Right-Wing Denier Sees Cost of Global Warming: Businessmen at GE See Opportunity

Iain Murray of the National Review claims to know exactly how much 3C of global warming will cost ($22 trillion) and exactly how much Al Gore's plan to preserve the climate will cost ($44 trillion).

(For the moment, let's put aside the fact that most experts consider 3C catastrophic.)

Since Al Gore's plan happens to cost twice as much as the damage; well, of course, why bother?

But funny how those radical leftists at General Electric don't see it that way. By spending $900 million this year on CEO Jeffrey Inmelt's "Ecoimagination" efforts, they expect to prosper -- forecasting "at least" $20 billion in revenue from such products in 2010.

Murray, a senior fellow at the far-right anti-environmental Competitive Enterprise Institute and a Exxonian, somehow sees only gloom and doom when it comes to global change -- not the opportunity to make money, as well as to make a better world.

Sad.

By the way, GE is doing just fine, thank you. Revenue was up nearly 15% last quarter, which Inmelt called a "boomer." They have a huge backlog of orders, and see business growing by leaps and bounds around the world.

As a stockholder, I'm pleased, both with their results and their farsightedness.

Don't tell Murray. He's grumpy these days. Reminds me of Oscar Wilde's immortal line:

"A cynic knows the price of everything and the value of nothing."