This post, by Jerry J. Toman, ScM, ChE examines five policies that are setting our future up for failure. They are: Reliance on the old-time political religion of economic growth (usually defined as by economists as GDP growth); Continue to practice incrementalism above all else, as the dominant means of solving the problems; Embarking willy-nilly into mega-projects that utilize technologies that often are half-baked in terms of knowing what the overall costs, impacts and benefits would be; Ignoring the “carbon balance” aspects of current practices and future remedies; and relying on technologies that involve extensive “mining” of the earth’s solid surface for minerals, as a means to achieve sustainability.

In recent times, junk economics has replaced junk science as the cause of inaction on climate change issues. The case for inaction is no longer argued on the grounds of skepticism about the science; instead, some claim that it is too expensive to take more than token action on key initiatives. In response to this trend, more than 100 of the country’s leading economists have banded together to launch RealClimateEconomics.org, an effort dedicated to using the weight of economic evidence to support effective public policy and business responses to the climate crisis. RealClimateEconomics.org is inspired by the success of RealClimate.org, a longtime effort by climate scientists to dispel the junk science popularized by climate skeptics.

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