Climate change fight 'can't wait'

[duncan drennan]

From yesterday's news - the first report on global warming by an economist. Long and the short of it? Don't do anything and it could cost us 20% of global GDP, spend 1% of global GDP now and avoid the whole disaster.

A report by economist Sir Nicholas Stern suggests that global warming could shrink the global economy by 20%.

But taking action now would cost just 1% of global gross domestic product, the 700-page study says.

Full story on BBC News

[Dave A]

Evidence is mounting. The real challenge is getting international agreement.

[Alan]

This is a real problem. How do you stop the cutting down of forests and turning them into farm lands so people can feed their families? There was a theory that global warming was killing the coral reefs around the world. We came up with a new theory recently on another board. Reefs live on fish waste and with the over fishing of the oceans at the moment we may be starving the reefs. How do we stop feeding this hugh population?

[Dave A]

Although deforestation is part of the issue, the real biggy for global warming is CO2 emmissions. The idea of a CO2 bank account, where you trade CO2 emmissions for green zones that can recycle the CO2 is an interesting one.

The main problem in getting international agreement seems to be that the USA is out of step with thinking by most of the rest of the world.