"Whatever it costs" would allow a pretty aggressive response. Think of World War II. The US actually spent nearly 40% of GDP on the war:
http://eh.net/encyclopedia/article/tassava.WWII 16.1 million Americans served in the Armed Forces (that's ten times the size of today's forces, and the US back then had half its present population). Many items of daily living were rationed. With that kind of cost, well, the US could reduce CO2 emissions to next to nothing virtually overnight. The US and Canada together already produce a third of their electricity from hydropower and nukes. Cars are, at least by WWII type of deprivation standards, nearly entirely expendable. http://heikoheiko.blogspot.com/2006/06/my-take-on-peak-oil-doomerism.html (for a little more detail on how much energy I think we really need) Literally overnight, emissions could go down 90% plus without anybody having to die, and with months preparation, this could go to zero, and within a few years significantly below zero. The US population though, isn't willing to go to those lengths, I think largely because they considered Nazi Germany a much more urgent and significant threat than climate change today. As I mentioned in my other posting, I think the world could go to zero emissions within 30 years, if it was willing to devote around 5% of world GDP to it, while I think actual expenditure is more like 0.1% (maybe 0.2% in Europe, 0.1% of the US and virtually nothing in some developing countries). --~--~---------~--~----~------------~-------~--~----~ You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [EMAIL PROTECTED] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange -~----------~----~----~----~------~----~------~--~---
