Reasoning is defeasible when the corresponding argument is rationally
compelling but not deductively valid. The truth of the premises of a
good defeasible argument provide support for the conclusion, even
though it is possible for the premises to be true and the conclusion
false. In other words, the relationship of support between premises
and conclusion is a tentative one, potentially defeated by additional
information. Global warming arguments seem of this type when they are
good. Craig is alluding to a rather different problem of media hype
in my view, which we see from all the claims that food really kills us
and the rest.
On 19 Jan, 00:45, Kierkecraig <[email protected]> wrote:
> Save us Barack Obama, you are our only hope.
>
> ornamentalmind wrote:
> > guardian.co.uk
>
> > President 'has four years to save Earth'
>
> > US must take the lead to avert eco-disaster
> > Robin McKie in New York The Observer, Sunday 18 January 2009
>
> > Barack Obama has only four years to save the world. That is the stark
> > assessment of Nasa scientist and leading climate expert Jim Hansen
> > who
> > last week warned only urgent action by the new president could halt
> > the devastating climate change that now threatens Earth. Crucially,
> > that action will have to be taken within Obama's first
> > administration,
> > he added.
>
> > Soaring carbon emissions are already causing ice-cap melting and
> > threaten to trigger global flooding, widespread species loss and
> > major
> > disruptions of weather patterns in the near future. "We cannot afford
> > to put off change any longer," said Hansen. "We have to get on a new
> > path within this new administration. We have only four years left for
> > Obama to set an example to the rest of the world. America must take
> > the lead."
>
> > Hansen said current carbon levels in the atmosphere were already too
> > high to prevent runaway greenhouse warming. Yet the levels are still
> > rising despite all the efforts of politicians and scientists.
>
> > Only the US now had the political muscle to lead the world and halt
> > the rise, Hansen said. Having refused to recognise that global
> > warming
> > posed any risk at all over the past eight years, the US now had to
> > take a lead as the world's greatest carbon emitter and the planet's
> > largest economy. Cap-and-trade schemes, in which emission permits are
> > bought and sold, have failed, he said, and must now be replaced by a
> > carbon tax that will imposed on all producers of fossil fuels. At the
> > same time, there must be a moratorium on new power plants that burn
> > coal - the world's worst carbon emitter.
>
> > Hansen - head of the Goddard Institute of Space Studies and winner of
> > the WWF's top conservation award - first warned Earth was in danger
> > from climate change in 1988 and has been the victim of several
> > unsuccessful attempts by the White House administration of George
> > Bush
> > to silence his views.
>
> > Hansen's institute monitors temperature fluctuations at thousands of
> > sites round the world, data that has led him to conclude that most
> > estimates of sea level rises triggered by rising atmospheric
> > temperatures are too low and too conservative. For example, the
> > Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says a rise of between 20cm
> > and 60cm can be expected by the end of the century.
>
> > However, Hansen said feedbacks in the climate system are already
> > accelerating ice melt and are threatening to lead to the collapse of
> > ice sheets. Sea-level rises will therefore be far greater - a claim
> > backed last week by a group of British, Danish and Finnish scientists
> > who said studies of past variations in climate indicate that a far
> > more likely figure for sea-level rise will be about 1.4 metres,
> > enough
> > to cause devastating flooding of many of the world's major cities and
> > of low-lying areas of Holland, Bangladesh and other nations.
>
> > As a result of his fears about sea-level rise, Hansen said he had
> > pressed both Britain's Royal Society and the US National Academy of
> > Sciences to carry out an urgent investigation of the state of the
> > planet's ice-caps. However, nothing had come of his proposals. The
> > first task of Obama's new climate office should therefore be to order
> > such a probe "as a matter of urgency", Hansen added.
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