The trillion dollar paradox - George Zaidan
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DownloadImagine you live in a remote village where the only source of water
is delivered monthly by truck.
This, of course, costs money.
But then you discover a massive water source below the village:
limitless water, but currently unreachable.
To access it, you’d need to dig a well.
That would cost years’ worth of water trucking fees,
But once built, you and all future generations would have unlimited water—
for only the minor cost of maintaining the well.
So, what’s the best way forward?
Continue trucking in water? Or build the well?
Is the trillion dollar price tag
that comes with transitioning the world to clean energy
worth the cost of investment?
Like the trucked in water, fossil fuels aren't free.
There are the costs of the actual fuels, which, adjusted for inflation,
haven't changed much for 140 years.
And then there are the costs of maintaining and updating
our extensive fossil fuel infrastructure.
On the other hand,
the wind, water, and sunlight needed to power renewables are all free
and in unlimited supply,
just like the village’s newly discovered water table.
There’s just the upfront cost of building infrastructure to harness them.
To fully transition to a green economy,
we'd also need to invest in electrifying entire industries,
building new renewable energy plants,
deploying large-scale energy storage, and more.
Back in the early 2000s,
most economic models predicted those costs to be completely impractical
and prohibitively expensive.
For example, one model estimated that solar power
would be about $157 per megawatt-hour in the 2020s,
which is far more expensive than coal was projected to cost.
But a slow revolution has been happening over the past two decades.
In the early 2000, some countries like Germany and China and some tech companies
decided to invest huge sums of money in solar infrastructure.
This led to more research and development,
which brought the costs down far below
what even the most optimistic model had predicted.
Today, solar is 84% cheaper than that early model projected it would be—
making it cheaper than power from coal in much of the world.
This change is so dramatic that some economists now think
switching to renewable energy quickly could save trillions of dollars
in the next three decades— despite the upfront cost.
And of course, there’s another important cost to consider.
Global warming is very, very expensive:
extreme weather, rising sea levels, crop failures, health issues,
and industry disruptions all cost money.
Coming back to our village example,
it would be as if the more water you truck in,
the more that traffic degrades the road—
ruts get deeper, sides erode, maybe part of it falls away in a landslide.
Eventually the road would become unusable.
Economists have also tried to predict how expensive future warming will be.
The widely cited DICE model posits that the cost of climate change-induced damage
rises approximately as a function of global average temperatures squared.
So if temperatures rise by two degrees, costs rise by roughly a factor of four.
In other words, these models assume that costs will rise smoothly and continuously.
But many economists today argue that assumption is wrong,
because it ignores catastrophic events like the collapse of the Amazon,
melting of polar and Greenland ice,
and widespread crop failures, just to name a few.
Any of these would cause huge, sharp spikes in costs.
In fact, the US government keeps track of climate disasters
that incur more than $1 billion in damages,
and since 1980 they’ve already recorded 400 of these events.
The total bill is estimated to be an eye-watering $2.8 trillion—
just in the US.
For decades, the argument in favor of transitioning to a green economy
was “let’s take the financial hit now; it’s hard,
but it’ll protect the world for future generations.”
But that argument relied on economic modeling that underestimated the costs
of a warming world and overestimated the costs of transitioning.
We now know the economic outlook is different.
Making the investment to transition
not only protects the world for future generations,
it also saves us money in our own lifetime.
It's just the most logical thing to do.
Key Vocabulary (50)
Infrastructure refers to the basic physical and organizational structures and facilities, such as buildings, roads, power supplies, and internet networks, needed for the operation of a society or enterprise. It acts as the underlying foundation that allows a city or company to function efficiently.
"The city is investing in new transportation infrastructure."
toward
"Go to school."
belonging
"Cup of tea."
also
"You and me."
inside
"In the house."
specific
"That book."
A third-person singular pronoun used to refer to an object, animal, or situation that has already been mentioned or is clear from context. It is also frequently used as a dummy subject to talk about time, weather, or distance.
Used to show who is intended to have or use something, or to explain the purpose or reason for an action. It is also frequently used to indicate a specific duration of time.
Used to refer to the person or people that the speaker is addressing. It is the second-person pronoun used for both singular and plural subjects and objects.
Used to identify a specific person, thing, or idea that is physically close to the speaker or has just been mentioned. It can also refer to the present time or a situation that is currently happening.
A coordinating conjunction used to connect two statements that contrast with each other. It is used to introduce an added statement that is different from what has already been mentioned.
A preposition used to show the method or means of doing something, or to identify the person or thing that performs an action. It frequently appears in passive sentences to indicate the agent or before modes of transport.
Used to refer to the whole quantity or amount of something, or to every member of a group. It indicates that nothing has been left out from the total being discussed.
A modal verb used to talk about imagined situations or to express things that are not certain. It is also commonly used to make polite requests, offers, or to describe habits in the past.
An adverb used to emphasize the quality, intensity, or extent of an adjective or another adverb. It indicates that something is very or extremely high in degree.
Description
Explore the possibility of transitioning to a green economy, and if the trillion-dollar up-front cost is worth the investment. -- Global warming is very, very expensive: extreme weather,...
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