”Climate Vulnerability and The Indispensable Value of Industrial Capitalism”

Dr Keith Lockitch har skrivit en artikel, ”Climate Vulnerability and The Indispensable Value of Industrial Capitalism”, som har publicerats i tidningen Energy & Environment.

Här är artikelns ”abstract”:

It is widely believed that man-made greenhouse gas emissions are increasing overall vulnerability to climate-related disasters, and that, consequently, policies aimed at cutting off these emissions are urgently needed. But a broader perspective on climate vulnerability suggests that the most important factors influencing susceptibility to climate-related threats are not climatologic, but political and economic. The dramatic degree to which industrial development under capitalism has reduced the risk of harm from severe climate events in the industrialized world is significantly under-appreciated in the climate debate. Consequently, so too is the degree to which green climate and energy policies would undermine the protection that industrial capitalism affords—by interfering with individual freedoms, distorting market forces, and impeding continued industrial development and economic growth. The effect of such policies would, ironically, be a worsening of overall vulnerability to climate.

Denna artikeln är fantastisk. Det är en av de bästa artiklarna jag har läst i ämnet.

Dr Keith Lockitch ger en massa exempel från historien som induktivt underbygger hans argument. Här är ett av många sådana exempel:

[C]onsider Spencer Weart’s drought example, which he takes as portending the future threat that climate change “could signify for all of us.” It is true that severe drought did indeed strike the regions he mentions in 1972, and the consequences were indeed harsh: food rationing in the Soviet Union, famine in India that persisted through the mid-70s, and mass starvation in sub–Saharan Africa, which went on for decades as the drought continued through much of the ’80s and ’90s. But from a historical perspective, these tragic events are unfortunately nothing unusual. What really stands out as remarkable and unprecedented is the negligible effect of the drought in the United States…

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