Our climate change debate engendered a lively conversation among readers that pushed the original essays well beyond their starting points.
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Many people, myself included, argue that in order to pull world economies out of a deep recession, we need a large fiscal stimulus—on the order of $2 trillion, or 4 percent of global GDP. A significant part of this stimulus should be directed toward green investment. But we need to act now.
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In this audio interview, Andy Grove, the former CEO of Intel, talks about his proposal to retrofit vehicles in the U.S. with rechargeable batteries. His objective is to increase diversity in the sources of energy in the transportation sector, which is currently dependent on petroleum, and to protect against disruptions in imports. Grove speaks with McKinsey’s director of publishing, Rik Kirkland.
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Read the related article, ‘An electric plan for energy resilience’
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I believe that the biggest question on the planet today involves sustainable development: is there room enough on the planet for seven billion to ten billion human beings, tens of millions of other species, and economic convergence between rich and poor?
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Although many issues have divided China and the United States over the last few decades, the release of carbon from fossil fuels into the atmosphere is now, curiously, something we share in common.
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Basing political decisions on the misguided claims of today’s merchants of doom would be an enormous miscalculation.
- Comment [19]
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One policy option that is intended to reduce emissions and that has received much attention is the cap-and-trade system. But before we rush to enact something like it, we must ask whether it can best achieve our shared goal of actually reducing greenhouse-gas emissions.
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The question with climate change is this: are we facing a problem or A Problem? If global warming is just one issue on a long list of problems we have to address, we need one kind of strategy. If global warming is the biggest problem humans have ever caused and the sole civilization-challenging trial the modern world has ever faced, the call is different.
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The world faces two urgent demands. First, the global economy is in crisis and needs to be turned around. Second, scientists tell us that time is running out on tackling climate change and we are putting our planet at risk. The conventional wisdom is that those two demands are competing. The conventional wisdom is wrong.
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There is some cherry-picking of science going on in the various kinds of resistance to the news about climate change, and this double standard needs to be called out.
- Comment [35]
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Waiting for market forces to bring about the shift to renewable energy will make this transition difficult and painful, in part because of the volatility of fossil-fuel prices. A far better policy is to begin subsidizing alternative fuels now using the energy surplus from conventional fossil fuels, especially crude oil, while this is still high enough.
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Acting fast to contain the looming climate crisis could help to ensure full economic recovery while at the same time improving our long-term economic, environmental, and national security.
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In an astonishingly short time, climate change has morphed from a relatively arcane scientific issue into a rapidly intensifying investment concern. This evolution has been propelled by the convergence of several global trends.
Can we still afford to invest in climate change mitigation in times of recession? Yes; in fact, such investment could be part of the solution to the current global economic crisis.
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There is only one rational course of action when it comes to climate change: put a price on greenhouse gases, then see what happens.
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Hints of impending climate disaster greet us every morning: winters are getting milder, summers are getting warmer, and storms seem more frequent and severe. But these are mere symptoms of the greater problem to come—severe climate disruption from overall global warming.
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For agriculture, the biggest issue is not the amount of energy needed to ship products; it’s water.
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Follow the opposing views presented by our two debaters, then make up your mind and join the conversation.
- A climate change skeptic
The eminent physicist, Freeman Dyson, explains why he's a doubter when it comes to the dangers of climate change, in this profile from the New York Times Magazine.
- Industrial Market Trends on "Carbon Tax vs. Cap and Trade"
Industrial Market Trends, a comprehensive, daily industrial blog, comments on our climate change debate.
12 Mar 2010 · 06:29:12 PM GMT
The current interglacial period, called the Holocene period, has had an approximate 1-2 F cycle on an 8000-year downtrend. The current warming period has not exceeded the upper limit of the channel formed by those cycles. (Stock traders, think Bollin...—tobyw
In response to Why Kyoto won’t work
28 Jan 2010 · 02:17:45 PM GMT
There’s one key leverage point that can give us a solution to this problem and many others: improve the accounting system to take include externalized costs. Solve that problem, then people will be faced with the real costs of what they do, an...—Bryan Butler
In response to Time to end the multigenerational Ponzi scheme
19 Jan 2010 · 09:27:33 AM GMT
I have 2 points of contention here: 1. While for some reasons mentioned above implementing Kyoto to the last letter may not be cost effective, but I’m sure that doing away with it altogether is an extreme. 2. My second point is the labe...—Shashank
In response to Why Kyoto won’t work
29 Dec 2009 · 01:19:33 AM GMT
Air-conditioning is a huge energy-hog, and it was not ubiquitious in the US as recently as 30 years ago. I attented high school and college in FL in the late 70s and early 80s. The high school was not air-conditioned and at the college most buildin...—S. Nunn
In response to Building a postcarbon economy
07 Dec 2009 · 06:57:31 PM GMT
Splendidly put forward! Our present consumption is subsidized by the environmental burden that the future generations would pay for. And while theoretically there are no free lunches but right now the global order of hyper-consumption is one exampl...—Yash Saxena
In response to Time to end the multigenerational Ponzi scheme
03 Dec 2009 · 07:38:30 PM GMT
Climate policy should limit itself to the effects of climate change, and try to establish measures that will neutralize the effects. Our energy policy should be based on something different, managing the scarcity of fossil fuels, by implementing ...—Rob Heusdens
In response to What is the most rational way to deal with the impact of climate change?
- McKinsey Climate Change Special Initiative
- CFR's Crisis Guide: Climate Change
- Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change
- McKinsey on carbon productivity (Newsweek)
- Pew Center on Global Climate Change
- The McKinsey Quarterly on climate change
- United Nations Climate Change Gateway
- What is carbon capture and storage?
- World Business Council for Sustainable Development
- Yale Environment360