Doubts about climate change?

Here’s what got that seed of doubt sown. 30 years ago A bold plan was hatched Americas oil industry execs and a top PR guru. An $850,000 a day contract was at stake meaning it was in the oil industry’s best interests to create seeds of doubt about climate change.
A bit like the NRA telling supporters that guns don’t kill people.

Obviously the plan worked because climate changed doubters are everywhere today. Sadly actual climate change is wacking us in the face every hour of every day.

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ElwoodBlues · M

@redredred Here's another way to look at managing climate change; thru the lenses of probability and cost benefit analysis.

The total stock capitalization of American businesses traded on the stock exchanges is $48 trillion. Someone on Quora calculated the land & resource value of the whole USA at $5000 trillion. So I don't think it's unreasonable to value US seaside land buildings & infrastructure at the very round number of $100 trillion.

If you are CEO of a $100 trillion corporation, and some of your people are telling you the whole thing could be flooded in 20 years or 40 years or whatever, what's the prudent thing to do? Answer: ask for cost benefit analyses.

This approach removes the whole "religious war" aspect of the question and focuses on insurance style calculations.

What are the cost estimates for protecting your $100 trillion from floods, and what's a reasonable probablility estimate that the doomsayers are correct? The religious war approach pins those probabilities at 0% and 100%, but suppose you allow a 25% probability that the doomsayers are correct, or, alternatively, that they're only 25% correct (25% is just for the sake of argument; I'm not married to the figure).

With that assumption, you now have $25 trillion at risk, so what's the prudent amount to spend to insure that $25 trillion?

A quick google says homeowners insurance costs about $3300/yr for each $1 million of value. Scaling to $25 trillion, that works out to $82 billion per year, or a 12 year investment of about $1 trillion.

So there's nothing outlandish about a ten year one trillion dollar green energy plan, especially given that the plan includes plenty of jobs, infrastructure upgrades, and goods purchased from American businesses.