Author: sb8027a

I certainly agree that people do not take the issues as seriously and as urgency because people do not take it as a current threat. Same to climate change and COVID-19, it is hard for the people to understand the risk and the danger of these situations. Whether how much the medias and other experts have warned the danger of these situations, people do not truly understand it until they actually experience it. Take COVID-19 as an example, before the COVID-19 was found in the US, there were still news about the virus spreading worldwide. However, people in the US did not respond to the virus until it breaks into the United States and severely devastated some areas. From this,  I think that this is one of our human nature and it will not change.

My essay 3 would be about the economic cost of climate change. In the essay, I will discuss the general view on the impact of climate change and why people should not underestimate the cost of climate change.

Unlocking The Inclusive Growth Story of The 21st Century: Accelerating Climate Action in Urgent Times. Global Commission on the Economy and Climate, newclimateeconomy.report/2018/wp-content/uploads/sites/6/2019/04/NCE_2018Report_Full_FINAL.pdf. This report discusses the positive point of view on the economic impact of climate change, which will be the rebuttal of my essay.

Another resource is by Ocasio-Cortez, Alexandria. “The New Green Deal.” https://Www.congress.gov/116/Bills/hres109/BILLS-116hres109ih.Pdf. It describes the economic negative consequences of not dealing with climate change. It states that human activity is the dominant cause of climate change and A changing climate is causing extreme weather events that threaten human life, healthy communities, and critical infrastructure. This will be my main position in the essay that the economic impact of climate change is more serious than we normally think and we should not underestimate it.

The op-ed post I found is Climate Change Will Cost Us Even More Than We Think by Naomi Oreskes and Nicholas Stern. This article discusses that economists have greatly underestimated the price tag on climate change. This is a typical example of an op-ed article because the authors stated three main opinions behind why the experts have underestimated it. The first reason is that climate change is an unprecedented situation, whereas estimation is based on the experience. The second opinion is that the parameters of the climate change model are not able to adequately quantified, therefore scientists omitted the data from the model. The last reason argued by the authors is the cascading effects, which means a chain of negative impacts that are triggered by the primary impact.

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/10/23/opinion/climate-change-costs.html

COVID-19 has changed our lives. The economic activity stagnates as people’s movements are restricted. The restrictions on movement have reduced greenhouse gas emissions. It is prominent that air quality in the major cities across the world has improved. Then, can this be seen as a positive effect on the environment? Some argue that COVID-19 is rather harmful to the environment. Compare to similar significant events in the past, it has not been long-term effects on the climate change issue. During the periods of the economic downturn, such as the 2008 financial crises, scientists witnessed a similar pattern pf greenhouse gas reduction. However, it did not lasts long. Another reason why some argue that COVID-19 is negative because COVID-19 produced more garbage. More than 20 cities in China are suffering from overflowing medical waste. Waste from Wuhan, China, has quadrupled, which is equivalent to 200 tons a day. Also, as more people are staying home, more people would use more electricity and gas, which will lead to an increase in energy usage. Lastly, while global attention was focused on COVID-19, discussions on climate change were pushed out of the priority list. The United Nations climate change conference has been postponed due to COVID-19. We still do not know if the COVID-19 incident will have a positive or negative impact on climate change, but we may be able to change our lives in ways that are less destructive to the environment.