Today, there was much in the news about the report by the National Roundtable on the Environment and the Economy, which says that the effects of global warming could cost Canada $5 Billion dollars a year by 2020.
If you read my post of January 2010, this would be a great deal! We should embrace this and give up on any attempts to reduce emissions. As I explained previously, reducing emissions will cost around $15 Billion per year just to meet our Copenhagen commitment. And that won’t have any impact on global CO2 emissions, and thus no impact on the climate (if there is a causative link between CO2 and temperature…)
Even if you consider the worst case scenarios of costs rising to $43 Billion a year by 2050, that pales in comparison to the cost of CO2 emission reductions that won’t change anything if the USA, China, India and Brazil don’t take similarly drastic action. And even if they did (and spent enormous amounts of money), the cost of climate change adaptation will STILL be cheaper. This is called a cost-benefit analysis, or economic case comparison.
The correct answer is to stop trying to reduce CO2 emissions and adapt if and when the climate changes.
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klem
30 September 2011 at 7:28 (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Wow climate change costs will only be $5 billion by 2020? What happened? Environmentalists claimed that climate change would cost hundreds of billions every year unless we brought in Cap&Trade, it was the end of the world. If you recall, at Copenhagen we were supposed to pay 1% of GDP to the UN, that was $15 billion every year and that was supposed to be cheap compared to what climate change was going to cost (or so they claimed). Now this report says it’s going to be way cheaper to merely adapt to climate change. So we were right all along not to sign the Copenhagen Treaty, or sign at Cancun and soon not sign at Durban. No wonder no one listens to environmentalists anymore.
Gary
30 September 2011 at 11:56 (UTC -6) Link to this comment
Pay no attention to the massive savings behind the curtain.
Toronto has a huge Budget but the worse part to control is the WINTER $$$$ costs for snow removal ( cool water vapour) and Medical costs for seniors that get some benefits for Medications during the Winter.
Why didn’t David Miller just put together a group of people from the Tropics and ask them how they survived all these decades with year-round heat and sun light.
Then we could get ready for a warm winter season with no need for heating bills , and no injuried from slips by seniors or heart attacks from shoveling snow as well.
Miller made the Global Warming crisis sound like there would be dead bodies all over Toronto and the Lake would rise 10 feet while we had droughts and floods.
I still remember the 80′s when the snake-oil salespeople told us the Ice-age
was coming and we’d freeze in the dark if the Liberals didn’t Nationalize the Oil Industry. Now it’s Global-Warming where we will have to Nationalize the Freon-Industry to control the costs for Air Conditioners.
Ira
30 September 2011 at 14:20 (UTC -6) Link to this comment
$5 billion? That’s pocket change compared to the costs of complying with those international emissions agreements.
Either the author of that article is innumerate (and so are her editors), or they’re relying on the innumeracy of their readers.
Cynical Bard
1 October 2011 at 10:11 (UTC -6) Link to this comment
IRA, did you read the blog on Math o in schools?