Ignoring a $7 Trillion Financial Disaster Won’t Make It Go Away
Climate change is already twice as painful economically as the Great Depression, and it’s only going to worsen.
Damage from climate change is even worse because estimates undercount the effects of extreme heat.
Photographer: Sam Wolfe/Bloomberg
If you had the power to prevent not just one Great Depression but two, you probably wouldn’t hesitate to use it. But for some (not very mysterious) reason, that’s pretty much what we do when we ignore an increasingly hot and violent climate.
Two of the biggest myths about climate change are that 1) it’s a problem for future generations and 2) trying to alleviate it will hurt economic growth. In fact, climate change is not just a challenge already for those of us lucky enough to be alive today, it’s also an economic catastrophe. Ignoring it will be far more costly than fighting it.