Clearly - according to Fraywatch - all is well in the Eco-Temple.

Hate to break-up the prayer circle, but - for the record - there is no scientific consensus on the catastrophic effects of climate change, and - actually - there can be no purely scientific consensus, because the effects will be in the space where the natural world, the economic world, and the socio-cultural world overlap. [Here we should pause to absorb the notion that scientific consensus on anthropogengic CO2 mediated climate change is NOT the same thing as consensus on the effects of climate change].

The insurance analogy has been around for at least ten years, and it's clearly not applicable (which would explain why it hasn't worked as a convincing argument). In buying insurance, we pool our risk. Yes, it's unlikely that my house will burn, but it's a certainty that someone's house will burn. So we all pay into a pot, and the unlucky ones draw from it.

But let's allow for the sake of argument that we set aside 1% of GDP to insure the climate change risk, then with which planet - or even which country - are we pooling the risk? And just what catastrophes would be compensated, or bright ideas for preventive measures would be funded with this 1% of GDP? It depends on the specific effect that we want to counter, and we don't know what the effects will be. I can't resist pointing out that 1% of GDP sounds small, but it would be a far, far larger percentage increase in government - assuming that government would appropriate the priviledge of administering the funds - so you can flush away at least half of the value that those funds currently generate the pockets of you and me.

In the Eco-Temple the unorthodox voices will be silenced, because - you know - the unwashed are oh so impressionable, and we can't be filling their heads with other ideas! The next thing you know they might be weighing the respective merits of all those confusing ideas and making their own decisions! Of course we are able to separate the cranky wheat from the truthful chaff (after all, we're PhDs, or orthodox lefties, or both...if there's a difference)...but those other people...can't be trusted!