The High Cost of Green

The concept of trade-offs has become unfashionable. Politicians around the world like to pretend that their choices will bring us nothing but superlative benefits.

Nowhere is this whitewashing more pervasive or accepted than in climate change. There is a prevalent, comforting notion that we can have our cake and eat it too: that cutting carbon need not involve financial sacrifice.

COPENHAGEN – As George W. Bush and Tony Blair learned the hard way, the public does not take kindly to being misled about the nature of potential threats. The after-the-fact revelation that the reasons for invading Iraq were vastly exaggerated – and in some cases completely fabricated – produced an angry backlash that helped toss the Republicans out of power in the United States in 2008 and may do the same to Britain’s Labour Party later this year. A similar shift in global public opinion is occurring with respect to climate change. (...) 

John Kerry's private jet trip across continents to accept a climate award shows that we will never fix climate change with 'just manage with less' slogans.

Kerry is really honestly showing us that you can’t just ask people to cut back on flying, cut back on driving, cut back on heating and cooling the house. Dealing with climate change is a lot harder than the slogans would suggest. And even if we all stopped flying and switched to electric cars, the climate impact would be very small.