At the bottom of Rick's blue story, is a reference to a video that leaking pen
sent him privately - http://youtube.com/watch?v=mF_anaVcCXg&feature=related .
It consists of a 10 minute presentation by a fast talking bloke and a devil's
advocate (the same bloke in a hat) about AGW. It is fantastic! He is probably
the smartest, clearest thinker I have ever seen on this subject. And there are
some nifty explosions too! He zeroes in on the techniques of risk
assessment/management, which is an angle that more should concentrate on.
I would only quibble with one (major) flaw and assumption in this
presentation. He asks us to choose between the economic costs of tackling AGW
versus the costs of doing nothing "matrix'ed" with the possibility that AGW
either is happening or won't. The fatal assumption is that current consumer
society is sustainable as it is and therefore that the current economy is
sustainable. The supposed horrendous "economic damage" of tackling global
warming is very frequently used to delude people by the industry funded
"sceptics". As current consumer society demonstrably isn't sustainable, and
will end up giving us problems comparable with the worst of the global warming
predictions anyway, the point about economic damage is invalid. Work that is
being done at such as the NEF (that I referenced earlier -
www.neweconomics.org/ ) suggests that action taken to mitigate the worst of
AGW will be a massive (sustainable) boost to the real economy but not the mad,
cancerous, rapacious, doomed (and dooming) consumer throwaway society, which
around one third of the world currently wallows in. By including what are
currently termed "externalities" onto the balance sheet, environmentally
destructive or deteriorative companies will be less profitable than companies
that operate in a sustainable manner. Yes! Changes in accountancy practices
will save the world - pin stripes will be heroes. Free marketeers will be
throwing up their hands in horror but they should consider that we do not have
a free market now - it is already constrained by laws to prevent businesses
adulterating food, profiting from exploitation of children, selling of sub
standard goods, misleading adverts etc etc
