> -----Original Message----- > From: [EMAIL PROTECTED] [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On > Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] > Sent: Monday, September 04, 2006 12:59 PM > To: brin-l@mccmedia.com > Subject: Re: Jobs, not trees! (Collapse, Chapter 2) > > > In a message dated 9/3/2006 5:47:11 P.M. Eastern Standard Time, > [EMAIL PROTECTED] writes: > > This type of change, while certainly having negative consequences, is not > a > catastrophe. I'd argue that the potential for disaster from an asteroid > hit > is far higher than from global warming. > > > > Global warming will alter weather conditions around the world. It would > probably l upset food production and cause other sorts of economic havoc. > The political consequences of this cannot be determined but it is likely > that they will be bad for those currently at the top (us).
OK, but this point was brought up in response to the weighing of the great potential for disaster of global warming vs. known problems with malaria, bad water, AIDs, etc. In other words, if one is to argue that potential for disaster is the yardstick...then asteroid hits should be one's primary worry, while if one argues for known consequences...then the present world problems should be considered before global warming. >An asteroid hit will be far > more devastating but there is no indication that one is imminent. Fix the > thing you know is happening before you fix the thing you don't know about But, wouldn't that argue for first hitting problems that are now known to cause far greater human suffering than global warming is projected to cause in the next decade? Particularly, since it would be far cheaper to address these with the tools we now have and expect to have in the next 20 years than global warming would be. Finally, fighting global warming with the tools we now have available would be far more expensive than an extremely vigorous campaign to eradicate malaria, provide clean drinking water, drastically cut AIDs worldwide, and provide an effective defense against rouge asteroids. The former would probably cost a trillion or so, and the latter should be doable for a couple of hundred of billion. Stopping global warming in, say, 25 years would cost tens of billions. Dan M. Dan M. _______________________________________________ http://www.mccmedia.com/mailman/listinfo/brin-l
