Is anyone else as concerned as I am that we will reach a point where we cannot reverse the effects of climate change? I really believe that the time for those who downplay the existence of climate change has passed. Did anyone see Barack Obama’s neat analogy?
But what does this have to do with economics? As the previous head of the VCAA for Economics (the person who marks your Year 12 papers!) Anita Forsyth declared at a conference I recently attended, ‘the economy is a wholly owned and controlled subsidiary of the environment and Mother Nature.’
Without the environment, where are our natural resources? When the fields have become too salty for crops to grow, where will our food be planted? When extreme bushfires rage every summer what will happen to our plantations of timber, or our beachside towns we love escaping to?
When the increasing occurrence of extreme weather events (a well known consequence of climate change) causes the destruction of crops such as Queensland banana’s, what will the mothers of eastern suburb school boys’ place in their sons’ lunch boxes? Inflation, and bananas costing $11 p/kg will be the least of their worries.
The polar ice caps are melting, releasing locked carbon gases into the atmosphere. This will only accelerate climate changes as well as rates of sea level rise. People make jokes about the changing composition of cities leading to city views, but really, we are losing access to our precious land resources.
With less land resources, we are less able to produce, shrinking production and economic growth (thus material living standards) will be eroded just like the beaches of Bondi.
What do you think are some of the economic, social, or political consequences of climate change? How do you think they can be addressed?
Author: Mr. Bush
Year 11 MHS Economics 2020 