Johann Hari: Don't kill the planet in the name of saving the economy

Continued...The belief we can't deal with global warming because we need to pursue growth is pulverised by a Stern fact: global warming will smother economic growth. When the British Government commissioned the economist Sir Nicholas Stern to study the economic impact of Weather of Mass Destruction, he found that warming could slash 20 per cent off the global economy in my lifetime – while it costs just 3 per cent of GDP to stop it now. People who won't stop warming for the sake of growth are like a man who won't stop his house burning down because he makes a living toasting marshmallows on the flames.

Yes, we could choose business-as-usual. Then, as the climatologist Professor Marty Hoffert says: "Somebody will visit in a few hundred million years and find there were some intelligent beings who lived here for a while, but just couldn't handle the transition from being hunter-gatherers to high technology." Feeling pessimistic yet? Don't be. There is another way.

This is, perversely, a dazzling time to be alive: every human being who ever lives will deal with the decisions we make here. If we disregard the voices of denial, Europe has a chance to do something extraordinary. We could be the people who saw this threat to our species coming and remade our societies to stop it. The story of Europe's 2020 vision could be heroic, but only if we fight now to save it from the vandals. End.

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