Blogging on Climate Change

Hi everyone,

It's been a while (pretty much 6 months, actually) since I've blogged, but today is Blog Action Day (See www.blogactionday.org), and it's on a subject that's near and dear to my heart, climate change. I could say so much about this topic, a lot of which has been said already.

I came to a pretty sad climate realization today. The time to act and really get serious was two years ago, in 2007, when we all had a lot of money and it was flowing fairly freely, and we had the information we needed in the form of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Why not take some of that cup that is running over and invest it in technologies and designs of all sorts that would make our societies much more resilient. Now, we're borrowing against our future (well, we would've probably have been doing that in 2007, but at least the debt would've been less), investing stimulus money in... to be honest, I'm not sure. I doubt, however, that what the Canadian government is spending on has sustainability and dealing with climate change written into it.

The International Energy Agency just published the climate change chapter for their World Energy Outlook for 2009. The cost to avert catastrophic climate change? About 1.1% of GDP in 2030 (or, $1.2 trillion). Less than what the IPCC said two years ago. They didn't look at the financial or other benefits that would come out of that investment, except for fuel costs (which would go down by about $8.6 trillion over the 20 years between 2010 and 2030; though it doesn't say how much in 2030, it's probably close to $1 trillion) and health costs (which would go down by about $100 billion). So - here we are - a chance to create a cleaner world, at a true long-term profit. A chance to save money now and into the future. A chance to create places that are really help people meet their fundamental human needs. This can really start at Copenhagen.

Are we ready to do it?