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I think the grandparent's point is that it doesn't matter whether it's technically possible for us to prevent climate change, it's politically impossible even with a Democrat as president. Which I hope is not true, but with Trump in office it seems all the more probable.

There is a big gap between what we can afford and what we are willing to commit. We could probably have a modest impact with a couple of hundred billion a year in investment (equivalent to the home mortgage interest deduction). We could afford it. But I think it's unthinkable we'll get even a few tens of billions a year for climate change. At that point, there are much higher value ways to spend our limited environmental dollars.

Again, we need something to back up your numbers.

But the costs happen at different times. We are already paying some of the cost of climate change, but what we're currently paying is far less than the cost of prevention. It is a short-term vs. long-term problem, and unfortunately short-term thinking is ascendant.

http://thesolutionsproject.org/