Fighting Global Warming Could Cost $570 Trillion Experts Say

                  According to a new paper submitted by James Hansen, a former senior NASA climate scientist, and 11 other ‘experts,’ the 2016 temperature is likely to be 1.25°C above pre-industrial times, following a warming trend where the world has heated up at the staggering rate of 0.18°C per decade over the past 45 years. And, according to an article in the guardian.com touting the paper, Hansen and friends state that: “This rate of warming is bringing Earth in line with temperatures last seen in the Eemian period, an interglacial era ending 115,000 years ago when there was much less ice and the sea level was 6-9 meters (20-30 ft.) higher than today.”

                There was much less ice then, and the sea level was dramatically higher? When there were no cities or factories? Have they considered the fact that we are in an interglacial era now? Am I missing something?

                The paper states that the effort to significantly reduce the atmospheric levels of CO2- or greenhouse gasses- that scientists believe are causing global warming, will require “daunting technological advances that will cost the coming generations hundreds of trillions of dollars.” Hansen and Company believe that in order to meet targets set at last year’s Paris climate accord to avoid runaway climate change, “massive CO2 extraction” costing $104 trillion to $570 trillion will be required over the next one hundred years with “large risks and uncertain feasibility” as to its success. No cost-benefit analysis needed though, experts say we have to do this!

                The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) recently claimed that, due to man-made greenhouse gasses, carbon dioxide levels will not drop below 400 ppm in our lifetimes, the highest concentration of CO2 since the Pliocene Era three million years ago. There weren’t any human beings on the bleeping planet then, guys! The article noted that sea levels at this time were around 65 feet higher than they are today, and trees were able to grow near the North Pole due to warmer weather and the consequent lack of ice. That’s called Earth-made climate change or God-made climate change. Trees grew near the North Pole then, and glaciers came down across Canada and into what’s now the northern and central region of the United States tens of thousands of years ago. We didn’t cause either of these things, nor could we have done a damn thing about them. Sometimes you just have to move.

                The paper was submitted to the Earth System Dynamics Journal (order your subscription now, operators are standing by!), has yet to be peer reviewed, and was launched in support of a legal case filed by millenials against the U.S. government. Hansen and his granddaughter are parties to the legal challenge asserting that the government has violated young people’s right to life, liberty and property. (Well, maybe not yet, but it certainly, demonstrably will when it attempts to take $570 trillion from them)

                The perfectly objective Hansen wants the courts to step in to force (elected) governments to act more aggressively on climate change, because he says they are largely free of the corrupting influence of special interests. (Apparently, he is unaware of the existence of Sonia Sotomayor, Elena Kagan, Stephen Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsberg). Hansen wants a global tax to be slapped on carbon emissions and believes that fossil fuel companies should be forced (there’s that word again) to pay for emissions ‘extraction.’

                Penn State University’s Michael Mann, a prominent climatologist in his own right, called Hansen’s paper “interesting,” but said it tackles a huge range of topics and is unconventional in its use as a tool to support a legal case. Mann should know, as a couple of years ago he sued the brilliant writer/political observer Mark Steyn for daring to question Mann’s own “hockey stick” graph depicting his belief in a future featuring rapidly accelerating global warming.

                Invariably, when experts or government types produce an estimate of how much something will cost, it turns out to be way low. But let’s stay with the figure(s) of $104 trillion to $570 trillion in a desperate attempt to slow global warming. Who the hell will pay for this? With a strong chance the effort won’t even work?! I don’t know about you, but I’m upset if buy a $15 c.d. that doesn’t play correctly. $570 trillion??!!!

                I decided to find out how much money the United States of America currently has in circulation. The total number of dollars that exist…everywhere and anywhere. My research produced the answer: $1.2 trillion. That’s right, to potentially address this problem, it will take hundreds of times more dollars than are currently in existence.

                Next, I found the GDP for the entire planet. The total value- in dollars- of all the goods and services produced around the world in a year. Care to guess? $73.43 trillion in 2015. That’s right, we may need seven or eight times the world’s cumulative wealth to try to address a problem that has occurred at least once when we weren’t even around. We certainly won’t be around- in any viable form-  if we attempt to spend $570 trillion while we force our energy producers out of business!

                I suggest everyone start looking under their couch cushions!

                Maybe we could have a giant bake sale? A lengthy telethon? Where is Jerry Lewis when you need him?

                My kids are in band. Their school coerces them into selling chocolate every year to raise money for…whatever they use it for. (This is over and above the astronomical taxes and tuition we pay, the referendums that always pass, and the thousands it costs us to let them go on their band trips). This year one of them raised over $300! What if we implemented a world-wide chocolate sale?

                Would we run out of chocolate or money first?

                We’ve already run out of sanity.