• Introduction

  "Limited resources" means we have to allocate spending across many needs. Climate change and health care two very pressing needs that may affect human survival on earth if we make the wrong decisions. What are those who study this issue in depth telling us about the relative needs to allot resources across this range of issues? One of the first we'll look at is Bjorn Lomborg.

• Discussion Questions

  1. Climate Change and Health Care: Can health care wait? What's the cost if it does?

     Consider that the earlier most health problems are treated the more effective the treatment. With cancer and diabetes, two terribly-present illness shared by millions, the importance of early and effective long-term care are necessary to survival. Waiting here is costly in terms of present human life. Consider also the cost of learning more about how to effectively treat illnesses. Cancer and diabetes are just two that are well recognized. There are many others.

     Reference the figures cited for those who die without adequate insurance to cover costs for those whose illness does not respond immediately and effectively to cures currently available.

  2. Where could we fit concerns with youthful extremism and resulting violence into this equation?

     Consider the effect on youth who watch a parent or sibling die from lack of health care. Consider youth who endure the effects of the current financial crisis through the overcrowding in many schools and the underfunding of recreation in large metropolitan areas. Consider youth in rural areas who stay in those areas through family tradition, but experience the rapid urbanization of the nation's rural populations. When many such events occur, they are bound to have an effect on the youth who experience them. What are the messages our policies on health care and climate change send to our youth.

     Consider also the cumulative effect that such issues and drilling for natural gas and the resulting toxicity of wells and larger sources of drinking water near such drilling have on the radicalization of those who experience them. Why might the radicalization affect youth sooner that older people? Consider that youth, particularly in the present jobless environment, have more time, fewer obligations, on their hands than do there parents and elders.

• References:

  • Bjorn Lomborg's web site Lists his writings and tells you who he is and why we might want to listen to him. jeanne

  • Climate change can wait. World health can't Comment by Bjorn Lomborg in the Guardian. Consulted by jeanne on December 13, 2009. Guardian comment on file for teaching reference.

  • Natural Gas Drilling Poses Toxic Threat to Illinois’s Drinking Water

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