Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

This is a piece of bureaucratically-produced political rhetoric....

BERNARD BULKIN, UK SUSTAINABLE DEVELOPMENT COMMISSION

I think there are a lot of people in the US that will pick this up.

We think of the US as being represented by the federal government who has been against action, but look at what has been going on in many of the states, such as California and New York.

We will also see people in places like China that will pick this up as well and use it to promote cleaner development in the nation

Climate scientists, economists and policy researchers are all in agreement: limiting long-term global warming is achievable at a "negligible" cost. Now, the responsibility for action lies in the hands of politicians, they say.

The cost estimates for stabilising greenhouse gases in the atmosphere were released on Friday in the latest chapter of the 2007 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report: it will cost between 0.2% and 3.0% of global GDP by 2030 (see Price placed on limiting global warming).

"Is capping greenhouse gas concentrations achievable? Absolutely yes," says Saleem Huq, director of the climate change programme at the UK-based International Institute for Environment and Development. "But there are two aspects to 'achievable' - the technological and the political. The political is a tougher question."

For the medical metaphor, it's really more like your doctor telling you "it would be better for your health to quit working now." There's a high amount of uncertainty on whether you'll suffer any medical harm, there's every chance you'll suffer it ANYWAY even if you do quit, and when you ask him "then how am I supposed to earn a living?" he just shrugs and says "your problem, not mine."

avatar wrote :

Quote:

For the medical metaphor, it's really more like your doctor telling you "it would be better for your health to quit working now." There's a high amount of uncertainty on whether you'll suffer any medical harm, there's every chance you'll suffer it ANYWAY even if you do quit, and when you ask him "then how am I supposed to earn a living?" he just shrugs and says "your problem, not mine."

how about changing that metaphor slightly :
"...like your doctor telling you "it would be better for your health to quit SMOKING - or OVEREATING - now."
there are , after all , still plenty of people that believe that smoking or being overweight will do them absolutely no harm .
since they do not share the opinion of the doctor , they might as well go on living the way they do ; they might quite possibly find some scientific evedence somewhere supporting their lifestyle .

imo a doctor would not likely tell someone to quit working , but he might tell a person with a lung disease working in an environment likely to aggravate his condition to look for a job in a cleaner environment .
hbg

imo a doctor would not likely tell someone to quit working , but he might tell a person with a lung disease working in an environment likely to aggravate his condition to look for a job in a cleaner environment .
hbg

...but whose advice do you take when the doctors disagree?

Foxfyre wrote:

...but whose advice do you take when the doctors disagree?

and whose advice do you take when the doctors overwhelmingly do agree, but you dont like what they say? But there is a minority report you find much more acceptable? Dont forget this is not just for you but for your children and your friends and their children.

Not the End of the World as We Know It

By Olaf Stampf

How bad is climate change really? Are catastrophic floods and terrible droughts headed our way? Despite widespread fears of a greenhouse hell, the latest computer simulations are delivering far less dramatic predictions about tomorrow's climate.

Global warming... happy news (to paraphrase to topic's title), if we should believe der Spiegel

Steve 41oo wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:

...but whose advice do you take when the doctors disagree?

and whose advice do you take when the doctors overwhelmingly do agree, but you dont like what they say? But there is a minority report you find much more acceptable? Dont forget this is not just for you but for your children and your friends and their children.

When my sister was young she had severe asthma. Doctor after doctor told my mother than she would probably never survive to see adolescence and they could do nothing for her. Finally Mom ran across an old country doctor who said it might not help, but it couldn't hurt to try a geographic cure. Get out of the muggy climate of East Texas and try a higher drier climate. We had relatives in New Mexico at the time so Mom took us kids for a visit. Sis's asthma cleared right up and she could breathe normally for the first time in a long time. Mom called my Dad to advise him that she wasn't coming back to Texas so pack everything up and come on out. So that's how our family wound up in New Mexico. My sister has lived a lot of decades since the consensus of doctors condemned her to an early death.

When my niece was very young, she was suffering from terrible and debilitating symptoms. She wasn't gaining weight and was becoming more and more ill week after week. Doctor after doctor couldn't get a handle on it and finally concurred that it was probably a form of congestive heart failure and did not give her any hope to survive her childhood. That being unacceptable my niece was taken to one more specialist in Colorado. He immediately diagnosed her as having Celiac disease, took her off wheat, and she is in her forties now, married, mother of two, quite successful administrator of nursing homes, and doing just fine thank you very much.

If I have one doctor telling me to have surgery and another telling me I don't need it, doesn't it make sense to do the treatment and see if it works before going under the knife?

A wrong diagnosis is a wrong diagnosis no matter how many doctors agree with it. A bad theory or policy is just as bad no matter how many scientists concur with it.

In the case of climate change, you have a LOT of experts in the field not buying into the IPCC or Al Gore doom and gloom prophecies and the evidence they present to support their convictions is every bit as convincing as what the doom and gloom prophets are giving us. Since those pushing the doom and gloom are generally those who are profiting from such pushing and many of the skeptics generally are not profiting from being skeptical, I still give the skeptics strong benefit of the doubt at this time.

It isn't a matter of just blowing off doctors or scientists out of hand. It is a matter of looking at ALL the evidence out there and making a decision about which is the most credible and/or plausible.

Well I'm obviously pleased for you family's better health.

Well I'm obviously pleased for you family's better health. But the sceptical/orthodox views of GHG do not have equal weighting. Neither you (nor I) have enough expertise to make a considered judgement. Just as with the doctor, we have to have some trust in his professional skill, and if we go with the better sounding option you have to admit there is a greater element of luck involved. When it comes to policy decisions affecting billions of people the assumption of good luck should not be relied upon.

f I diet and the other guy pigs out, I still get fat!