Reading this short post from NPR’s Planet Money blog, Recession Gives Planet (Brief) Break On Climate Change, makes me wonder if a hundred years from now, economic and climate historians might argue about whether the financial crisis of the late 2000s saved the planet by delaying the emission of enough GHGs to make possible the transition to new technologies, new standards, etc. It would make a fun (social) science fiction story, if nothing else. Of course, this assumes we manage to take our brief reprieve from the ceaseless in increase in CO2 emissions and do something useful with it. I wonder how that’s going.