Year 3, Month 10, Day 9: Your Lovin’ Give Me Such A Thrill…

The Regina Leader-Post (Canada) reports on a new study highlighting climate change’s likely effect on GDP:

Climate change and pollution related to carbon-dioxide emissions are reducing the world’s gross domestic product by 1.6 per cent a year, about $1.2 trillion US, according to a report.

If unchecked, rising temperatures may cut global GDP by 3.2 per cent a year by 2030, according to the Climate Vulnerability Monitor, from by the Madrid-based humanitarian group DARA and the Climate Vulnerable Forum. As the economic impact of climate change grows, so will the cost of curbing it, according to leaders of developing nations who spoke at an event in New York last week.

“What is possible with $100 billion today will cost 10 times more in 2030,” Bangladesh Prime Minister Sheik Hasina Wajed said during the panel discussion, part of the Climate Week NYC conference. Her country is part of the Climate Vulnerable Forum, a group of developing nations threatened by climate change.

A warming planet will have a disproportionate effect on developing countries, especially low-income states such as Bangladesh that have high population density and fewer natural resources.

Low-lying coastal regions also face the prospect of being submerged as the oceans rise, she said.

This will affect food production and drive up prices, she said. Climate change may cut GDP in some developing nations by as much as 11 per cent by 2030.

I would rather replace capitalism by incremental stages as we figure out a better way to do things. I hope there will be enough time. Sent October 1:

Conservative thinkers routinely claim that energy and emissions policies which address the threat of global climate change would be too expensive — an argument which makes sense as long as you don’t think too hard or too long about the issue. But if there was ever an issue which demanded long and concentrated thought, it’s the complex set of economic and environmental forces involved in our civilization’s response to the burgeoning greenhouse effect. Those who deny the scientific reality of global warming cannot expect that their cost/benefit analyses should be taken seriously.

Conversely, the nations represented in the Climate Vulnerable Forum are the ones on the front line of devastating ecological transformation. Their report on climate change’s impact on GDP offers a globally relevant version of some old home truths: a stitch in time saves nine; an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.

If we wait to respond until Earth’s climate has transformed beyond recognition, it will cost our species far more than self-styled “fiscal conservatives” can imagine.

Warren Senders