In the past year virtually every major economy in the world shut down to try to ward off a virus that, even unchecked, couldn't kill a fraction of the people or ruin the world the way climate change might. Google tells me that it'd cost anywhere from $300 billion to $50 trillion to end climate change, however that'd work [0]; the amount we've collectively spent on COVID, somewhere around $10 trillion more than half a year ago [1], would at the very least take a big dent out of that.
Clearly, there's a point where we can put money aside for other things. It's not just greed; it's short-sightedness and stupidity too.
Yeah, that’s one way to look at it. If we had tackled climate change like we do covid a decade ago or more, we might already have made significant progress.
In the past year virtually every major economy in the world shut down to try to ward off a virus that, even unchecked, couldn't kill a fraction of the people or ruin the world the way climate change might. Google tells me that it'd cost anywhere from $300 billion to $50 trillion to end climate change, however that'd work [0]; the amount we've collectively spent on COVID, somewhere around $10 trillion more than half a year ago [1], would at the very least take a big dent out of that.
Clearly, there's a point where we can put money aside for other things. It's not just greed; it's short-sightedness and stupidity too.
[0] https://www.globalgiving.org/learn/cost-to-end-climate-chang...
[1] https://www.businesstoday.in/latest/world/story/global-cost-...