While the media have devoted far less time to climate change information and controversies (over nuclear power, not whether climate change is occurring, whether it’s our fault, and whether it’s important — all that has been decided) than its importance warrants, the Washington Post has been particularly neglectful.
This week, Emily Messner in her blog The Debate addresses hurricanes and climate change, differences in the Bush and Clinton perceptions of whether addressing climate change will benefit or cost our society, and so on.
The numbers I’ve seen indicate that to address climate change, really address it, will be expensive. The more we change our lives, the more we accept that living with less does not necessarily mean living a diminished life, the less expensive the other decisions.
We need to weigh these financial costs, the work to change ourseleves both in the policies we advocate and the way we live, against the enormous costs of failing to tackle climate change. After all, the recent hurricanes (increased intensity rather than increased numbers) may or may not be the result of a relatively small amount of climate change. The decreased amount of ice in the Arctic, and the current belief that this decrease is now self-sustaining because ice that isn’t there used to reflect rather than absorb energy, is the result of a relatively small amount of climate change. The full implications of the carbon we’ve added to date won’t be seen for decades, possibly centuries.
So check out the Washington Post discussion, and encourage the Post to add reporters to the environment beat. Also read the comments, many of which add to the discussion.
