Yes, undoubtedly they have a cost both human and commercial but we need to remember that a huge study of 840 European cities and towns about 4 years ago showed that by a factor of 8.6 to 1 that more people die of cold than heat in Europe. Warming may be creating deaths but its also saving a lot more lives each winter.
Next the reality. The fact is that you can reduce carbon emissions here and in Europe, but its outnumbered every year by what China, India, Russia and the USA are doing and in fact most of south Asia. If our climate was related to our emissions then you may have a valid argument for action, but while the vast majority of your problem is out of your control, and more importantly increasingly out of your influence then pushing forward with net zero is literally releaving yourself into a force 9 gale.
That then brings in numerous problems, net zero, adaption and western economies rapidly running out of money, a cost of living crisis across the west and asking people to pay 15K for a heat pump against 3K for a gas boiler and requiring a lot of houses to rip up large parts of their houses to fit them. Then the insulation, many older houses require upto 40K of insulation work to make a heat pump a viable heating source, the cost of that investment in terms of investment return if invested in stocks would earn you 6-7% and pay your gas and electric bills completely and you still have the 55K in assets.
Finance, there are three ways to pay for things.
1) The government pays and you pay them through higher taxes
2) You get private investment which demands a return which is charged to customers and that's you and me in higher bills.
3) You pay yourself for all the kit and very few can afford to do so and are living in that time horizon.
Now in terms of practicalities against those economic fundamentals I don't see how you can make decarbonisation palatable when the vast majority are looking at how to keep a roof over their heads and feed families today rather than worrying about the climate in 20 -50 years time.
There needs to a reality check on where we are going with this, is the priority decarbonising while the major emissions are increasingly out of our control and should we really bee looking at adaptation?
Increasing people's costs today is not going to win you any friends and bankrupting the country on this is going to bring you a lot of enemies and it will change politics radically.
Cost of heatwaves.
Yes, undoubtedly they have a cost both human and commercial but we need to remember that a huge study of 840 European cities and towns about 4 years ago showed that by a factor of 8.6 to 1 that more people die of cold than heat in Europe. Warming may be creating deaths but its also saving a lot more lives each winter.
Next the reality. The fact is that you can reduce carbon emissions here and in Europe, but its outnumbered every year by what China, India, Russia and the USA are doing and in fact most of south Asia. If our climate was related to our emissions then you may have a valid argument for action, but while the vast majority of your problem is out of your control, and more importantly increasingly out of your influence then pushing forward with net zero is literally releaving yourself into a force 9 gale.
That then brings in numerous problems, net zero, adaption and western economies rapidly running out of money, a cost of living crisis across the west and asking people to pay 15K for a heat pump against 3K for a gas boiler and requiring a lot of houses to rip up large parts of their houses to fit them. Then the insulation, many older houses require upto 40K of insulation work to make a heat pump a viable heating source, the cost of that investment in terms of investment return if invested in stocks would earn you 6-7% and pay your gas and electric bills completely and you still have the 55K in assets.
Finance, there are three ways to pay for things.
1) The government pays and you pay them through higher taxes
2) You get private investment which demands a return which is charged to customers and that's you and me in higher bills.
3) You pay yourself for all the kit and very few can afford to do so and are living in that time horizon.
Now in terms of practicalities against those economic fundamentals I don't see how you can make decarbonisation palatable when the vast majority are looking at how to keep a roof over their heads and feed families today rather than worrying about the climate in 20 -50 years time.
There needs to a reality check on where we are going with this, is the priority decarbonising while the major emissions are increasingly out of our control and should we really bee looking at adaptation?
Increasing people's costs today is not going to win you any friends and bankrupting the country on this is going to bring you a lot of enemies and it will change politics radically.
Beware what you are playing with.