We all know money doesn't grow on trees, but if we have to choose between the two, maybe we should rethink our cost benefit analysis.
Some scientists are beginning to try to put a dollar value on the damage expected to be caused by global warming because knowing what the damages might be helps us decide how much its worth investing in mediation.
Some of the problems with this are caused by using the IPCC data which is so conservative that the amount of sea level rise this century has gone from being measured in mm to being measured in meters.
New projections of what the temperatures and sea levels will rise to, what sorts of damage that will do to the rainforests, and oceans that are the planets lungs, how agriculture and coastal cities will be affected, what sorts of changes new pathogens, plauge, pestilence, flood, famine, extinctions of species will bring are as yet hard to pin down but the numbers being mentioned are between 2.4 and 24 trillion dollars.
There are studies showing warming may cause more intense storms and rising sea levels and more powerful storm surges are likely to cause
a liquefaction hazard for coastal areas and areas that will become warmer and wetter.
The vulnerability assessment for liquifaction due to global warming is addressed by a new paper
induced by rising sea-levels due to global warming
Ports around the world with high rise buildings built in river deltas have to engineer support for them either by driving piles down to bedrock or pouring mat slabs to support the weight of the buildings.
The engineering depends on an analysis of the soil to determine how much of a load it can take in an earthquake. With increased liquification the calculations of the engineers are thrown off with the likelyhood that buildings, bridges and other structures may collapse.
East Cost cities from Miami to Boston and Cambridge are at risk. European and Asian cities are already engaged in mitigation but are finding that very expensive solutions such as the flood gates on the Thames were designed to deal with a tiny fraction of the flooding now projected.
Ground damage caused by liquefaction is a serious problem. Attention should be given to groundwater level changes because liquefaction potential is sensitive to rising GWL. In this century, sea-level rises caused by global warming and global climate change have engendered rising GWL in coastal regions.
The capabilities of prevention and mitigation against geo-disasters is reduced with rising GWL (Yasuhara et al., 2004). Therefore, it is necessary for sustainable development to consider the influence of global climate change on future situations of GWL. This study shows a procedure for liquefaction hazard mapping considering and an application of the mapping procedure to Yokohama and Kawasaki cities in Japan.
Vulnerability to liquefaction hazard in the objective region has been assessed through comparison of liquefaction hazard maps before and after SLR caused by global warming.
There are also issues of how to deal with rising sea levels that overtop seawalls and levees as with New Orleans. A higher levee and bigger and better pumps may be able to deal with the levels of change projected just a few years back, but not with what scientists are now projecting.
Some lowlying cities are likely to go the way of low lying Pacific Islands and just sink beneath the waves. With Pacific islands thats an issue of local importance but when the flooding reaches critical urban facilities such as water and sewage treatment plants, nuclear power plants, fuel storage facilities, subway and highway tunnels, the resulting damage may be catastrophic for entire regions, states and country's.
The costs of failing to mitigate won't just be the increased energy costs of trying to cool people and animals down before they start dropping dead of heat stroke, rising sea levels, oportunistic diseases, the loss of agriculture, resource wars, and an end to the breathable atmosphere we presently enjoy, it will extend to the extinction of species including our own.
We know what we need to do and how to do it. The real issue is where does the money come from and what will we have to sacrifice to get the job done.
1 Trillion Fox News
1.9 trillion NRDC
7 Trillion The Stern Report
500 Billion a year from now on RCIGI
If we don't stop Global Warming by 2014 mediation will no longer be possible Popular Science
What priorities come before spending the estimated $ 24 trillion necessary to mitigate global warming worldwide? Who pays and who gets the aid.