Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Got A Degree?

I was just looking at ECO World and came across an interesting analysis of what it would cost to lower global temps 1°C. It is a pretty good analysis and I'm not going to review it because they do it better than I can. However, their conclusion is worth some attention.

The imperative to dramatically curtail fossil fuel use rests on the precautionary principle. Maybe the earth’s climate isn’t going to catastrophically tip because of CO2 emissions, but we should do it anyway just in case. But there are two sides to this argument. Our position is we should use those trillions to build roads, hospitals, power plants, reforestation, aquifer replenishment, and medical (and other scientific) research. We should nurture free trade, free markets, and entrepreneurship. We should deliver to humanity the universal prosperity that is the destiny of our generation. Then by sometime between 2025 and 2050, we will have created economic abundance, we will have advanced technology, and we will be well positioned to handle whatever the climate may throw at us.
Now there is an ecology site I can get behind. It is great to have a few more rational thinkers in the mix.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

At $19T/degree...

it's cheaper to put a sunscreen at the L1 Lagrange Point. That would only cost about $15T/degree.