[ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled

[Christopher Luebcke]

Disruption as in reduction of arable land--or even dislocation of arable land and climate patterns shift.

Again, to go back to Bangladesh, it's one of the most densely populated countries in the world, and a majority of it is at an elevation above sea level of one meter or less. I don't believe it's controversial to state that a sea level rise of half a meter over the next 50-100 years is potentially catastrophic. And it's not because people just sit around and die. They get up and move. 

Of course I don't give a damn about the aggregate mass of living organisms. I've made it absolutely clear that my concern is with human suffering. And no, I don't have "global warming" examples of this type of disruption. I just don't think it's arguable that significant changes in sea level or other climate factors will disrupt farming, fishing, infrastructure and freshwater supplies. The argument can't really be that climate change won't hurt anybody, is it?

The best question is how to balance what might seem like black hole investments against potential but uncertain climate change effects. That's one of the reasons, as I stated earlier, that I prefer investment in the development of adaptive technologies and skills. While not without opportunity cost, those kinds of investments will tend to pay off regardless of what happens to the climate.

And just for the record, I think that cap-and-trade is probably as close as you're going to find to an actual, large-scale scam in all of this. And I'm not a fan of carbon credits or carbon-trading schemes. I don't see the creation of artifical markets as benefitting anyone but those who obtained the rights to operate those markets (think Enron and California's energy "market").



________________________________
From: Stefano Vaj <stefano.vaj at gmail.com>
To: ExI chat list <extropy-chat at lists.extropy.org>
Sent: Wed, March 3, 2010 8:24:46 AM
Subject: Re: [ExI] Phil Jones acknowledging that climate science isn'tsettled

2010/3/2 Christopher Luebcke <cluebcke at yahoo.com>:
> But significant disruptions to ecosystems tend to cause a lot of suffering.
> That's where my concern lies.

Disruption as in...? Reduction in the aggregate mass of living
organisms? Reduction of complexity? Rapid change? Mass extinction of
some species?

Any "historical" global warming-related examples of such disruptions?

And what about the accounting for the suffering obviously involved in
avoiding them, as in, e.g., efforts invested in energy savings rather
than in saving human lives?

Those are not rhetorical questions, and beg serious answers. While I
do my best to keep an open mind on the issue, when I try to educate
myself on such issues I usually get my fair rate of doom mongering and
precautionary principle preaches.

But yes, it would be a pity to see Venise go eventually under water...

-- 
Stefano Vaj
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