Edward Goldsmith and Caspar Henderson

About the author: Edward Goldsmith is founder and publisher of The Ecologist, Europe's leading environmental journal. He has also written several books critiquing industrialism and promoting environmental sustainability, including The Case Against the Global Economy and for the Local. Caspar Henderson is a journalist and consultant specializing in environment, security, and development.

Climate change induced by global warming will devastate the world economy unless governments take measures now to reduce emissions of heat-trapping greenhouse gases. Rising sea levels could flood major coastal cities, displacing urban populations, exacerbating poverty and social disorder, and damaging the tourism industry. Extreme weather events, which are expected to become more frequent as global temperatures rise, could result in catastrophic property damage that would destroy the insurance industry. Since insurance companies are major investors in the world's...