Count On It with Dulce - The Cost of Climate Change

Dulce Sloan talks to Stanford University climate economist Marshall Burke and activist Delaney Reynolds about the staggering economic costs of a do-nothing approach to the climate crisis. Originally aired November 2020.

Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.com

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Comedy Central. Wow. After the Gone, I
myself have wondered if the world is even worth safe.
So I want to know what costs more doing something
like the Paris Agreement, or a Green New Deal, or
this kind of plan which is wait for it, nothing nada.
Luckily we found an expert in doing nothing, Professor Marshall Burke.

(00:24):
In a sense, we study the cost of doing nothing,
although doing nothing here really means doing a lot. I
do nothing all the time, and it doesn't cost me
a penny. So we have studied this. The Paris Climate Agreement,
he said, we want to limit warming to one point
five degrees celsius. But let's say we do Let's say
we do nothing at all. The best estimates suggests we're

(00:45):
going to get about three degrees celsius five or six
degrees faheit of warming over the next century. Hotter temperatures
reduce agricultural productivity. Hotter tempatures make us less productive at work,
and this could cost us tens of trillions of dollars
in terms of lost economic output. By your trillions of dollars,
I think of monopoly money in unquarantiners. So what will

(01:10):
doing nothing cost the average person. You're right, trillion is
hard to understand. Uh, so hundred billion is a is
a Jeff Bezos. So a trillion is like tin Jeff
Bezos is. Should we just kidnap Jeff Bezos and make
him pay for it? I don't know if our research

(01:30):
speaks to a kidnapping approach. What Marshall's research does speak
to is that if we don't meet the one point
five degree goal set by the Paris Accord, it could
cost six trillion dollars in the US alone, and Miami
will be underwater, and not in a fun way. If
we go past that, the world's GDP drops by t

(01:52):
and the pirates of the Caribbean Ride will have direct
access to the Caribbean. On the other hand, what if
we actually did something and past some of the ambitious
proposals laid out in the Green New Deal. People talk
about like the Green New Deal like AOC is going
to personally come in your house and steal your Christmas
presents and then replace them with a lump of coal
and then come back and replace the lump of coal

(02:14):
with a solar panel. A lot of the handwringing about
the Green New Deal has focused on its potential cost.
Imagine you have a loved one who's been diagnosed with
a serious illness. Uh So do we say, oh, it's
gonna cost ten thousand dollars to fix grandpa? Like, let's
not bother ten thousand dollars? Wow, No, we think about
the benefits of that too. We like having grandpa around,

(02:35):
so we need to think of the earth as a grandpa.
We like, that's what you're saying. Yeah, the metaphor works
when it's when you like your grandpa. And we find
that the cost of inaction are actually a lot larger,
uh than than doing something about the problem. I knew it.
I knew it. I knew it. But what do you
do if you're lazy, dead beat, ain't ship government refuses

(02:57):
to see the logic in these numbers. You take the
ask this to court, even on the local level. And
I talked to one herded veteran of the U. S.
Judicial system who is doing just that. I'm actually suing
the state of Florida. All we want for them is
to cut our carbon emissions. How old are you? I

(03:17):
am twenty one years old. Is it a Doogie Houser situation?
I know you don't get that reference because you're one, no,
not quite okay, how much you're suing them for absolutely nothing?
You're suing them for nothing. What do you play Latto
for the thrill of the game? Do you go to
Vegas just for a level? So it's kind of like
we're suing on behalf of the environment. Could I recommend

(03:40):
one thing? Sue to get enough money to buy a submarine.
We want them to spend the money on the environment.
So we know that it's going to cost us as
a society trillions of dollars. But if we continue to wait,
it's only going to be more expensive in the future

(04:02):
to pay for those solutions that we need. For example,
the property value of the land that's at risk from
five ft of sea level rise is about twenty seven
billion dollars And for those following along, that's a quarter
Jeff Bezel. But don't get your hobs up, you know,
because there's a chance that Florida isn't gonna change. Florida's

(04:23):
still gonna be on your couch, eat on your food
while you're at work, asking to borrow your car. Why
do you need a car, Florida, You don't have a job. Yeah,
So to be candid. If there's no change, if we
don't do anything to solve our climate change crisis, Florida
faces extinction. On the one hand, if Florida is extinct,

(04:43):
then we wouldn't ever do with Florida anymore. But then again,
Florida's part of Earth, and even though it's been hard
on us this year, we should still do something to
save it stead or nothing, because I still love Earth.
Some people are like live here even and some people
that I love and I wouldn't trade them for all
the bezos is in the world. The Daily Show with

(05:07):
Trevor Noah Ears edition. Subscribe to The Daily Show on
YouTube for exclusive contents, and stream full episodes anytime on
Paramount Plus. This has been a Comedy Central podcast