The new language of climate change: Trillions.

It didn’t seem that long ago that it was all about billions — billions of dollars of climate investments, billions of tons of carbon reductions and billions in new market opportunities. Billions of assets under management being screened for climate risk. All to stem billions more in environmental damage, GDP loss, natural capital savings and ecosystems decline. And probably a billion other things.

That was so last year.

Bye-bye, billions. It’s time for trillions to seize center stage.

Yes, trillions. With a T.

In the ramp-up to Climate Week, unfolding in hundreds of events across New York City over the next five days or so, there’s been a raft of reports, commitments and declarations touting big, big numbers. It’s a clear sign that the money side of climate change — both costs and opportunities — is rising in lockstep with a recognition of the stakes to people and the planet.

Read the story from GreenBiz by Joel Makower - “The new language of climate change: Trillions.”

The myth and mistunderstanding about CO2, plants and food value

Claims that increasing carbon dioxide would benefit the world’s plants is not, in a sense, incorrect.

Plants need CO2 to grow, but complications arise when the carbon dioxide levels pass acceptable concentrations.

A plant’s productivity, growth and value in terms of a food crop deteriorate once C02 levels exceed evolutionary limits.

The world presently have CO2 levels at about 400 part per million (ppm) and by mid-century it will be far higher and so the world’s food crops, and billions of people, will suffer.

Reporting in a story headed: “Rising CO2 level may cut crop nutrients, study finds”, the Huffington Post explains how tests aimed at understanding expected mid-century atmospheric concentrations of 550ppm were carried out by the Harvard School of Medical Health.

The figures speak for themselves

The figures speak for themselves – climate change is costing $billions.

It has been argued in a story on Climate Progress headed: “The $188 billion price tag from U.S extreme weather from 2011 to 2012” that damage from floods, drought, storms, and wildfires has produced an alarming and measurable cost.

The prediction in the story by Daniel J. Weiss and Jackie Weidman is that these costs will only grow over time.

Climate change, of course, has no respect for human constructs such as national boundaries and the world-wide damage from our rather sorry treatment of our atmosphere can only get worse, including in Australia.