Some startling comparisons

The New York Times magazine published an article by economist Paul Krugman last week titled "Building a Green Economy." In actuality, the article is far broader in scope than the title suggests, looking at basic economics of the pollution problem, analyzing the market-based incentives of cap and trade, political backlash, and, lastly, consequences for not taking action. If anyone picked up a cap-and-trade bill for their final, this is a great illustration of the mix of political values that shape the debate, as well as an illustration of policy design.

The article does a nice job articulating issues with negative externalities and questions the logic of those that say our economy could not adjust to a cap-and-trade system on emissions (when we've done so successfully in the past), but what really struck me were the comparisons of what the change in temperature really meant. A 9 degree difference in temperature, which is the predicted average spike of the Earth's temperature over the next 100 years, is equivalent to the difference in average temperature between New York and Mississippi. The pace of the warming was also highlighted because the Earth hasn't seen such a fast warming in 55 million years, when the planet warmed 11 degrees in 20,000 years. What caused the Earth to warm so quickly in that period? A sudden increase in carbon and methane in the atmosphere.