Germaine takes a stab at estimating the costs of climate change

The cost of climate change is never mentioned by pro-pollution interests and ideologues. That is because they demagogue the issue instead of debating it. Like most other contested issues in politics, radical right conservatives and fascists no longer debate, assuming they ever did. Instead, they demagogue because they cannot win arguments on the merits. 

Over the last couple of months, various sources have been increasingly reporting on costs of climate change and environmental damage. Presumably, that increased focus on cost is due to the fact that the costs are starting to become very painful for increasing numbers of people. For example, the AP writes:

Every day billions of people depend on wild flora and fauna to obtain food, medicine and energy. But a new United Nations-backed report says that overexploitation, climate change, pollution and deforestation are pushing one million species towards extinction.

The Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services - or IPBES - report said Friday that unless humankind improves the sustainable use of nature, the Earth is on its way to losing 12% of its wild tree species, over a thousand wild mammal species and almost 450 species of sharks and rays, among other irreparable harm.

Humans use about 50,000 wild species routinely and 1 out of 5 people of the world’s 7.9 billion population depend on those species for food and income, the report said. 1 in 3 people rely on fuel wood for cooking, the number even higher in Africa.

For decades, pro-pollution interests including the Republican Party, Exxon-Mobile, Koch Industries Dow Chemical Company and other big pro-pollution corporations and interests have successfully blocked efforts to acknowledge climate change, and to deal with it. An important and effective part of their demagoguery is to ignore costs when possible, or downplay or deny them when they cannot weasel out of the question. Usually they weasel out, because (i) the mainstream media is lame at best and co-opted or complicit at worst, and/or (ii) the polluters and their defenders hide behind a massive shield of silence and opacity. That's just laissez-faire capitalism doing its thing as usual.

Big pile of waste plastic

The subjectivity of environmental and climate value or cost

Two other factors that favor the polluters are (1) perceptions of value and costs can be and have been demagogued and skewed to favor polluters, and (2) the fact that humans inherently value many things very differently. That is especially true when demagoguery has skewed perceptions of value and cost to favor the people and interests who benefit. 

We all remember how hard affected interests howled in outrage about the worthlessness of the spotted owl in the Northwest and the snail darter fish in central California. The species were condemned as worthless and costing waaay too much to save. Defenses of the species back then were pretty weak. These days, defenses of threatened species are weaker than they were then.

As a start to realign perceptions of value and costs, here is Germaine's list of costs for various environmental damages from carbon dioxide and other forms of pollution. These are top of head personal estimates. Exxon-Mobile and Koch Industries would no doubt howl in outrage, but they are mostly demagogic crooks and liars who profit from polluting our environment. They lie about it.

Death of a human, e.g., from excessive heat exposure: $15 million

Extinction of a valued plant or mammal species: $8-10 trillion 

Extinction of a less than valued plant or mammal species: $4-6 trillion  

Extinction of a valued insect species, e.g., bees: $4-6 trillion 

Extinction of a less than valued insect species: $2-3 trillion  

Loss of clear air, with frequent haze: $15 trillion

Dirty air and associated injury and human deaths: $20 trillion

Plastic in the environment: $30 trillion

Sea level rise: $15 trillion per inch

Drought in the American Southwest $6-8 trillion 

Availability of unregulated polluting energy and plastics: $100-200 trillion

Prevention of efforts to deal with climate change by pro-pollution interests: $100-200 trillion

Things like clear air might not come to mind as something of any value. But it has serious value to me. I remember the 1950s and 1960s when the air was usually clearer than today. I really miss days when the air is clear. I really, really like clear air.

The effectiveness of pro-pollution interests to keep on polluting is also a real cost. Obviously polluters would not see it that way, but again, they are crooks and liars. They advocate their interests based on demagoguery and lies. I advocate mine based on what I believe to be facts, reason and my own values, including concern for the public interest. 

Q: Is Germaine off his rocker by attaching high costs to various kinds of environmental damage, or is this at least a reasonable way to start to rethink environmental damage?

Golly, that is a big pile of waste plastic and 

most of it, ~91%, is headed for the landfill, the ocean, lakes, etc.