Ryan Avent considers the view that wealth will help us adapt to climate change:
If future wealth is the most important thing, then it makes little sense to borrow heavily from the future for current consumption. Insuring against catastrophe means trying to boost future wealth, and that means that if you're going to borrow, it's important to channel that borrowing into investment. The good thing current consumers get as compensation is the ability to burn away cheap fossil fuels. If disaster prevention is the key, by contrast, then consumers can borrow now for the purpose of consumption, but they must compensate the future by facing strict limits on carbon emissions.
Instead, America is consuming more than it can afford now, leaving the future less rich, while also pouring carbon into the atmosphere. That strategy only makes sense if destruction is already a foregone conclusion—if there will be no future to pay off the debt.
The Dish 