Greta Thunberg Is Right: It’s Time to Haul Ass on Climate Change - By David Roberts

Economically and politically, early ambition is better.

When Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg addressed the elites assembled at the World Economic Forum in Davos, she concluded with a simple message:  “I want you to act as if our house is on fire.”

For those elites, it was unfamiliar language.  They are accustomed to talking about climate change, but typically such talk amounts to ritual invocations of “urgency” coupled with promises about what might be achieved in 2030 or 2050.

When your house is on fire, though, you don’t promise results in a decade or a year or a week.  You grab a bucket and find some water. Immediately.

When it comes to climate policy, Thunberg has it right.  We are in a unique historical moment;  we understand the danger of climate change and, for now, still have the resources and political space necessary to address it.  But every second of delay makes the challenge more expensive, more difficult, and more dangerous.

It’s not just climate activists saying that.  The policy community is moving in that direction as well, with similar arguments coming into clearer view from economists and political scientists.  The common theme is risk, and what it means to take the mounting risks of the climate crisis seriously.

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