But if we do something than how will US CEOs make 333 times as much as workers ...

ken, he actually does not make that argument. The UK, he says, was not physically damaged in a massive way during the war but still its rich were as hit hard as those in bombarded germany. i think his argument is that it was the political consequences of the war rather than the actual damage.

The sad and pathetic truth, the tragedy of it all, is that the rich and their corporations would rather protect their baubles and shiny toys than work to keep our planet habitable. What perhaps they fail to realize, or just can't bear to accept, is that climate change will affect EVERYONE, the rich included, and will bring about the kind of social and economic upheavals the rich so fear and work so feverishly to prevent. My fading hope is that by the time 1 percenters loosen their death grip on our politics, economy and culture, allowing sanity to prevail, we will still have a liveable planet in which to reside.

Climate science is very complex and I wouldn't expect everyone to blindly believe establishment science so these numbers aren't entirely surprising considering media coverage of the issue; however, I am not so sure about your conclusion since significant majorities favor a shift away from fossil fuels toward renewables and want to emphasize conservation over production:

In the U.S., 57% favor conservation over increasing production to solve the nation's energy problems. Alternative energy and conservationist policies are the preferred approach, rather than emphasizing production of traditional fossil fuel energy sources

Americans say the environment should be given priority over economic growth (50%-to-41%).

http://www.gallup.com/tag/Climate+Change… (same pollster as for your number)

@7 "Rich people, and not so rich people who live in rich countries, will be shielded from the worst of the coming ecological disaster"

Not really. Several degrees of warming would cause such disruption that their wealth would mostly disappear and anyway, no wall would be tall enough to stop the mobs.

@6,

Americans say the environment should be given priority over economic growth (50%-to-41%).

That's not a majority.

Thank you, @9.

I think you may be playing into the hands of the denier crowd here by overstating how much addressing the problem would cost. Very true that seriously addressing the problem would be destabilizing but it would more likely involve a transfer of wealth from some rich people to other rich people rather than from the rich to the non-rich, that is a transfer from investors in fossil fuel based industries to investors in new greener technologies.

I'm also not really buying that the real intransigence can be entirely blamed on the wealthy and corporations. More and more corporations are realizing that climate change is an existential threat, as are more and more rich people who are not complete right-wing morons. The real intransigence comes from the glorious American middle class who do not want to make any sacrifices whatsoever. Raise their electric bills or their bills for filling their SUVs and watch that number that believes in anthropogenic warming decline further, amidst the howls of outrage about government overreach.

@11, "more and more corporations." Can to elaborate? Which of these multi-national conglomerates that have access to billions of dollars, red-carpet treatment to world leaders, and are party to the highest levels of decision making are these? Yes, it's nice that your local McDonald's is "going green," but when discussing the super-wealthy, we are talking about corporations that deal in natural resources: oil, natural gas, etc. as well as the financial institutions that govern international monetary flow.

Your blaming of the 'middle class' is simply blind. For one, the middle class has been shrinking over the past 40 years. Two, they have no powers of decision-making besides the vote. Three, they are easily manipulated through the media. They are the recipients of those who make the decisions, not the deciders themselves.

A very high percentage of Americans don't believe in evolution. Of course, that makes you wonder how many believe that polls are accurate (or how many believe in math). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Level_of_su…

As to the cost of fixing global warming, Krugman (a guy who believes that all of those welfare institutions and progressive tax systems are a good idea and should be expanded quite a bit right now) says otherwise, in his latest column: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/04/18/opinio…
He basically cites the latest report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which suggest a cost to the economy of 0.06 percent a year in growth. Hardly the kind of thing that will redistribute wealth.

Socialize the oil companies.

Problem solved.

@12,

Even the Koch brothers are investing in renewables.

@12 If you imagine that the government taking action that is going to significantly raise gasoline and electricity prices (absolutely essential for any attempt to address climate change) is in any way politically viable considering the greedy shortsightedness of the average American consumer then you are the one that is blind.

I'm not asserting that there are too many corporations that are going to willfully or unilaterally make major sacrifices that are going to damage their bottom line but completely ignoring reality is not in the end going to be good for anyone's business, unless maybe you are in the business of building dikes, or coffins.

http://www.care2.com/causes/major-corpor…

@13), piketty actually has a short section on climate change and he has it more at 5 percent of the GDP. that is too low in my opinion. Galbraith is much closer to the true impact.

Well going on the quote here it looks like Galbraith's estimate is based on...a hunch?

Energy needs to be considerably more expensive to reduce carbon emissions significantly. That would no doubt have an effect on GDP. The real central problem here is the energy being more expensive part though. The average SUV driving American with a mcmansion in the exurbs is oblivious to fractional shifts in GDP. What he is not oblivious to however is the price of gas and electricity. And he sure doesn't want no government bureaucrat forcing him to change his energy intensive lifestyle.

@9 - Since when is 50 to 43 not a majority? Not only is it a relative majority, also known as a plurality, but given that 50.001 would be an absolute majority, I am not sure what point you are trying to make.

@18 is spot on: global warming is not a problem caused by a neat conspiracy but a boorish consensus. fossil fuel companies are problematic but can't b singled out: almost all economic activity is toxic, and only portions justify themselves by their respective social utilities

low-carbon work like childcare, tutoring and bike policing should be commissioned en masse to compensate for the required dissemblies of non-essential c02-heavy economic activity

I just obtained Picketty's book and look forward especially to the short bit on global warming in it. My feeling, based on spending the last 25 years of observing the progress of climate science, is that economics is only beginning to realistically incorporate climate change into their $ calculations. How does one out a price tag on a 2 meter sea level rise? or worst case, how about a 30 meter sea level rise? that would be worse for Bangladesh in terms of mortality, but even in the USA, putting every major coastal city under water is almost beyond imagination in terms of price tag. I would offer the opinion that global warming promises lots of death to the poor, while the rich would be more likely to keep their lives. There will be many cases however in which the rich keep their lives but not their money.