(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Raising Interest Rates Won't Reverse the Accelerating Cost of Climate Change [1] ['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-01-02 What made a business successful in the past could destroy it in the future. We have seen this happen over and over as businesses fail to respond to changing conditions and disruption. The same applies to economies, societies, and species. Failure to adapt to new conditions results in collapse or even extinction. Throughout the industrial age, central banks controlled inflation by raising interest rates which had the result of making working people poorer. Less money circulating will cause a decrease in the demand for goods and services which will cause a drop in prices for those goods and services. Although painful for workers, that has worked for decades. But what happens when the cause of raising prices is not too much cheap money in the system? What if there is an external cause… like climate change? What happens when basics like food and water become scarcer and more expensive no matter what you do with interest rates and how many people you throw out of work? Slowing the economy, and causing a recession, even a painful one will only have a trivial effect on the rapidly accelerating impacts of climate change. Agriculture Crops, livestock, and fish are all being negatively affected in big ways. By 2050 we’ll need to feed two billion more people. Where will that food come from if we can’t increase food production and worse we may soon see drastic reductions in food production? Supply Chain This does not just affect the food supply. Industrial Production Real Estate 21% of US GDP is wrapped up in real estate, construction, mortgages, insurance, rental, and leasing. Not to mention that for a huge number of Americans their home represents the majority of their wealth. Coastal counties of the U.S. are home to over 128 million people, or almost 40 percent of the nation's total population on 10% of the country's land mass and these communities are at increasingly dire risk due to sea level rise and extreme climate events. What happens when the country's priciest real estate concentrated on that 10% of land becomes uninsurable and unsellable? More than a $ trillion in value goes up in smoke. Climate Change is Destroying the Economy Billions of dollars in losses is going to turn into trillions if we continue on the current course and along with economic disaster will come political and social instability on a scale we have not ever experienced. In a world with weapons of mass destruction, we don’t want to contemplate where that could end. Making workers poorer will not solve the problem and raising interest rates will not solve the problem. Business as usual at this point is a death sentence for civilization. Silicon Valley is Not Coming to the Rescue Don’t look for the tech bros to come up with a solution. These are the geniuses that gave us Bitcoin, another unregulated ‘financial innovation’ that is consuming 110 Terawatt Hours per year — 0.55% of global electricity production for no as yet useful purpose other than a vehicle for speculation. Not to mention the vanity trips to space (Jeff Bezos spent $4.4 billion for his 4-minute ride), Musk spending $44 Billion to be chief Twitter troll, and a long litany of sociopathic behavior from the new Robber Barons, who have turned out to be no different than the old robber barons. Meeting the Climate Crisis Threat We need to be putting people to work creating sustainable methods of food production, industrial production, energy generation trade, supply chain, and shelter. We are out of time, not only are we fiddling while Rome burns, we are missing out on the greatest business opportunity of the last millennia in the process. Republicans and their fellow no-nothings in other countries blather on about more fossil fuel, more draconian economic measures, and a return to the economic and social policies of the 19th century. Policies that will just accelerate the destruction of the global economy and the end of human civilization as we know it. The industrial revolutions have run their course and policies and economic methods straight out of the 19th century are pathetically impotent in providing solutions for the post-industrial era. The fight to Save the Planet is the fight to Save the Economy, the fight to Save Jobs, and the fight for Peace and Prosperity for current and future generations. We need radical change, fast. Climate change is now an Economic and Social Disruptor. We know what happens to traditional businesses when a disruptor enters their market. They adapt quickly or die. We need to focus all our creativity, innovation and resources to invent a sustainable future or not just our economy, the human race could get disrupted out of existence. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/1/2/2144928/-Raising-Interest-Rates-Won-t-Reverse-the-Accelerating-Cost-of-Climate-Change Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/