TOMLINSON

2090 will rise more than 2 degrees Celsius, and people will consume more energy and exacerbate the problem. More intense storms will cause more damage, driving up insurance rates. Rising sea levels will force 15 million Americans to leave their homes, and floods will swamp refineries and petrochemical plants along the Gulf Coast.

Global warming will cost the U.S. economy at least $280 billion a year by 2090, well within the lifetime of children alive today. That’s the equivalent of the Great Recession of 2007, every single year, according to the report by dozens of scientists at 13 federal agencies.

Republican senators criticized the report’s forecasts, arguing that businesses will come up with unforeseeable technological solutions. The problem, though, is that companies that make their money producing greenhouse gases, and their political allies, are fighting efforts to control them.

The oil and gas industry has convinced governments to roll back limits on emissions of methane, one of the most damaging greenhouse gases. The coal industry wants the administration to prop up its business. Plastics and petrochemical companies resist any calls to reduce emissions.

For these managers, shortterm shareholder returns outweigh future risks to humanity.

A massive investment in research and development, though, could make a difference. And the private sector could lead the way in reducing emissions from air travel and shipping, and from cement and steel production, according to the Information Technology and Innovation Foundation.

Huge profits await companies that develop advanced nuclear energy, long-duration energy storage, carbon capture and storage, and zero-emission energy sources. But all those fields await business leaders to make sufficient investments and purchases.

On a more practical level, our descendants need business leaders to spend a little more to reduce their energy use, purchase more energy from clean sources and screen their business operations to reduce emissions and waste.

The short-term costs may be higher, but taking these steps will pay off in the long run. Our grandchildren will rank leaders who help bend the global warming curve as heroes.

Even with rapid technological change, energy consultancy Wood Mackenzie predicts that the planet will still warm more than 2 degrees Celsius unless more is done.

“Political momentum will be crucial, and at present, climate leadership is lacking,” senior analyst David Brown wrote.

Only an overly privileged 72-year-old can get away with declaring that he doesn’t believe what most of the world’s leaders and scientists accept as fact. And only someone obsessed with instant gratification and no desire for a legacy would behave so callously.