The thing you really never hear

This column from Newsweek editor Evan Thomas is largely a witless recitation of conventional wisdom, but it does raise one point I want to make.

It seems to me that every mainstream media figure in the world is out there saying a) tackling global warming is going to be horrendously expensive, involving great sacrifice and hardship on the part of ordinary families, and b) no one else has the courage to say A.

But obviously everybody has the courage to say it. It’s conventional wisdom. Like the “courageous” but equally false notion that Social Security is in crisis, it’s one of these talismans Beltway types brandish at one another to vouchsafe their status as Serious People. It could not be a more safe, predictable theme.

What you almost never hear about is the horrendous costs that will come if we don’t tackle global warming — the rapidly spiraling costs of the status quo. That, not stasis, is the real alternative. When will someone in Thomas’ cozy position start talking about that? It might even make for a column worth reading.