Climate change inaction will cost trillions: study

[cal04]

Failing to fight global warming now will cost trillions of dollars by the end of the century even without counting biodiversity loss or unpredictable events like the Gulf Stream shutting down, a study said on Friday.

But acting now will avoid some of the massive damage and cost relatively little, said the study commissioned by Friends of the Earth from the Global Development and Environment Institute of Tufts University in the United States.

"The climate system has enormous momentum, as does the economic system," said co-author Frank Ackerman. "We have to start turning off greenhouse gas emissions now in order to avoid catastrophe in decades to come."


The study said the cost of inaction by governments and individuals could hit 11 trillion pounds a year by 2100, or six to eight percent of global economic output then.

http://today.reuters.com/news/articlenews.aspx?type=scienceNews&storyid=2006-10-13T141528Z_01_L11333993_RTRUKOC_0_US-ENVIRONMENT-CLIMATE.xml&src=rss&rpc=22

[Vexatious Ape]

1. Nothing will be done

about this with these idiots in power. Half of them are waiting for the rapture or some sort of end times fantasy. And the other half are in a frenzy, hoarding and stacking up dollar bills.

[Javaman]

2. Trillions if we are lucky...

We are going through an earth wide extreme makeover. We are now on the down side of the slippery slope.

I really appreciate all the optimists out there that state that we can still turn things around but giving the fact that we have a pResident that is only waking up to the concept that there maybe a possible issue with global warming and has yet to contribute anything concrete to stop the CO2 emissions from the U.S., I don't think that a major geopolitical change is coming anytime soon. My reasoning behind this is; we are the worlds worst polluter and yet we don't have a gov't that is doing anything to curb it.

We are trying to stop a falling anvil with feathers.