Of course, one of the delicious hypocrisies is that these are the same people who decry the current economic boom as only helping the rich, and state regularly and fervently that the poor and middle-class are being left behind.
At the same time, such mid- to lower-level wage earners should be saddled with exorbitant additional expenses to shelter them from a wolf that might never come knocking at their doors.
Makes sense, right?
With that in mind, the Chicago Tribune’s Laurie Goering wrote a fabulous piece recently exposing some of the potential costs of this exercise that most media don’t want you to know (emphasis added throughout, h/t Benny Peiser):
For the United States, the most aggressive scenario in the new U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change mitigation report — holding greenhouse gases in the atmosphere to less than 500 parts per million, up from the current 380 parts per million — could cost $240 billion a year, or 2 percent of the nation's income, said Robert Mendelsohn, a climate-change economist at Yale University.
Yikes. That would be almost ten percent of the current budget. How do you think that will impact deficits and debt expansion?
But let’s make this discussion more personal:
Reducing greenhouse gases vigorously and quickly probably would push Americans' heating and electric bills up by 50 percent to 100 percent, said Jae Edmonds, a scientist and economist with the Joint Global Change Research Institute, based in Maryland. Gasoline prices would rise between 50 cents and $1 a gallon, he said.
Nice. How would that impact the personal finances of Americans at the middle and bottom rungs of the income ladder?
Furthermore, as it seems a metaphysical certitude that Congress isn’t going to cut $240 billion per year in other spending to pay for climate change remedies, such costs clearly would come from higher taxes.
So, if you add up the 50 to 100 percent increase in home heating and electric bills, along with a 50 cent to $1 per gallon gas hike, AND higher taxes, this could mean financial doom for many Americans.
And, the resulting reduction in consumer spending on other items likely would cause a recession with higher unemployment.
Is it any wonder that the actual dollars involved in climate change solutions are being kept from this hysterical discussion?
