One of the constant complaints of those who don't want to actively fight greenhouse gas-driven global warming is that it'll simply cost too much. No way, wreck the economy, trigger a massive transfer of wealth, on and on and on.
A terrific article in The New York Times invites us to look at the fight against global warming from the perspective of our fight against communism in the post-war decades. From that perspective, we've got very little room for griping.
"Some academics see an analogy between a global warming policy and the pursuit of national security in the cold war. In the late 1950s, American military spending reached as high as 10 percent of the gross domestic product and averaged about 4 percent, far higher than in any previous peacetime era. A Soviet nuclear attack was a danger but hardly a certainty, just as the predicted catastrophes from global warming are threats but not certainties.
“'The issues are similar in that you pay now so things are less risky in the future — it’s an insurance policy,” said Richard Cooper, a Harvard economist. 'And in the cold war, we taxed ourselves fairly highly to mitigate that threat.'”
Give credit where it's due - to the Democrats - but since reclaiming both houses of Congress, even Exxon and Shell have switched sides, acknowledging the fact of carbon-driven, global warming.
Why shouldn't we freely accept the same economic cost (actually it's estimated at only 1% GDP) to tackle global warming as we did to try to defend ourselves against Soviet bombers and missiles? C'mon, why not?
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