Jeremy Siegel checks in on Global Warming
Though I greatly admire his work in finance (I have read two different editions of Stocks for the Long Run cover to cover, and I return time and again to The Future for Investors), I have been critical of Prof. Jeremy Siegel for his implicit (and sometimes explicit) support of the Republicans in Washington.
The dividend tax cut, which Siegel strongly championed, seemed at times to be the only policy consideration in the professor's line of sight. With the rest of the world crumbling around us, largely thanks to the Republicans in Congress and the neo-con-men and kleptocrats in the Bush Administration, hoping for continued rule by this gang of miserable failures solely for the continuation of a lower tax rate for stock dividends struck me as symptomatic of an acute political tunnel vision.
But this week sees the good prof. stepping up on Global Warming in an article for Yahoo finance, briefly excerpted below.
Clearly we must stabilize the levels of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Some suggest that it might cost 5% of GDP to do this, but most estimates are much lower, at 1% of GDP, or below. And actions to stabilize CO2 may not require a complete switch into solar, wind, nuclear, or hydrogen-based energy sources. The emissions from coal, the cheapest, dirtiest, and most abundant fossil fuel, can be harnessed by a process called “sequestration,” where emissions from coal plants are captured and stored underground.
I believe that to encourage such technologies, the U.S. and developing nations must take action. The U.S. now emits the most greenhouse emissions, but China and India will soon overtake us. That means that the U.S. must enact its own greenhouse measures (or renegotiate the Kyoto Accords) and use its clout to persuade China and others to participate.
