Originally Posted by ctarmchair
Question that doesn't seem to have been addressed in the thread: why is global warming necessarily a net social and economic cost to the world? Has anyone established that it is a net cost rather than a net benefit? Would global cooling be better?
I find it fascinating because, assuming our industrial activity is in fact causing global warming, it still follows according even to most "greens" that fighting global warming requires massive economic sacrifices over the short term. If I'm asked to make an investment, shouldn't I have some clear sense that 1) the intended results (a cooler earth) will accrue from the investment, and that 2) the cooler earth will have sufficient benefit to, say, my grandchildren to make the sacrifice worth it?
Let's assume for the sake of argument a cooler earth from, say, Kyoto part V as a given. And that if we do nothing the earth will warm to the point that the Brits will be making wine again, as they were in the time of the Romans, and Greenland will again be green and suitable for agriculture as it was when the Vikings first settled there.
I can see how New England ski areas would then directly benefit from Kyoto V, and be ruined by the alternative warmer world. It does not follow that the earth overall would be negatively affected. The Vikings may have preferred that the global cooling that came after them never happened.