The parable cuts both ways, which in my view makes it generally worthless as a rhetorical instrument. Excessive CO2 emissions might be costly in the same invisi

The parable cuts both ways, which in my view makes it generally worthless as a rhetorical instrument. Excessive CO2 emissions might be costly in the same invisible ways that repairing the broken window is. In the parable itself, the complaint is that the money going to the glazier might have gone somewhere more productive. Perhaps, but it might also go somewhere less productive. Arguing the economics is a fool's errand. No one knows the optimal economic path forward. But we do know that our current climate supports an overall healthy, growing human population as it is. We also see many barren planets in the solar system and beyond that lie outside the narrow band of habitability the Earth resides comfortably in. On this basis alone, we should take climate change very seriously.