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Study: Global Warming Solvable If Fossil Fuel Subsidies Given To Clean Energy
An anonymous reader writes A research team at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis in Laxenburg, Austria, says it has studied how much it would cost for governments to stick to their worldwide global warming goal. They've concluded that for "a 70 per cent chance of keeping below 2 degrees Celsius, the investment will have to rise to $1.2 trillion a year." Where to get that money? The researchers say that "global investment in energy is already $1 trillion a year and rising" with more than half going to fossil fuel energy. If those subsidies were spent on renewable energy instead, the researchers hypothesize that "global warming would be close to being solved."
It never ceases to amaze me how Progressives can so blithely condemn BIG corporations and their answer to solving the "BIG Corporation" problem is always to give more power to the largest, most powerful organization on the planet. Because large size causes corruption in companies, but it must only cause nobility in governments, right?
"Money" that people have "in the bank" is really ownership of companies. What you call "withdrawing" means reallocating that money, closing one kind of business and firing its employees, and opening another kind of business and hiring people there. Whether that's a good or bad deal depends on exactly what the new business does compared to the old business.
They choose to attempt to maximize the return on their investment, which is both in their interest and in society's interest.
No, the "dilemma" you imagine doesn't exist. Rich people aren't hurt by shifting their investments from one kind of company to another kind. If Obama pours billions of subsidies into "green energy", the same people who own oil companies and profit from it will just switch over to those companies. So will your pension fund.
Really the only question is whether the new "green energy companies" will deliver what they promise; that's the part that's doubtful, because if they did, why wouldn't people be investing in them voluntarily?
Government is of the people, by the people, for the people. Business's sole purpose is to serve those with money.
Government protects rights that apply to the least popular person as much as to the most popular person. Business gives the rich more rights.
No CEO swears to uphold the General Welfare. Government is mandated to by the Constitution.