By Laura Demanski
Introducing the University’s Institute for Climate and Sustainable Growth at an event this past fall, economist Michael Greenstone, LAB’87, laid out the institute’s challenge in stark terms: “The world does not have an example of a society becoming wealthy, and all the comforts that come along with that, without consuming lots and lots of energy.” Greenstone, the Milton Friedman Distinguished Service Professor in the Kenneth C. Griffin Department of Economics, the Harris School of Public Policy, and the College, has directed UChicago’s Energy Policy Institute (EPIC) since 2014 and now leads the new institute as its founding faculty director. Whether in rural India or right here in Chicago, “there are families that aspire to better lifestyles for themselves and their children,” he said—“and that runs through increased energy consumption.”
The problem? Fossil fuels, which largely remain the cheapest way to meet those energy needs, are damaging lives, livelihoods, and the planet.
With Greenstone delivering his remarks in front of a large window overlooking the Midway, the 77-degree day in late October could hardly escape his listeners’ notice, or his own comment. But, he reminded the crowd, data of all kinds show that climate change is “not just the more pleasant fall in Chicago.” India, for one, now experiences summer days over 40 to 45 degrees Celsius—104 to 113 degrees Fahrenheit—“and that impairs people’s lives in very consequential ways.” Crops fail, people can’t work, people die prematurely. The world over, extreme weather events are becoming more typical and more widespread.
Such downstream effects of the 1.3 degrees Celsius rise in Earth’s temperature since the Industrial Revolution, Greenstone said, are one of the twin challenges the new institute will take on, along with the world’s ever-persistent need for economic growth.