The cost of climate change

By Michael J.W. Stickings

I've written about it many times here, over and over and over again. But here's a new perspective:

Failing to curb the impact of climate change could damage the global economy on the scale of the Great Depression or the world wars by spawning environmental devastation that could cost 5 to 20 percent of the world's annual gross domestic product, according to a report issued yesterday by the British government.

But don't look for the U.S. to take the lead, or indeed to do much of anything: "[T]o shift U.S. climate policy would entail policies that exact a price from politically influential and economically powerful industries." And that isn't about to happen anytime soon.

The BBC has an excellent article on the report here. And both the BBC and The Washington Post have good "in depth" features on climate change -- I recommend them both.

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Some of my more recent posts on climate change:

• Fucking Mother Earth;
• Climate change is happening;
• Terminating global warming;
• From global warming to heat waves;
• This just in -- global warming is real!; and
• Bush's "bamboozling ballet of dissimulation and denial" on global warming.