Canada's anti-Kyoto crowd, basically the Reform conservative party and its faithful, wail furiously that genuinely fighting global warming would be the country's financial ruin. I think that's something they picked up from the Fraser Institute or was it Fox News?
Not so, says Sir Nicholas Stern, the British economist who costed out the relative costs of tackling the problem versus neglecting it.
Stern chose the Toronto Stock Exchange to speak with Canadian reporters yesterday, saying, "...most reasonable assessments ... would come to the conclusion that the costs of action are far less than the costs of inaction. ...The costs of inaction have to do with the risks which we put ourselves in from doing very little about climate change."
His year-long study concluded that cutting GHG emissions by 30% by 2050 would cost one per cent of global, GDP. The cost of failing he estimated at up to 20% of GDP. In other words, Stern is convinced that effectively fighting global warming is a no brainer.
Speaking of "no brainers", Stern's comments undercut the dire warnings of our Furious Leader, Harpo, and his Enviromin, John Baird, that even trying to meet our Kyoto committments would devastate the Canadian economy. Fearmongering is no longer acceptable.
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