Re:Ask HN: What can be done to prevent a climate catastrophe?
by Carpetsmoker on Wednesday October 10, 2018 @06:33PM
(#18189532)
> If the main argument is economic costs
Economic, human, and ecological costs. I am not hugely in favour of reducing everything to economics (although it's definitely an important part).
I also don't think that it's as simple as "$1 trillion of USA resources to prevent $10 trillion of future losses in SE Asia". Globalisation means that "local" economies aren't really all that local; so problems in e.g. SE Asia will also affect other parts of the world.
For example, is it worth for some country to "invest", say, $100 billion in reducing emissions - which, at least unilaterally, won't be sufficient to prevent the effects of climate change but just mitigate them - or can they achieve better mitigation by a comparable investment in reinforcing their shoreline, updating or relocating buildings, etc?
If USA had to vote on whether to spend (or lose by restricting growth) $1 trillion of USA resources to prevent $10 trillion of future losses in SE Asia, then I'd assume that such proposals would be swiftly declined; spending our resources on other things now and having someone else pay a huge price later would be considered a quite good deal by many governments, as the countries that most need to take action are not the same countries that will bear the harshest consequences.