The carbon debt. Those pesky greenhouse gas emissions that we spew to power our businesses, drive our cars and heat and cool our homes are accumulating in the atmosphere like an unpaid bill with compounding interest.
Economists now say that the bill for all that unchecked carbon pollution is a lot bigger than previously thought - and that the longer we wait to pay it, the more it's going to cost us.
A new peer-reviewed report released this week by the Economics and Equity for the Environment (E3) network found that each ton of carbon dioxide emitted in the atmosphere results in as much as $893 in economic damages, far greater than the government's current estimate of $21 per ton.
This figure, known as the "social cost of carbon," is used by federal agencies when weighing the costs and benefits of carbon-reducing regulations, such as appliance efficiency standards or fuel economy standards for cars and trucks. It's an estimate of the monetary damages caused by higher global temperatures, such as extreme weather events, rising sea levels, agricultural losses and wildfires. Read the full report here.
Source: by Mindy S. Lubber at Greener World Media, Reuters.
