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by _bin_ 489 days ago
cool theory. McKinsey estimates a transition like that would cost $275 trillion and take until 2050. that's a lot of money. not only that, we all know the global south will, true to form, come calling with their hands out, demanding that we pay for their stuff too. which would essentially bankrupt America. we're already tens of trillions in the hole; we can't afford it.

just as importantly, since you're making a practical argument for why we should care, your own linked analysis suggests America will experience very little impact from global warming. impact levels run from a bit below +10 to a bit below -30 with zero as no impact; looks like our projected impact is around -10.

if you were assigning America some vaguely proportional cost, we could do so relative to emissions (giving us a $40T bill) or GDP ($72T). both of those numbers are significantly greater than the current national debt. they would bankrupt the nation, cripple the common man with inflation, and screw us out of any shot at reindustrializing.

as usual, unsaid is the massive downgrade in standard of living people expect us to somehow magically accept to build this bridge to nowhere.

[1] https://www.mckinsey.com/capabilities/sustainability/our-ins...

1 comments

You appear to be aggressively agreeing with the person you replied to with your source.

They said the US could spend 8 Trillion a year and it would still make financial sense.

Your Mackinsey report says the whole world should spend 9.2 Trillion a year to make the transition and that it makes financial sense to do so, both due to avoided costs of climate change and that many of the things needed to transition have a positive return in investmemt anyway.

Your own contribution on top of the report just seems muddled and confused given what you've cited.

Are you saying Mackinsey are wrong and it would be cheaper to do nothing? They're very clear even in the executive summary that is not the case:

> The rewards of the net-zero transition would far exceed the mere avoidance of the substantial, and possibly catastrophic, dislocations that would result from unabated climate change, or the considerable benefits they entail in natural capital conservation. Besides the immediate economic opportunities they create, they open up clear possibilities to solve global challenges in both physical and governance-related terms. These include the potential for a long-term decline in energy costs that would help solve many other resource issues and lead to a palpably more prosperous global economy.