
Skeptical Scientists Urge World To 'Have the Courage to Do Nothing' At UN Conference - with evidence - gibsonf1
http://epw.senate.gov/public/index.cfm?FuseAction=Minority.Blogs&ContentRecord_id=c9554887-802a-23ad-4303-68f67ebd151c
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sethjohn
"We now have quite a lot of evidence that carbon emissions definitely don't
cause global warming."

"The UN conference is a complete waste of our time and your money and we
should no longer pay the slightest attention to the IPCC"

"carbon trading is more about fraud than it is about anything else"

This is the sort of nonsense that makes me ashamed to call myself a 'climate
skeptic'. Then of course, I watch Al Gore's film where he shows Florida
sinking under the ocean and that is ridiculous as well. Climate change is a
potential-problem about which there are great (truly gigantic!) uncertainties
and therefore no easy answers.

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brlewis
In Gore's film he talks about Antarctic ice melting much faster than
scientists projected. That's part of the gigantic uncertainty you're concerned
about. When there's gigantic uncertainty, a valid question is, "What is the
worst-case scenario here?" Gore presented the Florida scenario as something
that _could_ happen if all the ice melted.

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sethjohn
"What's the worst case scenario" may be a valid question, but it's not a very
helpful question...particularly not in a mass-market film where the caveat
'this is extremely unlikely' will be forgotten and the take-home message is
that Florida is about to disappear.

People should be informed about the issues in a manner that is as honest and
realistic as possible, particularly when the uncertainties are so great.

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jraines
It is a helpful question when thinking about what action to take. It's basic
game theory, and it's why nobody ever launched a nuclear first strike during
the Cold War.

Why is this being modded down? If you don't consider the worst case scenario
in strategic decision making, you're a fool. Especially when the worst case is
famine, plague, etc., not "my startup crashes and I move back in with the
parents".

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te_platt
It only makes sense to consider the worst case scenario in the context of the
probability that it will happen. On my drive home the worst case scenario is
that I will be killed in a car accident, yet I'm going to take that chance.
Also we have to consider the worst case scenario of the other course of
action. What if the actions taken to combat global warming cause worse famine,
plague, etc.?

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jraines
You are correct about this. Without getting into probabilities of the
different outcomes resulting from action or non-action on climate change, I'd
recommend the video someone posted lower down in this thread.

The weight given to an outcome in considering it in decision making would be
the probability x magnitude (+ or -). So on your drive home the risk of death
might not affect your decision to make the drive, if you had to drive across
Johannesburg or Kuala Lumpar, you might consider taking a cab.

So even while the probability that the Country A would survive a nuclear first
strike with the capability to retaliate was quite low -- the magnitude of the
outcome from its doing so was enough to dissuade Country B from taking that
chance.

To the other commenter below -- just google 'prisoner's dilemma' or 'Nash
equilibrium' for some sources to get you started on game theory.

Note: I'm not claiming to be an expert on game theory by any means. I'm
recounting the Mutually Assured Destruction example from an economics class's
subsection on game theory and would be happy if someone wanted to prove me
wrong or elaborate on the subject.

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joeguilmette
i dont think anyone can deny that are a great many 'gigantic' uncertainties
related to the science behind climate change.

some simple logic, however, is more than enough to convince me that doing
something is the vastly superior alternative to doing nothing.

if we choose to spend vast resources curbing emissions and such and we are
wrong, those resources go to waste. given the current deployment of resources
by our western civilization, such waste would need to go a long way to amount
to more than a drop in the bucket.

if we listen to the most passionate of skeptics and choose to do nothing and
we are wrong, by worst case estimates we're going to lose in a very big,
spectacular fashion. we wont be counting beans to see how much money was
squandered 'going green', we'll be trying to find a patch of green to grow
some food.

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sethjohn
Some of the most interesting writing on this subject was the Copenhagen
Consensus (www.copenhagenconsensus.com), and the critical responses to the
Copenhagen Consensus.

The CC was a group of economists who got together and tried to figure out
which world-problems were most economical to solve. I.e., if you had a fixed
amount of money where would you spend it to do the most good. The list was
something like: 1\. AIDS prevention in Africa. 2\. AIDS treatment in Africa.
3\. Generalized healthcare in the 3rd world. etc etc. Last. Climate change

There are a lot of problems with the approach they took (considering only at
the monetary value of lives not the "spiritual" value, assuming that
charitable giving is a finite resource), but their approach of trying to do a
reasonable cost-benefit analysis yields some very interesting results.

If I really thought the cost was equivalent to "counting beans" and the
benefit was avoiding a situation where we could no longer find arable land, I
would agree that we should act quickly and strongly to halt CO2 emissions. In
fact, I suspect that allowing the third-world access to cheap (fossil fuel)
energy will benefit them more than avoiding small changes in climate.

Of course, when it comes to American's perceived god-given right to drive
around in monsterous SUVs...I come down firmly on the side of the
environmentalists!

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Elfan
The Copenhagen Consensus looked only at a 5 year window. Since most of the
likely costs of climate change take place farther in the future it is
unsurprising that they found so little benefit for mitigation.

While economic analysis is very important in this case it is also very
difficult. You can get any result you want be fiddling with the discount rate.

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sethjohn
There was no '5 year window', but the discount rate was a subject of much
debate. Actually, to get climate change out of last place, they had to apply a
much smaller discount rate than for any other subject.

I would argue that the consequences in breakdown of African civil society due
to a continuing AIDS epidemic will have a similarly long-term consequences as
climate change...and thus a similar discount rate should apply to both.

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sethjohn
It's been interesting to notice over the course of this morning the modding
activity on this subject. Seems like comments on both sides of the issue are
being both up-modded and down-modded at a furious pace!

~~~
davidw
Yeah... I kind of wish topics like this would be left to reddit or elsewhere,
as the debates end up looking a little bit too much 'belief based' for my
liking. I guess I shouldn't participate if I think that...

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Tichy
An article with some random people with random credentials making claims
without giving any reasons. Completely useless for forming an opinion, so I
don't understand why this got modded up.

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Dauntless
I bet it feels good to be paid to support pollution.

