September 29, 2009
NO BANG FOR THE BUCK
I reiterate that I think Bjorn Lomborg's argument that crises need to be prioritized is one of the best arguments against stopping global warming. You can grant the premise just for argument's sake but still insist that we shouldn't spend a dollar to get a nickel's worth of good.
Unfortunately, no government program has ever been held to the bang-for-your-buck test.
But surely this has to be persuasive, right? How could it not be? I find it persuasive in every instance. Take health care: I don't care if they can promise that everyone will have total coverage and no one will ever be sick again. Our nation simply doesn't have the money now to cover 30 million new people. Even if it were a government program I could get behind like...um...hmm...giving every law-abiding household a handgun and lessons on how to use it, we just are too far in debt to be adding new programs to the list, no matter what they are.
And certainly we have too much debt to spend $40 to get a dollar of benefit.
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Imagine for a moment that the fantasists win the day and that at the
climate conference in Copenhagen in December every nation commits to
reductions even larger than Japan's, designed to keep temperature
increases under 2 degrees Celsius. The result will be a global price
tag of $40 trillion in 2100, to avoid expected climate damage costing
just $1.1 trillion, according to climate economist Richard Tol, a
contributor to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change whose cost
findings were commissioned by the Copenhagen Consensus Center and are
to be published by Cambridge University Press next year.
Unfortunately, no government program has ever been held to the bang-for-your-buck test.
But surely this has to be persuasive, right? How could it not be? I find it persuasive in every instance. Take health care: I don't care if they can promise that everyone will have total coverage and no one will ever be sick again. Our nation simply doesn't have the money now to cover 30 million new people. Even if it were a government program I could get behind like...um...hmm...giving every law-abiding household a handgun and lessons on how to use it, we just are too far in debt to be adding new programs to the list, no matter what they are.
And certainly we have too much debt to spend $40 to get a dollar of benefit.
Posted by: Sarah at
07:28 AM
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But surely this has to be persuasive, right? How could it not be?
You are not an adherent to the new religion, that is why you are not persuaded.
Posted by: John at September 30, 2009 12:33 AM (crTpS)
2
Amen, sister!
Posted by: Miss Ladybug at September 30, 2009 10:15 PM (paOhf)
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