It’s just too expensive to stop climate change

The United States government spent $106.7 billion from 2003 to 2010 fighting climate change ^[3]. This is an absurd sum of money given what’s been accomplished. Current money allocated for climate change efforts in the United States consists of a great deal of research funding. This expensive, decades-long research has merely produced information confirming that global warming is getting worse, and given us ominous predictions for the future ^[4]. Yet this research has not helped us determine how to stop climate change. If we actually wanted to stop climate change, the money spent researching it should be redirected towards building a renewable energy infrastructure since we already know that fossil fuel emissions worsen climate change. However, completely switching our energy sector to renewable energy is not feasible because of the price. All of our cars and transportation systems would have to be overhauled to be electric. We would have to somehow shut down the coal and oil industries and build solar, wind, and hydroelectric power plants in their place. The U.S. national debt is currently over $22 trillion ^[5]. We are not in a position to keep pouring money into fighting climate change when there are so many other items in the federal budget that need funding. This argument rests on the fact that the money spent on stopping climate change has not produced any helpful results. In light of this, the United States’ climate budget has been wasted. It does not make sense to continue funding something that has resulted in no viable solutions for climate change. Money allocated for climate change mitigation is better spent elsewhere in a way that actually benefits citizens.