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They’re not as obnoxious as the “In This House We Believe” yard signs, nor as common, but if in the right neighborhood, it’s not hard to find “Climate Action Now” signs. The virtue signalers want the universe to know they are concerned that not enough is being done to keep Earth from baking. So who wants to tell them?
We do.
The volume of laws, rules, and regulations that have been passed and issued across the world to take “climate action” is probably innumerable. But we do have a good fix on how much has been spent. According to Danish researcher and author Bjørn Lomborg, more than $16 trillion has been shelled out for the global green transition.
Using data from a Bloomberg report published last month, Lomborg points out that from 2004 to 2025, “the world has spent at least $16 trillion on green,” a sum that’s 113 times greater than “what we spent on avoiding hunger through the World Food Program” and is rising by more than $2 trillion year, 2% of global GDP.
Despite all the spending, “fossil CO2 emissions set another record last year.”
What a grift. Our friends at Unleash Prosperity (UP) wonder if it’s “the greatest financial scandal in human history,” and there’s good reason to believe it is.
“Arguably,” says UP, “not a single life has been or will be saved by this shameful and colossal misallocation of human resources. The war on safe and abundant fossil fuels has cost many lives in poor countries. The temperature of the planet was not altered by one-10th of a degree, as even the alarmists will admit.”
The group further argues that the “green ‘climate change’ obsession could arguably be the most inhumane political movement in history.” Resources that could have been dedicated to “clean water for poor countries, preventing deaths from diseases like malaria, building schools in Africa,” and “bringing reliable electric power to the more than 1 billion people who still lack access” have been squandered on nonsense.
“Someone,” says UP, “should be held responsible.”
Someone should be. But like the coronaphobics of the early 2020s who demanded that we all languish in our homes, wear masks when we had to go out, and take shot after shot until they felt safe from their neuroses, then later acknowledged they were wrong and then appealed for amnesty for their atrocities, green tyranny and the associated extortion likely will go unpunished.
Even worse, they will continue to spend recklessly until they are treated like children who have been disciplined for poor behavior and had their allowances cut off.
— Written by the I&I Editorial Board
I & I Editorial Board
The Issues and Insights Editorial Board has decades of experience in journalism, commentary and public policy.