Greg Craven argues that we should “choose columns” rather than “guess rows” when thinking through global climate change:
This lecture seems to amount to a “Pascal’s Wager” of GCC.
Thinking through global warming
- Post author:Erich Vieth
- Post published:November 2, 2009
- Post category:global warming / Politics / Psychology Cognition
- Post comments:4 Comments
Erich Vieth
Erich Vieth is an attorney focusing on civil rights (including First Amendment), consumer law litigation and appellate practice. At this website often writes about censorship, corporate news media corruption and cognitive science. He is also a working musician, artist and a writer, having founded Dangerous Intersection in 2006. Erich lives in St. Louis, Missouri with his two daughters.
There is a very basic flaw to this argument.
It assumes that CO2 produced by human activity is causing global warming, or alternately, there is not global climate change.
The fact is that the global average temperature is warming.There are several hypotheses about the cause.A few are:
Increased levels of CO2 from the extensive use of fossil fuels.
Increased levels of water vapor from irrigation of arid land.
Decrease in ground reflectivity due to increased cultivation of the land.
Increase in atmospheric CO2 for erosion of limestone.
Increase in solar activity due to tidal strains caused by recent planetary alignment.
increase in geothermal activity resulting from tidal strains from recent planetary alignment.
reduction of effectiveness of planetary magnetic field to deflect the solar wind as is reverses polarity.
I normally love when complex ideas can be simplified. However, I'm uncomfortable with this video.
The reason is that he is still talks about “counteracting” Global Climate Change, which I believe the majority of people will take to only possibly mean reducing carbon emissions in an effort to reverse GCC effects.
In trying to condense probable outcomes into four neat and tidy quadrants, he misses what I believe is the most likely truth. GCC is happening, it is both too late and not realistically possible to do enough to stop or reverse it, and the massive amount of money and effort we would spend to reverse it would be better spent elsewhere.
Assume as true that global climate change is true and was caused (or at least accelerated) by humans. Why are our two options only to do whatever it takes to try to reverse it, resulting in a nice happy face, or to do nothing, resulting in what he paints as almost Armageddon?
What if it is too late to meaningfully reverse GCC? Or, what if the reality of current global culture and politics is that we'll never get a critical mass of the world to come together in time even if there was a possibility? Then, the right thing to do would be to learn how to adapt to what will be a changed world, and even perhaps to search for even more active ways in the short-term to affect the climate through man-made means, wouldn’t it?
I’m simply not ready to partner with anyone on convincing the world that something needs to be done about GCC until I know what my potential partners want us to do afterward. If we somehow could get the world to all agree tomorrow that GCC is real, caused by humans, and needs a response, I’m intrigued by that as a first step. However, if the subsequent argument is that we need to focus on reducing carbon emissions through regulation or something like a carbon tax, then I think I might suddenly be an opponent rather than a partner.
Will I forward this video on to others, as he asks me to do? Well not yet – I have a few more questions about the tribe he’s attempting to lead.
(full disclosure – yes I’ve seen and am obviously intrigued by the Copenhagen Consensus on Climate (http://fixtheclimate.com/), and wonder how the host of this video feels about their findings.)
Mark: Excellent points. I think that Craven's point is that we should consciously choose our default position in this issue, where we are operating in a state of ignorance, especially when the stakes are potentially so high. Hence, my comment regarding Pascal's Wager.
But now you've gone a thrown a monkey wrench into the process by pointing out that there are more than two logical positions. I often criticize Pascal's Wager because it fails to take into account that there are many versions of "God," and that if you choose the wrong one, you get roasted.
Similarly, regarding climate change, the wretched position you have outlined (human-caused climate change is occurring and its effects will be horrible, yet we don't have the resources or will to do anything meaningful about it) means that the "rational" response might not involve a two-way either/or choice.
Niklaus: I'm not entirely convinced of the cause of the undeniable rising temperatures, but I feel that I can't any longer operate as an agnostic. Based on the data I've seen, human-causation is my current default position. I'm not "certain," but there are enough signs out there that I'm no longer agnostic about climate change just as I'm not agnostic about the existence and divinity of Zeus. Again, I realize that my certitude doesn't make my position necessarily correct. But don't we all need to operate from a position, regardless that it is a tentative position? Isn't that true of all science that even sure-fire positions are technically speaking tentative, pending potential paradigm shifts? Are we ever justified taking a purely agnostic position on important issues where the evidence shows a striking correlation which admittedly only suggests causation, but also suggests that grave damages will result if we choose option A over option B? Those correlations are terrifying to me. See, e.g., http://www.whrc.org/resources/online_publications…
There is no doubt that global climate change is real. However the idea of instituting carbon credits as a commodity to trade between nations is ridiculous at best, and fraudulent at worst. Assuming the nations in the agreement actually abide by the Kyoto protocols, it becomes a bidding process by the wealthy nations for the excess carbon credits of the poorer nations, with individual commodities brokers claiming huge fees from each deal. There is little if any incentive to the industrialist to practice conservation.
However, any climate change caused by human activity can be reduced by reduction of the world population. Due to the social and politician hierarchies that we base our societies on, that just ain't gonna happen.
Then there is the possibility that human activity has been an insignificant contributor to global climate change. But we have been scared into accepting a single, unproven hypothesis while discounting all other hypotheses so that the same people who brought us financial meltdown can set us up for another scam.
I say that we should follow up on all hypotheses instead of politically favoring one that promotes the onne that favors a "solution" primarily designed to transfer wealth to a few individuals.