Most scientists agree that climate change is underway or at least on the horizon. This column introduces the author's book 'Climatopolis: How Our Cities will Thrive in Our Hotter Future.' It outlines an optimism and an irony: Urban economic growth may have caused climate change, but through the free market, it will also help us to adapt to it.
Without being overly dramatic, climate change is coming. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the Earth's atmosphere is approximately 390 parts per million by volume as of 2010, and rising by about 1.9 parts per million per year (Wikipedia 2010). Recent efforts at the December 2009 Copenhagen Climate Conference and in the US Senate during the summer of 2010 have failed to overcome the fundamental free rider problem – no one individual or nation has an incentive to unilaterally reduce emissions. 2005).
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