There is a problem with your insurance analogy that I think is important in this debate. You buy home owners insurance that covers potential fire damage. That's good and wise. If you go blythly along doing your own wiring without knowing much of anything about electricity and then your house catches on fire from it, maybe you're covered. Dudes come by, tear down the shell of your burnt house, start rebuilding it, you check into a motel glad that you got those 10 year batteries in the smoke alarms and that you weren't too drunk that particular night to wake up when the alarm went off. As for the burnt stuff, hey, its just stuff, right? Yeah, you probably shouldn't have wired a new addition to your house by yourself and you really know better, but man, permitting is a pain in the ass you know and those union electricians are so expensive and keep telling you shit like, "no, a 220 volt toaster is a bad idea above your new bath tub" even though you really want to be able to eat pop tarts while taking a bath.
Unfortunately, we really don't have "insurance" when it comes to climate change. There is a pretty good consensus amongst climate scientists that continuing on the road we have been is equivalent to doing our own wiring and sticking a 220 volt toaster next to a bath tub. It could be that we will be fine and that the tolerance for our industrial activities in the environment is far greater than we now think. But what kind of insurance policy do we have? Can we just move to another planet and hang by the pool while contractors come in and rebuild? I'm all for a lot more climate study, there is an incredible amount to learn. But the studying isn't an insurance policy, it doesn't help us if we melt the polar ice caps and substantially decrease the salinity of the worlds oceans. A conservative approach says "well, it looks like there is a strong possibility that pumping CO2 into the atomosphere makes it a less than happy place for humans. Perhaps it would be wise to wrachet that back while we find out more about what all we can do." That's an insurance policy. Strongly decreasing emissions now stands the best chance of giving us room for error. Its true that there is a lot we don't understand yet. And that's why we need the room for error. So lets err on the side of caution. Listen to the smart people, take prudent measures to make sure that we have time and room to figure out what we don't know. Judah On Fri, Dec 19, 2008 at 10:15 AM, Gruss Gott <[email protected]> wrote: >> Scott wrote: >> 1) We must reduce the levels of CO2 emissions to a level that the >> current mechanisms can process. >> 2) We must replenish the forests and plant life which we have destroyed, >> in order to set the balance right again, >> > > ehhhhh ... > > This is where I'm on Robert's side. > > I take a risk-based approach to GW. I don't think anything is proven > or that we understand enough to know that any particular action is the > right one. > > That being said, we need to buy insurance. We need to spend a couple > billion, hell let's say a Trillion, as a globe on research. > > In the mean time, we need to, as a globe make a best guess on cause, > and then take action but not extreme action to counter. > > It's insurance. > > You don't know if a fire will destroy your house. It *probably* never > will. But you still expend resources to protect yourself against it > amongst many other threats. > > We need to the same with GW. CO2 may be the problem. It may not. > But we need to expend resources to protect ourselves against those > threats. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;207172674;29440083;f Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/message.cfm/messageid:283039 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/cf-community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
