Who will pay for all of this?

Question

tons of people keep telling us to use bio-fuels,and green roof and another expensive stuff to prevent global warming.my question is goin to be:who will pay that if we cant effort it?

Answer 1

Who's going to pay if we don't do something about it?  Those who are already paying:  the poor.  But if you prefer not to think about it, think of future generations in our own economies.  They're pretty well doomed if we don't take big and perhaps costly strides.  

However, there are many, many inexpensive things we can all do:  reduce use of air conditioning, hang the clothes on the line to dry (vs. a dryer), drain the laundry water out to the garden instead of sending it down the drain, recycle all plastic bottles and bags (reuse them until they fall apart), ride our bikes or walk whenever possible, buy more fresh food (vs. processed/packaged) and learn to cook it (heaven forbid).

What we call progress is doing us in.

Answer 2

Obviously us.

Answer 3

s***w it, keep using the crude oil.

Answer 4

Many energy conservation steps save money, such as switching to compact flourescent lights and buying Energy Star certified PCs and appliances.  Investing in home solar panels has a 30 to 40 year payback at today's energy prices, sooner if energy prices rise.  The payback will also be sooner as the industry expands and efficiency increases and panel costs continue to come down.

Everyone will pay a lot more if we do nothing.

For example, here in the United States, Lake Mead, above Hoover Dam on the Colorado River, could be unusable within 6 years and the cost will be $2B/year for that one event alone:

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/...

There is a 50 percent chance Lake Mead will run dry by 2021 and a 10 percent chance it will run out of usable water by 2014...

"We were stunned at the magnitude of the problem and how fast it was coming at us," said marine physicist Tim Barnett.  "Make no mistake, this water problem is not a scientific abstraction but rather one that will impact each and every one of us that live in the Southwest," he said.

http://geochange.er.usgs.gov/sw/changes/...

"During the final, deepest years of the drought (years 17-22), costs to Upper Basin municipal and energy water uses were even larger. Total damages (including the non-consumptive uses) reach as high as $2 billion/year in the final years of the drought

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/magazi...

Steven Chu, a Nobel laureate and the director of the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, one of the United States government’s pre-eminent research facilities, remarked that diminished supplies of fresh water might prove a far more serious problem than slowly rising seas.  Chu noted that even the most optimistic climate models for the second half of this century suggest that 30 to 70 percent of the snowpack will disappear. “There’s a two-thirds chance there will be a disaster,” Chu said, “and that’s in the best scenario.”

Answer 5

good point..........but if u cant afford.....then try not to use so many fuels.....try to reduce the use of things that pollute the environment or are a cause of global warming...

Answer 6

Who will pay for not doing all this?

Polluting is really expensive.  Health costs, environmental damage, wars over oil, subsidies to oil companies.   The changes will be a boost to the economy.  New industries.   We can't afford not to change.  Some large companies are learning this.  That's why Walmart is installing solar panels on their stores and changing to efficient lighting.  It saves money.  lots of it.

Conservation can do a lot, and it saves money.

We give over $80 billion in subsidies to the hugely profitable oil companies.  The bill that has been introduced to extend tax credits for solar, wind, etc, is asking for $18  billion over 6 or 8 years.  Studies have shown the overall hidden costs of the oil economy and energy are over $800 billion a year.   Nearly twice our defense budget.  That's the costs I would worry about.

And you can add to that the cost of the Gulf War and the war in Iraq, in dollars and lives, both Iraqi and American lives.  I'm not counting Afghanastan,

because we actually went there to fight Al Queda terrorists.  There weren't any in Iraq, although there are now.

Answer 7

What? Do you got a bargain price on a new planet? How much is prevention of EXTINCTION worth to you?

Answer 8

Don't worry, the politicians won't force us to change to renewable energy unless the fossile fuels really do start running out or someone can prove that AGW is a significant problem.  

If either of those happen then energy will get a lot more expensive.  This will have a follow on effect with transport and industrial processes becoming more expensive as will building operating costs and all business costs.  An economic slowdown and drop in the standard of living will result.

Answer 9

i think it is part of a bigger plan to fund the elite

sure we do need to sharpen up and stop putting so much into the air and into the ground but to have to invest in company's endorsed by the elite seems crazy

just like the power saver bulbs that contain mercury but have no warnings and no instructions on how to safely dispose of them even though they where government endorsed apparently government havn't thought that far ahead

Answer 10

currently governments mostly subsidise, directly & indrectly through tax breaks etc, the fossil fuel industry http://gristmill.grist.org/story/2008/2/...

Also fossil fuel users/businesses do not pay the cost of pollution clean up, that mostly affects poorer people, eg 1000 premature deaths a year in London due to diesel particulates.

The cost of climate change to the UK is given by the Stern repoort http://www.hm-treasury.gov.uk/independen...

Plus we have now reached peak oil when oil production begins to decline yet consumption is still rising, when supply can't meet demand the price will rocket.

Summary: we can't afford not to change.

renewables are not subsidsied to the same extent so are initially more expensive because of low market size. Yet electric vehicles would be far cheaper to make (much less complex than infernal combustion) and run. Green roofs are quite cheap, and save money in energy savings. Also for bio-fuel is cheaper to convert used chip oil than buy deisel.

so where's the problem. Any initial start up cost would be dwarfed by the worlds military budgets, yet would probably make the world safer, and more politically stable too.

Answer 11

Try conservation to start. You would be amazed at how much money you can save.

Answer 12

In a free market, those who wanted it the most would pay for it.  In the current market, taxpayers will be the ones footing the bill, as governments subsidize uncompetitive (and ill-conceived) endeavors.