That pile of money sure does look nice…

There’s been suggestions in the media lately that the international economic crisis means that we’ll have to put climate change action on hold. I honestly don’t see why: the kinds of things that will help the environment will be creating jobs, making our businesses more efficient, and reducing the costs of dealing with pollution. Apparently we can spend money to save money in one arena, but not the other.

But let’s look at the similarities between these two situations:

Credit crisis:

• caused by big corporations who are trying to avoid paying for any risks they took
• a few experts understand it fully; the rest of us try to keep up
• has international repercussions: what happens in the US affects everyone else too
• has personal repercussions: the general public will end up paying for it

Climate change:

• enabled by big corporations who are trying to avoid paying for the pollution they cause
• a few scientists understand it fully; the rest of us try to keep up
• has international repercussions: actions in one nation affect the rest of the planet
• has personal repercussions: the general public will end up paying for it

We’re told that it’s imperative to throw lots of money towards solving the economic crisis, because if we don’t we’ll all be ruined. It’s an emergency! Yet, if we suggest spending money on the environmental crisis, we’re told that we couldn’t possibly do that, because we don’t know what the risks are, and it’s too hard to understand, and maybe we should just wait until all the skeptics are appeased, and what’s the rush anyway…

What a crock. It reminds me of the bit in An Inconvenient Truth, where Gore shows a cartoon of an investor looking at a scale with the Earth on one side, and a pile of gold on the other. Hmmm – this is the only planet we’ve got, but my, doesn’t that pile of gold look nice and shiny! I wonder which one we’ll choose.