Global warming was worth it

Interesting "quality of life" argument from The Federalist.

quote:

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Is progress a good thing? Generally speaking, it seems like an easy question – unless, that is, you’re in the “sustainability movement.”

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So if, for some reason, you embrace a “narrative” that says the rise of laissez faire economics – and the resulting efficiency and technological advancements – were moral because they freed millions from poverty and made modern life possible, you’re not thinking clearly.

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As Indur M. Goklany meticulously explores in his excellent book “The Improving State of the World,” in recent decades we have made the world a lot cleaner, healthier and livable for humans. And we did so without surrendering much wealth or freedom. I suppose it makes me a technoutopian to trust that we can adapt and create ways to deal with whatever consequences – and obviously there are consequences – a thriving modern world drops on us. Historically speaking, though, would it have been better for humanity to avoid an “Age of Pollution” and wallow in a miserable pre-Industrial Age, where poverty, death, disease and violence, were far more prevalent in our short miserable lives? Or would we have chosen global warming? I think the latter. And I think we’d do it again.

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LINK

This, I think gets at the uneasy to non-existent responses people get when asking alarmists what solutions we ought to pursue. They don't want to talk about solutions because, invariably, they are going to be extremely painful for a large part of the world (read: the poor).