Have you read James Hansen's book, "Storms of My Grandchildren"? If he is even half right, then humanity may not survive much longer on Earth, but will die out along with most of the rest of the planet. Your use of chaos theory sounds like a great excuse to ignore Hansen's warning, but what if he is right? Do you think it's really a good idea to take that risk, especially since you are claiming that humanity doesn't know enough to make a solid prediction of future climate? Continuing with Business As Usual is a choice and there is a risk that is associated with that choice. Your comment about "Hubris is the assumption of truth" applies to the choice of BAU as well as the choice to do those things which minimize CO2 emissions. Either choice has consequences and without some effort to understand the totality of the problem, it's impossible to make a rational decision. Your knowledge and that of the policy makers may be limited, but the scientists who study climate change are making their best efforts to understand the situation. As you note, they may not have certainty, but they have enough knowledge to set bounds on the range of likely effects, since we know something about historical and paleo climate, and that's what should be considered, now some hand waving claim that everything is chaotic. Newtonian physics still works rather well in many situations, in fact we used that level of physics to launch satellites when I was working in the field...
E. S. ------------------------------------------------------------ On Sep 18, 8:00 pm, Robert I Ellison <[email protected]> wrote: > > We are at the very beginning of time for the human race. It is not > unreasonable that we grapple with problems. But there are tens of > thousands of years in the future. Our responsibility is to do what we > can, learn what we can, improve the solutions, and pass them on. > Richard P. Feynman > > Hubris is the assumption of truth - that some ideas have been so > conclusively validated that they are beyond criticism except by > uninformed rednecks. Let's take Newton as an example of assumption of > truth. Newtonian laws are a nice approximation - but they are not > exact. They fail at high velocities - they do not by any means > provide a complete explanation of relativistic space and time. I > think evolution is similar - works well enough in a Newtonian universe > - but might fall over if we ever understood the nature of time in a > relativistic universe. > > Climate science is in this boat - if we start with a catalogue of what > we don't know, partially know, can't know and don't want to know -it > puts a severe limit on what is known. But people don't want to know > that. They have to fall back on logical positivism - which is the > antecedant of post modernism and relativism - because for reasons > involving the human condition we need to think we know what the future > holds. Is this the central objection to chaos theory? Populations, > economies, nervous systems, hearts and climate are all chaotic and > this doesn't bear thinking about? > > All the people in your linked blog are still thinking in terms of > proximate cause and effect. Newtoniam thinking in a chaotic > universe. If I say that this categorically and emphatically isn't > right and you are a fool for believing it - it is an example of > hubris. If I say that climate might not be a complex and dynamic > system - and pigs might fly - it leaves open the door to truth. > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups Global Change ("globalchange") newsgroup. Global Change is a public, moderated venue for discussion of science, technology, economics and policy dimensions of global environmental change. Posts will be admitted to the list if and only if any moderator finds the submission to be constructive and/or interesting, on topic, and not gratuitously rude. To post to this group, send email to [email protected] To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected] For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/globalchange
