Joseph Stiglitz: Corporate greed is accelerating climate change. But we can still head off disaster

[applegrove]

Joseph Stiglitz: Corporate greed is accelerating climate change. But we can still head off disaster

By Joseph E. Stiglitz for CNN Business Perspectives

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/21/perspectives/joseph-stiglitz-earth-day-economy/index.html

"SNIP....

There are many reasons for our plight, including corporate power and greed centered on immediate profits and little regard for the impacts business decisions have on low-income Americans and the environment. Corporations have translated their economic power into political power, lobbying for policies that give them free rein to despoil the environment; and the swamp President Donald Trump promised to drain has been overflowing. At the same time, Trump has publicly asserted that climate change is a hoax, and yet his administration has repeatedly been forced to admit it is a reality — in response to climate lawsuits such as Juliana v. United States, for which I'm an expert witness.

Climate change is real, and it includes not only an increase in the average temperature, but also more extreme weather events including droughts, floods and hurricanes that have led to a large number of deaths. The United States has borne enormous costs as a result of the warming planet — in 2017, more than 1.5% of GDP. By the end of this century, some sectors of the US economy, including agriculture and energy, could lose hundreds of billions of dollars a year because of climate change, according to the latest report issued by the U.S. Global Change Research Program.

So there is a real urgency to respond to our economic malaise and our climate crisis. The good news on this Earth Day is that these are problems of our own making, and that means a change toward pro-Earth policies can make a big difference. Even better, the major investments we need to respond to the crisis would be a spur to the economy. This is one of the central messages of the Green New Deal.

The transition to the "green economy," in which we rely on renewable energy, won't happen on its own, however. It will require a mobilization of resources — the kind we saw during the New Deal and the Second World War. Government will have to take the lead, and it will require public investments — including in infrastructure and research — and regulations. Environmental regulations such as the Clean Air Act can and have worked, and typically are very cost‐effective. Without these measures, our air would be even more unbreathable than the air in New Delhi or Beijing today.

.....SNIP"

[SHRED]

1. We can reduce the disaster

The disaster is coming.

[Blue_true]

3. I agree with Nobel Prize winner Stiglitz.

We can first slow down the problem of climate change, then reverse the negative effects. It just takes the type of will that is not being shown.

I reject the concept of a point of no return on climate. Such a point is possible ONLY if we start exposing massive amounts of water vapor to the solar wind. But, if we allow the problem to grow much more, there will be massive death and destruction before technological innovation brings it under control, large amounts of people, animals and plants will die off during the recovery period. We have around 7 billion people and ~3 trillion trees on Earth, both those numbers could be halved.

[applegrove]

2. It feels like it did when Biden spoke of legalizing gay marriage and then

Obama did and then it was done and the vast majority thought it was fine. And why did it take so long. That is where we are on fighting climate change... people are ready for a new way of living and are willing to give up stuff for our planet's health.