck, hurting some powerful vested interests even as it created new economic opportunities. And the industries of the past have armies of lobbyists in place right now; the industries of the future don’t.
I hope climate change skeptics and even the deniers take a few minutes to read the rest of Mr. Krugman's column on the climate change crisis.
3 comments:
Gore has more square footage in bathrooms than I have in my whole house. It would be a lot easier to believe there is a crisis if the people pushing the crisis acted like there was one.
What does the size of Al Gore's house have to do with climate change denial? If he and his family moved into a solar powered trailer home would that change anything? No, it wouldn't, and I'm sure nobody is taking note that since the Gore's purchased the house six years ago they have done a lot to make the mansion more energy efficient.
If he and his family moved into a solar powered trailer home would that change anything?
True. And any shift in my life style would have less effect than anything Gore does as I control far fewer resources. The same could be said for 99.9% of the human race.
Going back to this:
But it would shuffle the economic deck, hurting some powerful vested interests even as it created new economic opportunities.
Gore and others are basically asking everybody to take definite losses for uncertain, future gains (or to avoid future losses that won't be seen outside of some model if the plan works). I have very little ability to tell if they are right or not (and a well-founded distrust of running models too far into the future), so I look at how much the leading supporters are willing to 'invest'. Seems a very useful heuristic.
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