Atlantic Monthly Asks: 'Global Warming -- Who Loses and Who Wins?'

Writer Gregg Easterbrook points out that the climate change associated with global warming could wreak havoc not only with the environment but with our world order as well. Struggling backwaters could be abruptly transformed into boomtowns if their climates become favorable. And world powers could be thrown into recession or worse if their climates become less desirable or altogether uninhabitable. For example, the Arctic Circle, he notes, could become hot real estate, while Europe could become icy and plunge into recession.

Washington, DC (PRWeb) April 8, 2007 -- In "Global Warming: Who Loses -- and Who Wins?" (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200704/global-warming), Gregg Easterbrook points out that the climate change associated with global warming could wreak havoc not only with the environment but with our world order as well. Struggling backwaters could be abruptly transformed into boomtowns if their climates become favorable. And world powers could be thrown into recession or worse if their climates become less desirable or altogether uninhabitable. For example, the Arctic Circle, he notes, could become hot real estate, while Europe could become icy and plunge into recession.

What's your take on this. Do see this as the stuff of fantasy, or is this where we're really headed?

In a related online interview (http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/200703u/global-warming), Easterbrook suggests that while individuals should take action to decrease global warming, tasking the government with figuring out a way to stop the warming would be worse than doing nothing. The only effective way to get the job done, he argues, is by instead having the government put in place regulations that give private companies financial incentives to figure out how to combat warming. Does he have a valid point?

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