Graver Threat: Financial Crisis or Climate Crisis?

Joseph Romm says it's not even a close contest:

What happens if we fail to act in time to avert the financial catastrophe that Treasury Secretary Paulson says is now upon us:

* Companies that made very bad investments would lose money, and some would go bankrupt.
* Other countries would probably stop lending us as much money until the shakeout was over.
* For a time, we’d have to stop living beyond our means with borrowed money that pays for massive imports from China and the oil producers.
* More people who bought houses they couldn’t afford would lose them.
* Our economy, which had been boosted unsustainably by phony wealth and a housing Ponzi scheme, would no doubt underperform for a few years until the shakeout was over, causing hardship for tens of millions.
* This might trigger a global economic slowdown, causing hardship for hundreds of millions.

vs.

What happens if we fail to act in time to avert the climate catastrophe?

* We cross carbon-cycle tipping points, such as the loss of the tundra, beyond which there is “no redemption.”
* We head toward CO2 concentrations this century that are triple or quadruple preindustrial levels.
* We should expect 0.8 to 2.0 meters of sea level rise this century, inundating the homes of 100 million people.
* We face desertification of one third the planet and loss of the glaciers that provide water to a billion people.
* We face loss of more than two thirds of the species on the planet, and a hot, acidic, and largely lifeless ocean
* We face humanity’s self-destruction — 6°C total planetary warming.

We need to keep things in perspective and get our priorities straight.

Thankfully, there are companies like Google that are not only succeeding financially but are also working toward clean energy solutions:

It isn't very Googley to stand on the sidelines – whether the challenge involves search, apps, or clean energy. So we're working to be part of the solution. Specifically, we have embraced the challenge of developing a gigawatt of renewable electricity that is cheaper than electricity from coal – in years, not decades.

In ten years, we envision a cleaner, greener world -- running on wind, solar, and steam - with clean cars plugged into a clean grid. But for that vision to become real, the technologies to power it will have to be economically competitive -- otherwise they won't scale. So we are focusing much of our effort on technology innovation to drive down the costs of key renewable technologies. We are fundamentally optimists -- we believe that when innovative people focus on the right problems, they can find solutions. And when renewable energy is cheaper than fossil-based alternatives, and when plug-in hybrids are as cheap as traditional cars, they will take off in the marketplace.

Rather than throwing Americans' tax dollars at poorly managed financial firms in order to get them out of a hole they dug for themselves we should be looking into following Google's lead and aiding the transition away from fossil fuels.