A Different Type of “Meltdown “

There has been a lot of commentary and analysis on how we could have avoided this “global financial meltdown”. Unfortunately, there is another global meltdown occurring, which has been ignored and will make this economic crisis seem like a minor inconvenience in comparison. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change predicts damages caused by climate change could cost developed countries up to 2% of its GDP. The United Kingdom’s Treasury Department in its 2006 report on the economic impact on climate change concluded that if we do nothing, the overall risk and cost will be equivalent of the world losing between 5% and 20% of its GDP. Therefore, the new Congress needs to pass within the first 100 days a bill that aggressively fights global warming and it needs to include in any economic stimulus bill funding for the development and growth of alternative energy and the upgrade and expansion of public transportation. Unlike the “global financial meltdown”, once the polar caps are melted, there is no way of restoring them. That would be a meltdown from which we could never recover.