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Re: Human vs. natural influences on the environment



charliew (charliew@hal-pc.org) wrote:
: [I wrote:]
: >Since this is the case, I will state that I am certain that 
: all else
: >being equal, increasing greenhouse gases warms a planet 
: reliably and
: >effectively.

: I agree with this statement 100%.  However, how do I know 
: that "all else" is actually "equal"?  There are some hidden 
: assumptions here that should be validated by observation.  
: Unfortunately, many see the consequences as so "dire" that 
: they do not want to gather the observations necessary to 
: validate the underlying theories!  What consequences can be 
: so dire that we don't have the time to follow the scientific 
: method?

Which underlying theories are considered insufficiently validated?
Which are the hidden assumptions? At what point should the information
be taken as sufficient to warrant action?

I have no problem with anyone arguing that we should wait until some
particular criterion is fulfilled. Then we can get into a substantive
discussion of whether that is an appropriate criterion. The problem is
that the wait-and-see camp never indicates what they are waiting for.
That there is a group sugeesting this is unsurprising - there are
substantial financial interests involved, particularly in the coal 
sector, and (presuming the existing science is on target within a factor
of two or so) as more responsible money bails out of that sector
we can reasonably anticipate less responsible behavior from that
sector, much as we observe in the tobacco sector now. The question
is how much weight the public should put on these wait-and-see
arguments.

A responsible wait and see argument says what we are waiting for and
how we should act when we see it. Awaiting 100% certainty of disaster
clearly means failing to avoid disaster! This hardly seems a prudent
course, and no one would advocate it for an individual, though many
seem to advocate it for society at large.

With regard to the dire consequences, it is important to note that
there are known lag times in the physical system due to the thermal
inertia of the ocean. (Interestingly, a rather misguided bit of
"green" thinking has been working stridently to avoid an experiment,
the ATOC, which among many benefits would help to calibrate this
phenomenon.) These are of the order of a couple of decades, so that
if greenhouse gases were to stop accumulating, accelerating disruptions
of the climate system are still to be expected for a considerable time.
Adding to this the time required to implement changes in economies 
without too much disruption, and the result is that action is indicated
considerably in advance of whatever level of climate disruption is
taken as needing to be avoided.

The current level of climate disruption is barely within detectable
limits. This is in part because we have weak baseline statistics,
and only in the remaining part because the current disruption is 
rather small. It is not yet possible to allocate how much change has
already been caused, but we can be confident both on principle and
increasingly on the ground of carefully analyzed observation that
it is not trivial. 

That is why the relatively modest actions proposed in the Rio 
Treaty are appropriate in my personal opinion. These actions,
if implemented, would allow for more time to increase knowledge and
design an appropriate further response, than would be the case if no
restraints on emissions were in place. They take the cost of modest
economic disruptions in the near future to reduce the chance of
*much* larger economic disruptions later, economic disruptions which 
would have to take place in the context of a rapidly changing climate.

There are organized and well-funded interests with a strong interest
in convincing you otherwise. I urge everyone to consider this in
weighing counter-arguments to a treaty that was agreed to in effect
unanimously by the world's governments, including a Republican 
administration in the US.

charliew advocates the "scientific method" in policy. I think this is a fine
and all-too-rare idea myself. However, I wonder what he means by this. It
seems to me that "awaiting certainty before acting" is not an optimal
policy in general. The "scientific method" can also weigh likelihoods and
their consequences. In the greenhouse gas situation, there is a significant
chance that the world will commit itself to enormous consequences before
something that everyone will call "certainty" is established. People
who don't hit the brakes before they are "certain" of losing control 
of the car tend to be selected against by evolution. Perhaps
the same applies to civilizations.

mt




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