"Ken Caldeira, an atmospheric scientist at the Carnegie Institution, puts the same point a different way. “If we already had energy and transportation systems that met our needs without using the atmosphere as a waste dump for our carbon- dioxide pollution, and I told you that you could be 2% richer, but all you had to do was acidify the oceans and risk killing off coral reefs and other marine ecosystems, risk melting the ice caps with rapid sea-level rise, shifting weather patterns so that food-growing regions might not be able to produce adequate amounts of food, and so on, would you take all of that environmental risk, just to be 2% richer?” He has, he says, often asked audiences this question; nobody has ever answered “yes”."
Stale blog offering Perspective on ideas, issues and life from Nevada County, California - belaboring the obvious since 2003
Monday, May 30, 2011
Ken Caldeira, reframing the climate problem. Ask your conservative friends this.
From 2009 in The Economist's Is it worth it? What economists have to say about mitigating climate change :
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