The One Reason Why The Climate Crisis is Undefeatable
The tab keeps growing faster than we can count
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Published in
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6 min read
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Aug 23
Source: @ed_hawkins
The planet is burning, the oceans boiling, and hurricanes are hitting unexpected locations. People are shocked, shaken, and struggling to understand the situation. How could this happen? Climate change used to be a Hollywood abstraction — now it’s become, all too suddenly, a devastating everyday reality.
And it’s beginning, at last, to enter the collective consciousness.
As it does, a fierce debate breaks out. Just how bad are things?
We don’t have an authoritative estimate of how much climate change is costing because: how can we objectively estimate the cost of Canada’s and Hawaii’s wildfires, ice-melting consequent loss of krill and marine-CO2-absorbing life, floods from Buenos Aires to Frankfurt and China?
The costs are mounting faster than we can count them.
What we’re left with is a spectrum
Morgan Stanley speculated a cost of 650 billion in 2018. A report from Swiss Re estimates climate change to shave as much as $23 trillion by 2050 (11 to 14 % off global economic output). That is an additional 850 billion a year, putting today’s expenses in the best-case scenario of 4,5 trillion.
Global temperature rises will negatively impact GDP in all regions by mid-century
These figures, while abstract, hold critical meaning.
Here’s THE fact that everyone should know: even the lowest estimates for climate change costs surpass our investment in fighting it. Let that sink in. It’s the crux of why things are spiraling out of control so rapidly and why the climate crisis is undefeatable. We’re losing more than we’re putting in.
Imagine your house showing signs of wear — leaks, cracks, and damages. Just as you’d repair and maintain it to prevent more significant issues, the same principle applies to the planet. We must invest in climate solutions equal to the costs it’s causing, or we risk a global catastrophe. We should be willing to invest at least as much as climate change costs us to repair it. At least!
