Friday, September 30, 2011

Global warming: Doonesbury and China

This Doonesbury is a keeper, but it's incomplete.

It's not just that corporations and their investor owners (me, you, etc) value 10 year returns more than 100 year outcomes.

It's also that our best data suggests expected 50 year temperature and sea level changes will be manageable within the US. Bad news for Arizona, but not so bad for Minnesota. Sure some cities get flooded, but Venice managed. Yes, there is the little problem of massive worldwide conflagration, but Americans expect that anyway.

So don't expect leadership on global warming from Americans or, for that matter, Canadians (go tar sands).

China and India though; they have a problem. Global warming looks very bad for China in particular.

China is going to have to lead.

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