Warming's Costs to Top Its Benefits, Study Says

By Juliet Eilperin

Washington Post Staff Writer Wednesday, October 17, 2007; Page A03

The costs of climate change to the United States will outweigh its benefits, according to a new University of Maryland study.

. . . "Economic costs of climate change will occur throughout the country," said Matthias Ruth, the study's lead author, in a conference call with reporters.

. . . Global warming will strain public budgets and raise the costs of cooling American homes, the authors write, and it will provide only temporary benefits to the mid-Atlantic's agricultural sector.

. . . The report was deliberately less broad than the Stern report the British government released a year ago, which estimated that failing to address climate change could lead to environmental problems that would cost 5 to 20 percent of the world's annual gross domestic product.

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It would be really hard to get less broad than this piece of pap, but it's nice to know they were trying.

It's gonna

• cost more than it gains,

• those costs will be reflected across the country and

• cooling homes will be more expensive.

Wow.

Let's hear it for the University of Maryland, whose mascot is a terrapin. The UM motto reads "Fatti Maschii, Parole Femine" which, loosely translated, means "Manly deeds, womanly words."

That's loose enough for me.

* For more in-depth articles by Jim on Environmental Issues, check out Opinion-Columns.com