Kevin Parker, global head of Deutsche Bank Asset Managment, tagged in a trillion dollars the price to fight climate change during the Copenhage talks.
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His specific words were: “They don’t look at the cost of inaction, which is the extinction of the human race”.
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But if we’re honest, as long as we don’t change our economic model, and I mean the global economy, nothing’s going to change, or, being way too optimistic, little will change. Why?.
Because if a person like you or me think it’s way too expensive to change regular bulbs that sell for less than 10 cents, for saving bulbs, that cost around 8-9 dollars (and take notice: most of the saving bulbs contain heavy metals that, when thrown away, are highly contaminant of the soil) in spite of the fact that they last much longer and their light is cold, thus not contributing that much to global warming, what can we expect of the company we work for, which only cares about quarterly reports —earnings, earnings, earnings—, or from our governments, which only act to gain votes for the next election even if that means giving money away in a populist way and always being careful not to affect the interests of big corporations.
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And suddenly we feel very clever by using electric cars which use lithium batteries and other kinds that when use up all their useful life, contaminate terribly, or we build nuclear plants. Sure, we haven’t had any accident in years, but, what are we going to do with radioactive waste? Can we guarantee that not even one container will crack even slightly releasing radioactivity? The truth is we cannot. Just find out how many states and countries refuse to have radioactive waste buried in their territories, so we dump them at sea with the risk that that implies.
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The fact is that as long as we’re tagging in dollars (or pesos, or yens, or rupias, or whatever currency) how much it costs to fight global warming, climate change, loss of ecosistems, contaminations, overpopulation and all the other problems we’ve caused this planet, we’re not going to get anything fixed and time’s against us.
However, in the news you just hear corporations and governments calculating how expensive and/or not as effective it is to use wind, solar or oceanic energy when compared with fossil fuels. Hey! And how much does it cost NOT to have a planet to live in in the short future? Who’ll be the valient who’ll say “the heck with the price, we HAVE to do it regardless of cost, and EVERYONE has to cooperate and do their part even if this takes us years or centuries back in economic terms”.
And this is some of what we’re loosing:
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I’m working on the second of three books for kids on what’s going and how to save the planet. I believe they can do a lot and they will be able to do much more when they’re responsible grown ups, if there’s still a planet to save. I feel like I’m in a loosing battle, but I also feel it’s absolutely important that I do this.
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So, what are you going to do today, right now?
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Photo credits: http://stylecouch.files.wordpress.com (a trillion dólars); http://www.freshapps.com (skull on fire); Radioactive waste (www.treehugger.com); Ary Snyder (all others).
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