Quote:
Originally Posted by corporatejay
Anyone who thinks this issue isn't politicized is kidding themselves However, just because an issue has become politicized doesn't mean it isn't true.
My biggest problem is that a lot of these programs are simply wealth transfers that don't really do anything to combat climate change.
I also think that the answer is sustainable growth, you can't keep developing at an incredible rate and think there will be no consequences. Conversely, you can't just turf the world's economy.
|
I know it's politicized. If it was purely up to science, this would have been dealt with at least a decade ago. It's the politics that screws the whole thing up. And the politics become a feed-forward loop. It drags everything out, the situation gets worse, then it gets more expensive to deal with, so it gets more political, etc., etc., etc....
It is a wealth transfer. Get over it. It is a wealth transfer because WE, the west have already developed a historical debt in terms of carbon emissions. This is about social justice. We, over the course of our development, have already emitted our share of emissions, when compared to the bulk of the global population in the poorer countries. If Copenhagen was going to be truly fair, we would have to stop emitting, period. Cold turkey. Tomorrow.
Obviously we can't do that, so instead, we ought to bear the financial burden. Poor countries in the G77 can't afford to deal with the damage we have wrought. We have a moral obligation to help them mitigate the effects of OUR prosperity, not theirs. They will suffer so you can eat cheap beef and drive a Dodge Ram.
We can afford to develop renewable energy technology, they can't. There are still people going sick and hungry in those countries, in the west, there aren't. We can afford to pay for their relocation and engineering projects and water management projects. They can't.
This is the problem. The average North American cannot fathom what life is like for the world's poor that make up the bulk of the population. They talk about sustainability, but they certainly don't mean sustainability for some poor sucker in the low-lying coastal regions of south-east Asia or arid Africa.
And oh yes, the economy argument. Are you familiar with the Stern report? If you were, you would know that Sir Nicholas Stern, the former chief economist for the World Bank, was commisioned by the UK government to examine the global economic impact of climate change. Simply, he concluded that it will cost less to deal with it now, aggressively, than it will to delay. While much of it is a secondary synthesis, it is still thorough and well thought out, with extensive references if you want further detail.
Enjoy:
http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/stern_review_report.htm