Shultz, a former University of Chicago economics professor and president of Bechtel, has installed solar panels on his house and drives an electric car around the Stanford University campus, where he’s a distinguished fellow at the Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace.
According to Bloomberg, Shultz’s climate awakening came when a retired Navy admiral showed him time-lapse footage of disappearing Arctic sea ice and “explained the implications for global stability.”
“The potential results are catastrophic,” Shultz says to his fellow Republicans. “So let’s take out an insurance policy.”
Shultz, who supports a tax on fossil fuels that would be used to pay “carbon dividend checks” to US citizens, was part of a bipartisan group that produced a report earlier this year on the economic risks of global warming called “Risky Business.” In commenting on the report, he spelled out what he means by calling for a climate change “insurance policy” a little more clearly:
The risks we take if the climate changes need to be identified carefully. We have done that here, in the spirit of creating an insurance policy. I support steps in that spirit, such as sustained support for and investments in innovation and resilience that put us in the best position to be prepared for all possible outcomes.Shultz appears hopeful that the rest of his party will come around to acknowledging climate change as a clear and present threat to life on this planet. “Reality is going to do a lot,” he told Bloomberg. “It will become more and more evident that there are big melts all over the world that are going to cause water problems and other problems. People will have to notice.”
Read more at George Shultz, Reagan's Secretary Of State, on Climate Change: "The Potential Results Are Catastrophic"
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