The Health of the Economy and Environmental Responsibility
Here’s Nobel Prize-winning economist Paul Krugman’s recent column in the New York Times addressing the oft-discussed issue: Are efforts to achieve environmental sustainability necessarily damaging to the strength of the economy?
As usual, as we dig deeper into subjects like this, we learn that there are important complexities.
In this case, some efforts to decarbonize open up huge economic opportunities.
Krugman uses the “carrot and stick” metaphor and points out that carrots like financial bonanzas tends to work better than sticks, like taxes. Yet, in reality, our society is too far from where it was a few decades ago, where the consumption of fossil fuels becomes extremely unattractive the moment someone is asked to cover the costs of the environmental damage associated with climate change, ocean acidification, and loss of biodiversity.
Is it possible that this is a more complicated issue than the way it’s framed here?
Perhaps the only advantage to living in the 21st Century is the expanse of technology that extends our lifespans, while making our existences healthier, more productive, and more rewarding.
If the next four years in U.S. politics is simply a reprise of Trump’s first presidency with its ignorance of world affairs, petty corruption, profound indifference to the well-being of the common American, rejection of science, its overt racism, and the nation’s humiliation on the world stage, we can all count ourselves lucky.
Astrophysicist Brian Greene makes an excellent point here, but I’m not holding my breath. In the brief (15-year) period of time since the launch of 2GreenEnergy, our public education standards have continued to deteriorate, while our kids’ interest in science remains feeble.
I agree with all this, with the exception of “disorder.” Capitalism is extremely well ordered.
As suggested at left, the confluence of Donald Trump and tens of millions of totally ignorant Americans is having horrific consequences for essentially everyone on this planet, but especially for the aforementioned tens of millions of totally ignorant Americans who will be soon living under even harsher and more degraded conditions than they were before.
Here’s an investment “opportunity” for people who don’t understand that:
If any significant number of religious people looked at this subject the way Mohammad Ali did, we wouldn’t have the vast oceans of hatred and cruelty that dominate the human race.
The United States federal government is reeling under some of the most vicious assaults in the entirety of its nearly-250-year history.
