> 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.
Indeed, it is difficult to answer, I am optimistic in general, but this
touches on much more than just climate science. While the future of
humanity is a very broad topic, with much unresolvable uncertainty and
requiring the expertise of so many disciplines that no-one can be an
expert in them all,
I would point out that there are the IPCC SRES scenarios. These are not
predictions as such, and there are no probabilities attached to them.
To be useful though they need to cover the breadth of what is deemed
likely by mainstream science, and the IPCC SRES scenarios are very
positive about world economic development. They don't depict "doom and
gloom".
-----------------
The IPCC is, of course, not above criticism, and while the word
"skeptic" is usually applied to those who consider the IPCC too
alarmist, in truth, in the spectrum of doom/alarmism there are also
those skeptics who'll attack the IPCC for being far too optimistic, be
it on sea level change, ice sheets, the shutdown of the Gulf Stream or
on the world economy.
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