[ExI] Curves on a graph (was Re: Richard Lindzen onclimatehysteria.

[Stefano Vaj]

On Thu, Aug 6, 2009 at 7:06 PM, John K Clark<jonkc at bellsouth.net> wrote:
>> All current evidence points to warming in a medium timescale (100s of
>> years)
>
> 100's of years! To hell with my great great grandchildren, let them fend for
> themselves; after all, my great great grandfather didn't worry a lot about
> me. It's a little like the Wright Brothers not having the time to develop
> their airplane because they were too busy worrying about how people a
> century from their time will solve the air traffic control problem.

An even more pertinent analogy would be a concern for Hiroshima-like
or 9/11-like events. In fact, AFAIK, our distant offspring might even
thrive in a warmer climate, or live underwater and promote the
expansion of oceans.

> More expensive energy doesn't mean fat cats make less money, it means
> billions of poor people will control less energy than they do now. A lot
> less.  And that means billions of people will become even poorer than they
> are now. A lot poorer. And that means people are going to die. Millions and
> millions of people.

Or simply will *continue* dying. But this is not, for whatever reason,
not considered to be "anthropic", so it appears that many people
concern with the biblical consequences of GW (floods-and-deserts,
e.g.) can live with well enough with all that... :-)

And, we should even count in additional chances for deaths or
extinction simply arising from the diversion of efforts and
investments which could be applied to other goals. Medicine, e.g.;
space colonisation; biotech; etc.

I remain perplexed about AGW, and still assume that its "proponents"
might be perfectly right. But it is disquieting to see how even in
transhumanist ranks all the issues above are dismissed out of hand in
favour of being, no matter what, on the "cool" side (pun intended).
And since I have no expertise nor training to express a meaningful
opinion on the merits, and my claims to competence lay instead in the
area of politics, legislative mechanism, mass psychology and cultural
trends, I am mostly concerned with those aspects.

-- 
Stefano Vaj