The World CAN afford immediate transition to renewables

We have the technology to transition to renewables. It is the cost of immediate transition that is regularly touted as prohibitive. The cost of transition is staggering, that is true: "A global effort to transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050 would cost nations $73 trillion upfront — but the expense will pay for itself in under seven years, according to a new report from researchers at Stanford University. The study also found that the shift to a zero-carbon global economy would create 28.6 million more full-time jobs than if nations continue their current reliance on fossil fuels. The report, published in the journal One Earth, presents detailed roadmaps for how 143 countries that account for 99.7 percent of all global greenhouse gas emissions could successfully transition to 100 percent renewable energy by 2050." (Yale School of the Environment article, December 2019) That is a massive massive cost, it is true. But it is spare change to the wealthiest people in the world. If you consider the net wealth of the world to be about $250 trillion (commonly accepted estimate), the top 1% harbor around 50% of that (admittedly largely in assets) and the .01% of the wealthiest of us hoard roughly half of that, or 25 per cent of the worlds wealth (also admittedly in assets, many of which are income producing and job creating). So, maybe they can put a bit in the kitty? But the rest of us should not get off so lightly, either. The gambling industry was expected to earn an expected $1,000,000,000,000.00 (One Trillion Dollars) per year starting from 2021 because of bets; says a whitepaper published by analyst Juniper Research over a year ago. "The main contributor of the sudden rise of the industry is an increased usage of mobile technology which is geared to build a better customer relationship. Using media and live streams are also a big factor of the swift growth of the gambling industry", they say. So, I say, we the not top .01% can probably afford to tip in a bit more into the kitty, too. That still leaves governments. They are the ones that we are watching and waiting on over COP26 to do ALL the heavy lifting. In reality, governments can and will likely raise the 73 trillion, but also in reality, it will be done all too late and all too clunkily to beat anything like the 1.5% temperature rise goal that we and all other species desperately need (and if we miss it, wow, the consequences will be truly staggering - for example, the Himalaya glaciers may melt to nothing over the next two hundred years leaving billions without water). So, the message is this: This IS affordable, people. We just all need to work a bit harder, to chip in a bit more - not just governments. Everyone with spare change needs to to kick the can here. That means benevolence. That means sacrifices. That means charity from each and every one of us that is lucky enough to have the education to know what is going on. If we do this, our descendants for millennia to come will not thank us. But at least they will not decry us for time immemorial, our generation, for sitting around during these critical decades and scratching our balls, mumbling 'but this is unaffordable'.
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