Investing and Conserving Will Safeguard Our Future

Advancements in weather and economic modeling are documenting the cost of man-made carbon dioxide and other pollutants.  The White House is concerned of the financial concerns of climate change. The White House Budget Chief, Shaun Donovan, comments below;

…global economic output could suffer by about 0.90 percent in the United States that would amount to whacking of gross domestic product by $150 billion a year.  And as the Great Recession demonstrated, “even small reductions in real GDP can dramatically reduce federal revenue, drive our deficits and impact the government’s ability to serve the public,”…1

Conserving certainly can lessen our nearly $18 trillion national debt.  Also we can invest in new economic development program to combat this human environmental crisis.

According to the American Geophysical Union, 80 percent of the increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere since 1700’s has occurred in the 20th and 21st centuries. Also the Pew Center on Global Climate Change cited that the 1990s were the hottest decade in the last 150 years.

In 2006, Winds of Change, Eugene Linden charts how public and scientific opinion diverged from 1988 to 2005. Scientific community view has gone from indifference to alarm with a general consensus while the public view has been indifferent except for a brief alarm in the late 1980’s. In a Pew Research poll in 2006 only 41 percent said this was due to human activity. In a University of California 2005 study Dr. Naomi Oreske did a random sampling of 928 peer-reviewed journal articles on global warming revealed that 100 percent agreed with the view that humans affect climate change.

Now various economist estimate costs to contain present emissions, the Pew Center for Global Climate Change determined the benefits to prevent the doubling of greenhouse gaseous between $55 billion and $140 billion dollars and that US greenhouse gas emission increased 12 percent between 1990 and 2001. In 2006, the Stern Review on the Economic Effects of Climate Change estimates stabilizing these emission would cost about half a trillion dollars.

Recent scientific studies document that climate change is increasing due what is called positive tipping points accelerating arctic ice loss and other warming effects. Increased conservation directly translates in increasing our national security.

In my life, science has documented how this earth has rapidly increased in temperature while human population has doubled in size. I have witnessed many forms of human ecological destruction. New advancements of weather modeling now estimate how much humans contribute to increased droughts, wildfires and other climate disasters. The debate is over.  Humans are impacting our weather.  Enacting conservation measure and enacting some form of carbon tax are viable remedies. We can no longer afford to speculate since the present facts dictate that we act.


1         Lory Montgomery, Washington Post, 9/20/14, pg. A14, “Climate Change is New Focus of White House Financial Fears”.

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