Environment & Climate Change

"But today's scare is not just a matter of concern for China. The nation's insular government, dense population, and environmental ills have already combined to create several global pandemics. The 2003 SARS outbreak began in China, and, by its end, killed about 800 people and caused close to $50 billion in economic losses. China had originally prevented disclosure of the SARS outbreak, telling nervous global public health officials to take a hike."

"Today, one hurricane (or tornado or fire or drought) does not constitute proof of climate change, but to deny the cumulative impact of extreme weather on geopolitics is no longer tenable. Changes in the environment will exacerbate destabilization in areas of deep strategic importance to the United States, including Asia, the Middle East, the Arctic, and Latin America. Facing increased temperatures, people will have to move to avoid rising sea water, tidal infiltrations, or arid soil; they will be searching for water, food, and space. The movement of people, and the fights between them over commodities, have been the causes of many wars."

"If storms like Sandy are likely in the future, we will begin to see a move toward a more resilient infrastructure, starting with projects that are already under way. Local and state governments are likely to require that primary power cables are underground and protected."

"George W. Bush's presidency really was that bad — and the fact that Obama has largely followed the same course is less a measure of Bush's wisdom than a reminder of the depth of the hole he dug his country into, as well as the institutionalized groupthink that dominates the U.S. foreign-policy establishment."

"To deal with climate change, we have to move our entire economy to low-carbon sources of energy. Tying a carbon fee to lower payroll taxes for workers on a permanent basis can not only take the sting out of what has to be done for the climate, it also can help create thousands of jobs and stimulate more innovation. The current favored approach for climate, cap-and-trade, is dying in the Senate, because its proponents can never guarantee that it won't turn into one more playground for Wall Street traders."

"Without energy, there is no economy. Without climate, there is no environment. Without economy and environment, there is no material well-being, no civil society, no personal or national security. The overriding problem associated with these realities, of course, is that the world has long been getting most of the energy its economies need from fossil fuels whose emissions are imperiling the climate that its environment needs."