If we can't get people to care about green leaves and greenhouse gases, how about green dollar bills?

Perusing the Daily Kos political blog, I came across a particularly interesting article by contributing writer Laurence Lewis regarding the environmental crisis being an economic crisis.

Interesting Article

Naturally I thought what a brilliant way to make people care about global warming.

Daily Kos generally affiliates with the democratic party, considering their noted contributors are all democrats. I assume that's the kind of audience they are writing for as well.

The writer Laurence Lewis does not have very much about himself available to the readers of the Daily Kos, except that he has experience in writing. However, the structure of his article and the dedication to providing excerpts and references for all of his points is a clear indicator that he is serious and honest about what he does.

In this particular article, Lewis takes a very liberal view on climate change, while his entire discussion was spurred by a right winger about how we can't afford to do anything about climate change.

The whole point of the article is to urge people that solving climate change is not about the right now, it's about the road we're on and what's waiting at the end. Perhaps people are pinched for cash now. Imagine what will happen when entire populations are displaced and businesses destroyed, crops and livelihoods irreversibly damaged. This is what we look forward to if we decide not to break the piggy bank now. 

Despite having spent a semester in a colloquium on climate change, and taken an entire class on environmental philosophy, I had yet to really think about the idea of having to slow/stop climate change now in order to save money later.

I guess I was just too busy thinking about how much I liked the environment, clean air, glaciers, and all the animals that depend on the weather to be the way it is; to think about how preventing global catastrophes could save me and future generations some bucks.

I find it interesting that a right wing supporter such as S. E. Cupp (the target of Lewis' rant) would believe that saving money now would be more important that saving the world for our future generations, since the right is so family oriented, or I guess maybe that's just a tactic. I don't know.

I agree with Lewis' article (in case you couldn't tell) and in fact it opened a whole new thought process to me. I am a scientist and the science of global warming speaks to me. However, I am not an economist so that part of me needs a little bit of explaining and Laurence Lewis' article takes care of that.

Climate change is science. The consequences of rising temperatures are a real threat. And just because you live inland doesn't mean you're safe from the potential impact.