From: Jerry Levy (Gerald_A_Levy@MSN.COM)
Date: Tue Oct 24 2006 - 14:48:10 EDT
> Costs for whom? Hi Jurriaan: That's a good question. While one can infer from the effects differential impacts on classes, nations, and species (more in the next para.) I think it would be very difficult to *quantify* this. How does one, for instance, calculate the loss incurred as a result of the extinction of a species? If we look at Table ES1 (p. 5 in the report) we can project in the estimates of the consequence of a 2 degree change that: o health costs will rise, especially for those with lower income in the areas where tropical diseases will spread; o widespread hunger will especially affect lower income working class and peasant families in the periphery; o ditto with water shortages and droughts; (the previous two items, most likely, imply increased state spending on health care and increased lending by international monetary institutions). o coastal communities will be devastated by the loss of arctic ice -- although some will benefit through increasing real estate values. Arctic species (including my friends, the beluga whales) will face extinction. o Species will be lost by the bleaching of coral; cultures will change (e.g. dietary customs) and some industries will be affected (e.g. pearl harvesting). o Some capitalists and landowners will gain (e.g. those selling water); others will lose (e.g. because of increasing costs for some elements of constant circulating capital). o Some of the above will, most likely, result in a decreasing real wage for workers in the advanced capitalist nations. o Government expenditures to deal with some of the above will undoubtedly increase, but how this will affect the absolute and relative tax burden of different classes remains to be seen. Putting _numbers_ on the above is, at the very least, highly problematic. How does one calculate, for instance, the loss incurred as a result of belugas becoming extinct? Answering the question "how much is a species worth?" is even more thorny -- and arrogant and speciesist! -- than answering the age old question "how much is a life worth?". > The same argument is made for war costs, but every cost is > balanced by an income. Who makes up this 'balance sheet'? This isn't merely an accounting problem. Why can't there be a net loss? In solidarity, Jerry
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