Monday Moaning

Why is it so easy to save the banks – but so hard to save the biosphere?

Agreements to bail out banks happen in days – but despite some good progress at Durban, we still don’t have a legally binding deal to bail out the planet

The US and other nations began talking seriously about tackling climate change in 1988 – yet we still don’t have a legally binding global agreement. Photograph: Corbis

They bailed out the banks in days. But even deciding to bail out the planet is taking decades.

Nicholas Stern estimated that capping climate change would cost around 1% of global GDP, while sitting back and letting it hit us would cost between 5 and 20%. One per cent of GDP is, at the moment, $630bn. By March 2009, Bloomberg has revealed, the US Federal Reserve had committed $7.77 trillion to the banks. That is just one government’s contribution: yet it amounts to 12 times the annual global climate change bill. Add the bailouts in other countries, and it rises several more times.

This support was issued on demand: as soon as the banks said they wanted help, they got it. On just one day the Federal Reserve made $1.2tr available – more than the world has committed to tackling climate change in 20 years.

Source: The Guardian Friday 16 December 2011 Read more

Opinion:

It’s an old article, but nevertheless pertinent.

The banks scream poverty and the governments cave in and give the babies the pacifier.

But when it comes to the planet, they turn a deaf ear and let the baby scream. The worse the offender, the faster they turn away from the problem.

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