What is the Morality of the Less-Well-Off Sacrificing for the Better-Off?

Technology Review recently had an editorial addressed to President Obama (Dear Mr. President: Time to Deal with Climate Change) asking him to make global warming his top priority. They acknowledge: "It means immediate spending and economic sacrifice by present-day voters in order to achieve benefits that will be realized decades from now." 

I don't understand the morality of "immediate spending and economic sacrifice by present-day voters in order to achieve benefits that will be realized decades from now." I wrote to Jason Pontin at Technology Review (who seems like a nice fellow) and told him that I thought that the people of 2050 and 2100 will be better off than the people of the present "under any realistic scenario of global warming." He questioned whether this would indeed be the case. So I put some potential "quality of life" indicators in a table, with my estimates for their values circa 2012, and my estimates for what they would be in 2050 and 2100.

I'd be happy for him or any other Technology Review (TR) author of that letter to present their estimates. I'd also be happy for him, them, or anyone else to provide some potential other parameters that should be on the list.

 

Comments

[Douglass Holmes]

In order to get voters to sacrifice, they must be motivated. Unfortunately, those who are best at motivating us (by scaring us, or appealing to our moral interests) are probably not good at deciding what sacrifices will actually result in a beneficial result. President Bush made the case for war in Iraq which certainly called for sacrifice. Some think the result (no more Saddam) worth it. Others question if the benefits were quite worth the treasure and blood spent. Still others think it a complete waste of money and human life that left us worse off. But, we all expected the war to come to an end in a few years!
In the war on global warming, how likely are we to make the decisions that will achieve a benefit for the costly sacrifices that we must make? How long will the war last?
I am more skeptical of anyone's ability to allocate resources in the war against global warming than the most anti-war activist was about our war in Iraq. Windmills? Money wasted. Carbon capture? Just a way to make electricity more expensive. Carbon taxes? Just a hindrance to the economic growth that the world needs to lift the less developed countries out of poverty.
I vote for economic growth, even if it means a little more CO2 now. It will mean a lot less pollution in general in the future. And, it will bring us more options in dealing with future problems.