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...Cost of a Warming Arctic" study, funded by the Pew Environment Group, assessed trends in the Arctic's cooling mechanisms and examined the financial consequences. The research team looked at the rate at which surfaces change from white ice and snow to ocean or exposed tundra, since darker surfaces absorb, rather than reflect, solar heat. According to the report, this shift and the increased methane emissions linked with melting permafrost currently slap us with annual losses in the range of $61 billion to $371 "resulting from such changes as heat waves and flooding." But the anticipated monetary fallout described...
...Turns out, this last question is a matter of great debate. Typically the province of economists wielding formulas too esoteric for most of us to follow, the Social Cost of Carbon (SCC) is currently under discussion by the EPA and other regulatory agencies. The figure they choose has huge implications for our ability to make inroads against climate change. The Social Cost of Carbon represents the estimate of damages from one more ton of CO2 added to the atmosphere. (One ton of CO2 is what the average family car emits every two-and-a-half months.) The SCC is important...
...idea is that if we have a number, we can compare the costs and benefits of efforts to reduce CO2 in the atmosphere," says Frank Ackerman, PhD, an economist specializing in climate change at the Stockholm Environment Institute's center at Tufts University. "If, say, we value CO2 damages at $20 a ton, then $15 per ton is considered an acceptable cost to ameliorate it. If the SCC is $2, spending $15 seems out of line." The other key statistical variable is the "discount rate," which establishes how to account for future costs and benefits in today's currency...
...study looked at damages at different SCC and discount rates. "Using the mid-range EPA figure, the cumulative global cost between now and the middle of the century will exceed $7 trillion," says Goodstein. "This means that every working adult will have to pay half of a year's salary just to cover the damage of the breakdown of the Arctic air conditioner." The higher figure used in the survey, based on the U.K.'s 2007 Stern report, yields significantly greater damage estimates...
...unlike the low probability of losing your house to fire, we know that the Arctic is warming. And this study offers an inkling of what it could cost us - if we don't act. "No matter how you slice it, these are big numbers," says Goodstein. "The Arctic air conditioner is breaking down in a big way. Half-measures won't work. If we can get carbon emissions down, we can retain more of this function...