The article incorrectly identified climate change legislation that is estimated to result in a loss of 60,000 jobs by 2030. That estimate referred to past climate legislation proposed by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John W. Warner (R-Va.), not to a current bill proposed by Lieberman and Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.).
An April 26 correction to an April 20 Outlook article confused two Senate measures on climate change. The current legislation is sponsored by Sens. Joseph I. Lieberman (I-Conn.) and John W. Warner (R-Va.), not Sens. Lieberman and John McCain (R-Ariz.), who sponsored an earlier bill.
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Is This Green Enough?
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Other environmentalists warn that we can't just wait for a technological breakthrough. Gore, for one, is pushing for a political breakthrough that would let us make better use of the tools we already have for cutting emissions -- energy efficiency, solar power, windmills and so on. "This is not a technological problem," says Cathy Zoi, head of Gore's Alliance for Climate Protection. "It's a mobilization problem."
But Nordhaus and Shellenberger argue that we simply cannot "achieve an 80 percent reduction in greenhouse gas emissions without creating breakthrough technologies that do not pollute" -- such as, say, grabbing and burying the carbon dioxide from coal plants. And such things, they warn, can only happen with federal help. Their position is not complete heresy among liberals; Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Rodham Clinton both included substantial investment programs in their campaign positions on climate. The R&D schemes may not cost as much over the short term as a cap-and-trade system, but to make a difference, the hunt for greener technologies would have to carry a hefty price tag, too.
Ultimately, the cost of acting to cool the planet -- along either major route -- is not just a matter of accounting but one of politics and perspective. Climatologists have made real political headway in arguing that Earth's polluted, roiling atmosphere must be close to the top of the U.S. and global agenda. To them, the question isn't whether we can afford to do something to slow down climate change; it's whether we can afford not to. Yet energy, green or otherwise, is an expensive business; the International Energy Agency says that the world will spend more than $20 trillion on energy projects over 25 years. And when you consider that the United States has just spent, depending on how you count it, anywhere from $1 trillion to $3 trillion on the Iraq war, perhaps it's not a question of what we can afford as much as what our priorities are.
Steven Mufson covers energy for The Post.
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