> But the costs of prevention are 100% real and enormous.
We don't know everything about climate. But we also don't know the return on investment for R&D in generation and consumption of power.
Are you so sure that buying hybrid cars instead of F100's, insulating some buildings, and converting some power station
to combined cycle would be an enormous cost?
> AGW is not currently acute[2]. I choose to believe that in a hypothetical (and vanishingly unlikely) case where it becomes acute, humans would weather it.
Perhaps. Perhaps I would weather it, and so would you. Some future two year old in Bangladesh maybe not. On the other hand lots of them don't weather their first 5 years of life anyway, so we don't value those humans much. Why start now?
> Your opinion on AGW policy comes down to something entire aside from the science, namely, your moral view of, and problem-solving assumptions about, humankind as a whole.
Totally true, although we generally argue as though we care about human lives.
>Perhaps I would weather it, and so would you. Some future two year old in Bangladesh maybe not. On the other hand lots of them don't weather their first 5 years of life anyway, so we don't value those humans much. Why start now?
The question becomes are those future two year olds in Bangladesh better served by a future in which the planet diverts massive resources into green tech or in to other social and technological advances? Resources to make these advances are, in fact, limited, and choices must be made.
The correct choices are not at all clear, and not at all simple.
We don't know everything about climate. But we also don't know the return on investment for R&D in generation and consumption of power.
Are you so sure that buying hybrid cars instead of F100's, insulating some buildings, and converting some power station to combined cycle would be an enormous cost?
> AGW is not currently acute[2]. I choose to believe that in a hypothetical (and vanishingly unlikely) case where it becomes acute, humans would weather it.
Perhaps. Perhaps I would weather it, and so would you. Some future two year old in Bangladesh maybe not. On the other hand lots of them don't weather their first 5 years of life anyway, so we don't value those humans much. Why start now?
> Your opinion on AGW policy comes down to something entire aside from the science, namely, your moral view of, and problem-solving assumptions about, humankind as a whole.
Totally true, although we generally argue as though we care about human lives.