[lbo-talk] upsides of global warming

Wojtek Sokolowski swsokolowski at yahoo.com
Sat Mar 31 17:13:07 PDT 2007


--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:


> [from a story by Fiona Harvey in the March 30
> Financial Times]
>
> Areas that now have cold climates will experience
> longer growing
> seasons and a greater variety of crops, as well as
> becoming more
> attractive to tourists. Melting ice may also allow
> for mineral
> extraction in areas such as Canada and Russia, and
> drilling for oil
> in the Arctic.
> ___________________________________

[WS:] This is of course pure speculation, but let's assume for the sake of argument that this is true. Then the obvious question is "how would those upsides compare to the downsides?" Would the longer growing season in, say, Canada compensate for the displaced populations of island nations, Bangladesh, Chesapeake Bay area, etc.?

One would think that of all papers, the FT would be the first to perform a cost/benefit analysis. I do not know if they did because I did not read the article, but if they did not, they would seem incapable or arguing with their own arguments - let alone those of their adversaries.

Wojtek

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