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Re: Human vs. natural influences on the environment



In article <50kacn$7fa@spool.cs.wisc.edu>,
   tobis@scram.ssec.wisc.edu (Michael Tobis) wrote:
>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
>

I can't speak for the rest of the "wait and see" crowd.  
Speaking just from my opinion, the answer is clear-cut.  
Observe climate patterns long enough to determine what normal 
variability is, including such things as the sun-spot cycle 
and other long term phenomena.  Once this is known, look for 
variability in the data that indicates a temperature rise 
that is at least 3 standard deviations from the mean expected 
variability, to ensure that we can see the "signal" that is 
occurring due to man-made influences.  Once we can see that 
this signal remains for a few years (5-10) to ensure that it 
isn't a statistical fluke, we should have good evidence to 
back up the arguments.  If we can go even further and 
formulate a mathematical model that can calculate this 
"disturbance" to within approximately +/- 10%, we will be in 
a situation to have predictive power.

Notice that none of my above description contained one bit of 
anything associated with emotions.  The sky isn't falling, my 
distant decendants are not suffering, and the earth's 
ecosystems are not falling apart.  There is a logical way to 
gather the data, and there is time to decide what should be 
done about the situation once the validation is complete.



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