Climate Change must be tackled NOW

Just to add what Scrat just said....and even if the worst scenario is to come true, the energy technology to reduce CO2 emmisions should be available well before the doomsday scenario occurs.

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Brian - Yes. One thing that many well-intentioned environmentalists fail to either realize or accept is that it is the early stages of technological development that cause the most harm to the environment. The best thing we could do right now for the planet is not to hamper the most developed nations but to help speed developing nations through those early "dirty" stages and bring them into cleaner technologies as quickly as possible.

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Scrat wrote:

Thomas - This is the second time I've encountered you arguing that the science of an issue is settled when it quite clearly is not.

No it's not. The first time, I correctly argued that it is settled that no good evidence suggests that abortions cause breast cancer. Beyond that, I was overconfident about it and wrongly argued that there isn't even a correlation. This time I said that there is no unanimous, 100% consensus on global warming, but the agreement that it's a real phenomenon is pretty broad. Please note that "broad consensus as scientific discussions go" is not the same as "settled science".

Scrat wrote:

I choose to look at the data from both camps, and come to the conclusion that the question is far from settled and that plans to take action are premature and based on politics, not hard science.

The problem with this approach is that there is always more literature on both sides of the issue than you as a layman can read. My usual solution is to have the research papers aggregated by people who have, through peer-review, a strong incentive to get it right. In the case of the link between breast cancer and abortions, this was the NIH site I linked to. (I should have done this in first place, but didn't because I was overconfident). In the case of global warming, I've read freshman college text books on meteorology, and followed the subject in Science. Based on this, I can state with confidence that there's indeed a broad consensus that global is real.

Scrat wrote:

You look at the opposing information and have chosen which one you think is correct. I look at the same information and recognize that I don't know enough to choose.

Maybe I just know more about the underlying chemistry and physics than you do? In this case, both our reactions would be appropriate.

-- Thomas

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owi wrote:

We stop/constrict CO2 emission as we think it has quite much effect on global warming. In 100 years it will turn out that we were not right and that CO2 emission had no/hardly impact on global warming.

... and that we've wasted trillions of dollars which we could have invested into cleaner drinking water, better sanitation, and improved public health systems in the third world instead. You see, the price of curbing global warming is measured in human lives too. Millions of them, actually.

owi wrote:

We don't do anything against CO2 emission as we think it has nearly no effect on global warming. In 100 years it will turn out that we were not right. The world has become a much hotter place and we could have done something against it.

Sure. On the other hand, maybe a meteorite will hit planet earth next year and we'll all be dead. In this case, we'll be better off slashing and burning everything there is to slash, to have a good time while we can. Seriously, I admit this alternative is silly. The point of me bringing it up is that we can't forecast the future perfectly, and that we have to run with what we are reasonably sure about. We are reasonably sure that no meteorite will hit our planet next year -- and we are reasonably sure that global warming under business as usual will be non-catastrophic.

owi wrote:

I think we should not risk scenario b) as the earth - at least in my opinion - is worth not to take the risk of destroying it. Therefore in this case hysteria (following worst case scenarios) makes more sense to me than belittlement(following least case scenarios).

But I wasn't suggesting belittlement. I was suggesting to act on what climatologists consider to be the most probable scenario. And if we want to get fancy about it, I'd suggest that our objective should be to minimize expected total damage. For each amount of global warming, look what damage it would cause and how probable it is. Then average, and adjust policy to minimize this average. Bill Nordhaus of Yale, the leading economist in this particular field, has performed this kind of calculation and finds the optimum is much closer to the optimists' side than the pessimists'. The only hedge he is making is that we cannot account for very high damage, very low probability scenarios, so we have nothing to say about them either way.

-- Thomas

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I think we need to balance what nature does on its own vs. what amount of damage man does to our environment. When we consider the potential for great harm to our environment that man have created for ourselves such as the production of chemical, biological, and nuclear weapons, talking about reducing CO2 emissions to x level is pretty much counter-productive. We must first determine what our priorities for a better world for all living things. The next is the reduction of WMDs. Next comes prevention of disease and hunger. Maybe, next comes the reduction of CO2s - not before, maybe later. c.i.

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cicerone imposter wrote:

We must first determine what our priorities for a better world for all living things.

All living things? Trouble is, if you make the world a better place for humans, you must also make it a worse place for malaria bacteriae. But if you replaced "all living things" with "all humans", and íf we can agree that humans care about a large part of the biosphere, I would agree.

-- Thomas

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Thomas, "All living things" is rhetorical. You should've known what was meant. "Malaria?" Bah, humbug. c.i.

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Thomas - If I overstated your certitude it is not without reason. Your position in this as in the other discussion seems to be that if I disagree it must mean I know less than you about the topic. I don't find much room for a useful discussion of our opinions in that.

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CI - While we might set different priorities, you and I, I agree wholeheartedly that CO2 is not one of the big issues with which we need to be wrangling right now. We have far bigger fish to fry. (Actually, we need to stop frying so many fish, although that too may not be at the head of the list of problems we need to tackle on this planet.)

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Thomas, you may be correct that global warming will not be catastrophic. Brian, you may be correct that we develop the necessary technologies to eliminate CO2 from our atmosphere.

But I think both of you should also acknowledge that we are seeing the effects of global warming as we speak, and that these effects are not positive. Extrapolate these effects over three to five decades, and by the time present young children will be mature adults, you will have a deregulated climate -- too complexely changed to call it catastrophic, and too complexely changed to save it with some fancy techological wizardry.

Are you willing to take the chance ? Do you fully understand how dependent we are in our daily survival on climatological stability?

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wolf wrote:

Are you willing to take the chance ? Do you fully understand how dependent we are in our daily survival on climatological stability?

Earth's climate is not and never has been particularly stable on a millenial time scale. Tree ring data and the geological record establish the existence of climactic cycles of a wide range of varying periods, spanning millions of years and including repeated ice ages. Our understanding of the causes of all this more or less constant change is very limited. It is not possible to uniquely identify the cause of the small and itself very uncertain variation that may have occurred in the last century or so.

However, we have every reason to believe the dynamic of the carbon cycle is quasi stable and self-regulating over a fairly broad range, at least on a less-than-geological time scale.

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Scrat wrote:

Thomas - If I overstated your certitude it is not without reason.

I translate this as "I won't directly admit I made a mistake, hence the 'if', but I'll blame it on you anyway." Would you disagree with this translation?

Scrat wrote:

Your position in this as in the other discussion seems to be that if I disagree it must mean I know less than you about the topic.

At the same time, your positions seemed to be: "I don't know whether abortions cause breast cancer, so Texas is right in forcing doctors to tell their patients that they might." And: "I don't know if there's global warming or not, so I approve inaction when it comes to curbing greenhouse gass emissions". I'm not saying people who disagree with me must be worse informed than me. But given that you draw your conclusions from not knowing facts of the matter, and given that you don't appear to make much of an effort to find them out, it stands to reason that you just might not be very well informed about them. Sorry if that sounds arrogant, but it seems like a straightforward conclusion.

Scrat wrote:

I don't find much room for a useful discussion of our opinions in that

Let me get something straight here: You're the one who chose to discuss my post, mischaracterizing my position as saying global warming is a scientifically settled matter. And now that I've set your mischaracterization straight, I'm the bad guy who doesn't leave enough room for a useful discussion. Is that what you're saying?

-- Thomas

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wolf wrote:

But I think both of you should also acknowledge that we are seeing the effects of global warming as we speak, and that these effects are not positive.

I disagree. Among the alleged hazards of global warming is that tropical illnesses will spread. Many fewer people die of tropical illnesses today than did 100 years ago. Another alleged hazard is that agricultural productivity will collaps. It has soared during the last 100 years. You can go down the whole list of alleged hazards, and in practically all cases you'll find that conditions have improved, not worsened, during the last 100 years. True, global warming hasn't caused any of this, but neither has it prevented it. If more of the same is what the future holds for us in the business as usual scenario, I'm all for business as usual.

wolf wrote:

Extrapolate these effects over three to five decades, and by the time present young children will be mature adults, you will have a deregulated climate -- too complexely changed to call it catastrophic, and too complexely changed to save it with some fancy techological wizardry.

I wasn't aware that the climate is being regulated now. Please tell me who the regulation agency is today, and how business as usual amounts to a deregulation.

wolf wrote:

Are you willing to take the chance ? Do you fully understand how dependent we are in our daily survival on climatological stability?

We are dependent on weather stability for our daily survival, not climate stability. Assuming -- although it is very unlikely -- that world wide frost kills all the planet's harvests of a year at once, we'll all die. But assuming that Chicago's climate in 2100 will be like St.Louis's climate today, nothing keeps Chicago area farmers in 2100 from sawing the same seeds St.Louis area farmers saw today. In answer to your question, yes I think I do understand how dependent we are in our daily survival on climatological stability, and I believe the answer is "not at all".

-- Thomas

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Thomas, climate and weather are quasi synonymous expressions to name the broad atmospheric situation we are in. Climate: 'prevailing weather conditions of an area' (Oxford dictionary of current English). If you want to play these silly anal linguistic games, I'm in; although my mother tongue is not even English. We'll be in for a huge keyboard erosion.

Furthermore, you act as if you're the God of Reason, but scientifically, I find you to be unjustifiably conservative. As if the spreading of tropical diseases were the only danger that stems from climate change.

Just two quick opposing results -- droughts and rises in sea-level :

- Australia's worst drought

- Devastating floods in Great-Britain

Scientists predict such problems will increase if emissions of heat-trapping gases are not brought under control. A broad scientific study by the European Commission predicts that the Earth's climate will suffer irrepairable damage if the present growing rate of 2,6% CO2 exhaust is not stopped. You can fiddle your way up to St. Louis, and from thereon you'll be chased by droughts until you take a stand.

So please do not make the mistake to overrationalize the blood out of everything. You'll always end up sitting on the fence.

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Thomas wrote:

Scrat wrote:
Thomas - If I overstated your certitude it is not without reason.

I translate this as "I won't directly admit I made a mistake, hence the 'if', but I'll blame it on you anyway." Would you disagree with this translation?

No. I would translate it to read that I may have overstated your certitude, but that I believe I had reason to do so based on my previous experience with of you.

As to the rest of your response, you are misrepresenting my point of view. (Is this tit-for-tat?) I'm unsure whether you have done so intentionally, to get a rise out of me, but regardless, if I haven't spelled out my point of view on this topic sufficiently yet, I will with time, but I will not get dragged into defending myself against statements I did not make.

As to "misrepresenting" your position, my intent was not to portray it innaccurately, but I clearly did. Mea culpa.

What you wrote is this:

Quote:

I can state with confidence that there's indeed a broad consensus that global is real.

I don't question whether there is a broad consensus on this issue, I question the value of that consensus.

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wolf wrote:

Scientists predict such problems will increase if emissions of heat-trapping gases are not brought under control. A broad scientific study by the European Commission predicts that the Earth's climate will suffer irrepairable damage if the present growing rate of 2,6% CO2 exhaust is not stopped.

I'd be interested in reading that study. So if it's available online, could you please post a link for me?

-- Thomas

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Thomas - These analysis depend much on the definition of "damage". Glolbal warming can cause some damage that is not so easy to measure with trillion dollar sums. The destruction of whole ecosystems might have no big financial impact but these ecosystems might never be recoverable.

Btw. not every measure to constrict greenhouse gases has to cost money. For example where's the economic benefit when so many people in industrialized country drive to work by car sitting alone in them. If most people used public transportation for everyday traffic there would not be so many traffic jams. Therefore people would have more free time or time to work instead of sitting unproductive in exhaust fumes.

Quote:

"When the direct and secondary costs of these traffic jams (accidents, pollution, etc.) are taken into account, the total is staggering: 250 billion euros, which is equivalent to 4% of the total output of the European Union's economy.

http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/leaflets/security/en/02.html

and check out some more articles concerning the costs of traffic jams:
http://www.bizjournals.com/atlanta/stories/2003/05/26/daily19.html
http://www.tfhrc.gov/pubrds/fall96/p96au4.htm
http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/transportation/december96/traffic_12-10.html

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Scrat wrote:

I don't question whether there is a broad consensus on this issue, I question the value of that consensus.

Fair enough. After all, the consensus of the scientific community has been wrong before. But what better alternative would you suggest for us to act on instead? Surely we have to act on some scientific basis, and the mainstream among the scientific specialists seems like the least bad default solution. At least that's how I see it.

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Thomas wrote:

Scrat wrote:
I don't question whether there is a broad consensus on this issue, I question the value of that consensus.

Fair enough. After all, the consensus of the scientific community has been wrong before. But what better alternative would you suggest for us to act on instead? Surely we have to act on some scientific basis, and the mainstream among the scientific specialists seems like the least bad default solution. At least that's how I see it.

I guess that's where we differ. I do not see any need to act on the issue of global warming. None at all.

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owi wrote:

Thomas - These analysis depend much on the definition of "damage". Glolbal warming can cause some damage that is not so easy to measure with trillion dollar sums.

That's quite possible, but "destroying the Earth" -- which is what you were talking about -- would surely count as a multiple trillion dollar damage.

owi wrote:

The destruction of whole ecosystems might have no big financial impact but these ecosystems might never be recoverable.

On the other hand, global warming might just as well create entirely new ecosystems that would never have emerged without it. How does that figure into your calculation?

owi wrote:

Btw. not every measure to constrict greenhouse gases has to cost money. For example where's the economic benefit when so many people in industrialized country drive to work by car sitting alone in them.

I don't know where the benefit is, but it must be somewhere, or else drivers wouldn't choose to put up with traffic jams and pass on the public transportation.

-- Thomas

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Climate Change must be tackled NOW

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