What percentage of global GDP would it take to clean up the pollution from mankinds economic activities?
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ANSWERS: 1
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Guess: 25% if it were all cleaned up this year. 0.4% if it is all cleaned up over a 63 year period. This is based on the USA EPA's "Superfund" to clean up the USA's worst toxic sites. They estimate the cost of cleaning these sites to be $75 billion per year each year until 2070. that's $4 trillion and change, or about 25% of the USA annual GDP. (It can't all be be cleaned up in one year, so spreading across 63 years of GDP works out to just 0.4% of 63 years GDP). http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdoc.cfm?index=4845&type=0&sequence=0 I'm guessing this figure is consistent for the world, based on the assumption that mankind's propensity to pollute is uniform: the more you have to spend the more you pollute. (I doubt it's linear, more likely rich countries pollute more, so probably the % of GDP is lower -- on the other hand Russia has a big mess, and their economy collapsed so it would be higher there -- and China imports toxic waste, so it would be higher there too).
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