David Roberts wrote:
> > There is very little we can state as being true with 100% probability.
> > I think there's a spectrum of possibilities/opinions as to how bad
> > climate change can/will be, and I think that Alastair's take on this
> > goes well beyond the IPCC consensus or most climate scientists' own
> > opinions.
> >
>
> It seems to me it's always important to remember in these "how doomed
> are we" discussions that it makes no sense to consider the impacts of
> climate change in isolation. Everything else is not equal.
>
> While climate change is having its impacts, whatever they may be, we're
> also going to be experiencing the end of cheap oil and natural gas.
> We're also going to be experiencing massive species and habitat loss.
> And -- though this is more contentious, obviously -- we're also going
> to be experiencing the decay of the American Empire, which is likely to
> be accompanied by gnashing of teeth, irrational military campaigns, and
> the coarsening of public dialogue to a degree that makes concerted
> long-term action on climate change all but impossible.
>
> Of course, there are more hopeful trends as well, particularly at the
> level of local and regional change.
>
> The point is, "how bad will climate change be" is the wrong question.
> The question is, how will the effects of climate change interact with
> the other changes and trends underway? That's much more difficult to
> answer, obviously, but anyone who claims easy clarity on this question
> probably isn't worth listening to anyway.
David, we need more of your common sense (non-denialist) views of real
world and let me add the ancillary/simultaneous events and impacts such
as next 30 year US fiscal indebtedness for social security; medicare;
medicaid; debt service -- today estimated at $46 trillion that will so
greatly burden the choices to be made. Add increased interest rates
and that estimate of federal fiscal indebtedness blows up in your face.
Please provide the vivid details behind your honest appraisal of our
future. We need to scare ourselves silly if we are ever going to
really believe what we are sensing and saying.
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