I came across this and was nearly going to post it in IFIOTW but hey, here it is.

http://break.com/index/tough-to-argue.html

Very interesting and convincing, however it is foolish to say that False/yes will not inevitibly end up with the same outcome as True/no, minus storms and climate death, which is more or les moot because humanity is nearly dead anyway.

Yes sounds like a logical choice, but it is a choice made on "the safe side" and not on the more prosperous outcome. This is like picking better odds and lowered benefits versus worse odds and better benefits. On such a gamble, I would have to pick A, even though the odds are not that much better.

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I think the video is well done and well articulated. However, I don't particularly like that argument because it is based on ignoring the insurmountable evidence in support of the global warming theory. Although he did state that we could put probabilities into the rows (based off the opinions of leading scientists we get a 10% for the top 'false' row and a 90% for the bottom 'true' row)...

One thing not included, is the possibility that even though the climate change theory is correct we still cannot do much to stop it. In which case the money spent to reduce CO2 emissions would be better spent elsewhere (I've seen an economist make this argument).

The point he was trying to make was whether or not global warming is actually occuring, but rather whether or not humans are actually causing it, and using that as the contingency.

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He's ignoring the worst possibility of all - climate change is real, government does something about it, but government fails to counteract it - so we've got the enormous economic problems coming from investing huge amounts of our resources into doing something that ended up doing nothing through the familiar avenues of corruption, bureaucratic sloth, and political compromise, AND our climate goes to shit. I think this is the most likely result.

If you seriously think government is capable of doing something serious about climate change, look at the Kyoto Treaty. It's based on economic assumptions that are not necessarily true - that certain countries need fossil fuel energy to develop, that other countries can stay developed without using fossil fuels, population estimates that could be wildly variant from what actually happens, etc.

Worst, even if the Kyoto Treaty were signed onto and fully followed by all the world's nations (unlikely, since secretive countries like China would probably try to cheat on it), it won't prevent all climate change. Assuming the greenhouse theory is right (which I believe it to be), we've already changed the atmosphere significantly - a great deal of warming is already committed to.

Positive feedback from this unstoppable warming is likely to happen, too - Siberia's rapidly melting permafrost, for example, holds a huge about of carbon that is already going into the atmosphere, exacerbating what we've already done. Greenland's ice sheet is melting, potentially unstoppably, raising sea levels and decreasing the amount of reflective ice preventing energy absorption by the earth.

This is stuff we can't do shit about. Climate change is going to happen no matter what. The best solution for humanity is to get government out of the way and let the market do what it does best and what government does worst - adapt, because things are going to be changing soon.

I don't claim to be an expert on this stuff, so don't take what I say as absolute truth, but I do have some idea what I'm talking about - I'm 1/4 through a BS in environmental engineering.

If I followed that correctly, then yes. That's what my 90% figure refers to.

Yet it's still a possibility that global warming is mainly human caused (as the scientific community has agreed) and that there is not much we can do about it (i.e. it's too late or the solutions are just unfeasible). If this is the reality we face (a third row on the dude's chart), then the money spent futilely to stem global warming could have gone to better uses (like fighting AIDS in Africa). I guess the conclusion is the same though, that you should try to avoid the climate catastrophe...because the Africans (or whatever worthy cause) gets fucked either way.

Kyoto is just the first attempt... But still it's not like government policy that at worst will slow down climate change a little bit, would stop the market from adapting to that climate change. It would probably make it easier for the market to adapt because it would have more time.

Its not unstoppable at all. Solar/sulphur shields are real technologies that we have a chance at actually being able to impliment and are guaranteed (assuming they are used correctly) of stopping global warming because they are removing its source.

Now if only we could get some money for that....

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There is actually a process used in something called the Weyburn project, where CO2 and water is used to deliver 5000 tons of pressure to an undergound pipe to pump oil out of the ground. The US Department of Energy is one of the very few who sponsor this project. From 2000 to 2005, the project "buried" the amount of CO2 created from burning half a billion of gallons of gasoline. The feasibility of making this a world wide thing was scored 10 of 10 and a risk of 4 out of 10.

Based on the Grand Canyon being one of the largest CO2 repositories on earth, researchers at Arizona State University are trying to find a way to speed up teh process of CO2 to stone by a reaction that would turn CO2 to MgCO3. Feasibility score of 7 out of 10 and a risk of 3 out of 10.

Resources are limited. If resources are being used by an ineffective (is there any other kind?) government program, they can't be used by people who actually have an incentive to accomplish things.

Firstly, link please?

Secondly, the processes that I mentioned above may no longer depend on input of higher temperature. For example, since the sea ice holding the Greenland ice sheet back from the sea has mostly melted, there's nothing that can be done about more ice flowing into the sea.

Into what sort of geologic structure? How much leaks back out, and how fast? If this geologic structure is perfect, how common is it?

It's only been conducted in one place. Outside of a place called Weyburn, near Saskatchewan. Its not a geological structure at all, its a metal pipe way below the earth's surface. This procedure would be a sort of stepping stone to weaning the world off of oil.

It will not stop oil use, but it will balance out the damage done by burning gasoline where ever the oil for the gasoline is pumped. Lets face it, we arent going to stop the world from using oil immediately. But we can wean it off of oil when the substitute is created. Until and during the weaning, we could just try to balance out the composition of the atmosphere. Instead of what we are doing now, which is pumping more and more CO2 in the air with no regulation and control.

Oops, I misunderstood the first time. Thanks for explaining it again.

Let's be honest, regulation and control has rarely accomplished its goal without letting a whole bunch of people through. OSHA did some good for occupational hazards, but then Tom DeLay found a way to let UPS slide while wasting the same amount of our money on bureaucracy. This is an instance where we can't afford to let anyone through if we're going to spend the money, and that simply flies in the face of the reality of government.

Thats pretty interesting, have any links?

Sulphur shield: http://environment.newscientist.com/...l-warming.html

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may i chip in again and just pont out the video was meant to address the science behind global warming, but instead chose to assume that whatever your opinion on the issue was fact. that way it was a fair and unbiased argument.
he does mention aswell that you can add columns and rows inbetween. It would be interesting to see a more complex elaboration of his argument.

It makes the argument uninformed.

That's what I was trying to do by adding the third dimension of "government fails/succeeds".

Anyways, about solar shields: So it'll be like Iraq, but with the climate. Sweet.

I thought that statement was rather stupid to put in the report as well.

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I don't know if the articles are on the web, but its the cover story for "Popular Science" August 2005. Its written by Michael Behar. The article is titled "A radical approach to climate change: Re-engineering the Earth so that fossil fuels do less damage." Admittedly, not a solution, but atleast something to curve our exponentially increasing emmissions until a solution is found.

So... Not a solution then?

Oh good, i'm glad that society's brain-bugs are working so hard on making it last longer.

Do you really expect a solution to be found and the world adopting it within days? It'll take decades at the very least to move the world from what we are doing now to a complete energy makeover. Do you really think industries and productions will suddenly stop simultaneously so the world can move forward into the next generation of energy consumption?

Not only will it cost God knows how much money to transition and convert the world, it will cost multiple times more to place the world at a full stop. I'm not really sure how transitional steps such as these can be met with sarcasm. If you want a real solution, tell everyone to stop having children. I gaurantee a diminishing population will quickly solve this problem.

all he did was caterize the type 1 and type 2 errors.......best solution is to spend a middleamount

Once again, everybody ignores the the possibility that the government fails at doing whatever it tries to do.

Pascal's Wager of global warming?

--Cr@sh

government=FAIL => "green" businesses=PROFIT!!!
If Bush doesn't do anything about climate change, China doesn't,... someone will, and make money off of it.

It's a horrible argument.

"Do something because the costs of doing so are lower than the costs of the worst case scenario if you don't do anything"

He doesn't take into account the chances of something happening, which is very important.

The same moronic argument could be used in favour of buying lottery tickets.

Since the prize you get for buying a lottery ticket and winning is much greater than the cost of the lottery ticket you should always buy one?!?!

The correct chart is:

Let's see...according to scientists, P(Global Warming)=0.999
According to Bush and Republicans P=0.001 and rising

What are you going to do?

Retard.

He specifically stated you could add percentages, and like I said earlier, the consensus among scientists is that there is at least a 90% certainty that humans are causing global warming. So the chances of something happening are 90% vs 10%. Which means you have to weight the cost of the potential global warming problems 10 times greater than the cost of the solutions.

90% of scientists believing something will happen does not mean there is a 90% chance of it happening.

What was stated was that scientists are at least 90% certain. So yes, there are saying exactly that there is at leasts a 90% chance that humans are the main cause of this global warming trend.

Wow... you have a very simple mind. Im amazed that one can have such a simple mind in this day and age.