Are you more aware of the actual cost of doing 'business as usual' than you were a few years ago?

Question

http://www.nrdc.org/globalwarming/cost/cost.pdf

http://www.nasa.gov/vision/earth/environment/danger_point.html

Answer 1

I find it amazing that you environmentalists have such an hatred for free markets. The "Scientists" you support are people that also hate free markets and can not hold jobs in the free market.

Try to start your own business - you'll find it almost impossible with environmental regulations.  Large Corporations use small minded people (envirowhackos)  to create this situation with blind protests and political corruption money - this helps destroy the backbone of our economy  = small businesses.

When you enviros have destroyed the backbone of the economy - will you survive the anarchy you helped create?

Answer 2

Yes, following divorce, I'm very aware of costs.

Answer 3

Yes,

The latest report by the IPCC (WGII) was pretty clear on what the costs of “business as usual” would be:

"Billions face climate change risk"[1]

Billions of people face shortages of food and water and increased risk of flooding, experts at a major climate change conference have warned.

Key findings of the report include:

A. 75-250 million people across Africa could face water shortages by 2020.

B. Crop yields increase could increase by 20% in East and Southeast Asia, but decrease by up to 30% in Central and South Asia.

C. Agriculture fed by rainfall could drop by 50% in some African countries by 2020.

D. 20-30% of all plant and animal species at increased risk of extinction if temperatures rise between 1.5-2.5C.

E. Glaciers and snow cover expected to decline, reducing water availability in countries supplied by melt water.

Of course, I'm talking about the human costs, and not the financial costs here.

Answer 4

Absolutely.  The longer we delay action, the more difficult and costly it's going to be to prevent and mitigate the effects of global warming.  That's why it bothered me that senate Republicans outright dismissed the Lieberman-Warner bill and essentially shelved any carbon cap discussions until next year.  The longer we wait, the most costly the effects will be and the harder it will be to avoid and repair them.

Answer 5

I'm aware of it and If someone is trying to start a small bussiness it's now to costly. not like the past generations when the competition in bussinesses is not hard as today

Answer 6

Very much so... at least to the point that I acknowledge that any given product's environmental impact and the cost associated with it doesn't start at the store, or the gas pump, or what have you. It starts at the point of production. I think I heard somewhere that back in the early 90s someone estimated that even $2.00 per gallon gasoline was actually an equivalent of $23 cost as far as environmental impacts such as supporting infrastructure, transporting the petroleum, and funding the war efforts that secure oil reserves.

I think the best concept I've gained recently is the theory of market democracy -- the fact that the people in the free market dictate what is acceptable by purchasing things, thus deeming them "o.k." for consumption.

If you believe this sort of thing you can easily see how a change for the better can start from the bottom-up, and that we can still live very comfortable lives without those things most Americans consider so important (That is, if we have good leadership and a well informed and educated society)

As a side...

Its funny how some people think all environmentalists are against free markets...especially when we don't even have a free market for the nation's largest commodity: oil. Last time I checked it's controlled largely by OPEC.

And what good is a so-called free market if people have no choice but to support oil companies if they want to live comfortably in society--be it fuel for transportation, food production, even the clothes on their very backs. That doesn't sound like freedom to me.

Market fundamentalists want to envision all of society in the market's image...but the truth is that there are plenty of goods, such as oil, that cannot be justly distributed by market forces. The free market is not, in and of itself, a bad thing, but consumers need viable alternatives to extend influence upon the marketplace.

Answer 7

The link about costs is not realistic.  They are making assumptions about climate change that is not realistic.  Take for instance cost of  increased hurricanes.  It has generally been established the global warming does not affect hurricanes.  

The U.S. has been an increase in precipitation due to global warming.  The warmer it is, the more water that will evaporate, the more rainfall we get.

As for the tipping point NASA claims, one has to wonder if they read their own reports.  The oceans have not gotten warmer , they have cooled over the past five years.

"Over the past 4-5 years, "there has been a very slight cooling, but not anything really significant," Josh Willis of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory recently told National Public Radio.

Nothing very significant—except the ocean warming trend has stopped?!  This, in the midst of the biggest furor over global temperatures and climate overheating in human history?"

http://www.enterstageright.com/archive/a...

The troposphere is also not warming, as much as the climate models say.

http://science.nasa.gov/newhome/headline...

So how can we have a tipping point given these trends?

Answer 8

Economics is not really my best suite. I wonder why they didn't use the global marketing index's? It shows a whole different picture. There's the World bank and interest rates, along with inflation. But that comes in many assorted flavors, and high energy cost are associated with that. But so is the decline in the American dollar, for many reasons, sometimes based on speculation. Generally the Global market reference shipping lanes and the demand for raw material as a indicator for economic health. My personal opinion for a small- med US business model failure was NAFTA, in combo with a illegal work force.

http://www.fas.usda.gov/info/newsevents....

http://www.zionsbancorporation.com/zions...

Answer 9

Most people aren't.  They still insist on getting government involved in what should be a free market.  They fail to see how this creates barriers to entry, gross inefficiency, higher prices, poorer quality, and reduced selection.