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It sounds like she's advocating for a political policy of doing nothing, because of "uncertainty". Consider our position on risk/uncertainty when it comes to mi
by xapata 10y ago
It sounds like she's advocating for a political policy of doing nothing, because of "uncertainty". Consider our position on risk/uncertainty when it comes to minor disasters like an airplane hijacking. Now consider the appropriate response to the risk of a nation-destroying disaster. Is it reasonable to take the do-nothing policy?
- nkurz 10y agoWhile there is probably a legitimate fear that others will use her evidence to claim that , I see her as making a more limited claim in this piece: current GCM's cannot reliably be used to make definitive claims about climate a century out, and therefore should not be relied on for policy decisions unless their true uncertainty (model risk) is accounted for. Which quotes from this piece do you read as a "call to inaction"? That said, it's true that she does write elsewhere about her belief that uncertainty does not necessarily increase the urgency of action: https://judithcurry.com/2016/01/05/climate-models-and-precautionary-measures/ https://judithcurry.com/2016/01/05/climate-models-and-precau.... I haven't read many of the linked posts, but it would seem fair to summarize her position as something like "we don't yet have sufficient understanding of the problem to justify taking actions that will cause definite harm".
- xapata 10y agoIf "definite harm" includes moderate financial cost, that's a disastrous policy.
- basurihn 10y agoDepends on the risk. The chances of some calamity may be so low that the cost of prevention is not worth it.
- xapata 10y agoOf course. But that isn't the case here.
- basurihn 10y agoI'm not sure how you know that, given that none but the most doctor ozish of climate scientists (Hansen and ilk) will claim the doomsday scenarios are likely. Even then, other climate scientists will quickly repudiate such claims. As they have. All fields have their attention whores and serial exaggerators. They are better ignored. Or perhaps you are referring to the opinions of advocates or true believers? Those opinions, unfortunately, saturate the media. As with any controversial science, a reading of the contrasting opinions of phds would do you far better.
- xapata 10y agoI suppose that depends on what you view as doomsday. Since a huge portion of the world's population lives on the coast, close to sea level, any significant sea level rise seems like a doomsday to me. Further, even with a more strict definition of "doomsday", how likely does it need to be before taking it seriously? I've been in a car thousands of times without crashing, but I always wear a seatbelt.
- basurihn 10y agoDid you read those opposing phd opinions yet?
- xapata 10y agoDid you consider my argument yet? And yes, I have read much of the literature over the last decade. I'm not sure why you are emphasizing simply a PhD as credibility. I prefer to judge research on its own terms.
- basurihn 10y agoWhat argument? You asked me what the likelihood would need to be. You mean the seat belt argument? The cost to society of reducing co2 emissions exceeds the cost of a seatbelt by a factor of several billion.. even trillion. A nearby star could explode and kill us all. Should we figure out how likely that is before spending trillions to fix it? Did you mean answer your question about what the odds would need to be? I would first need to see the rhetoric tuned down a bit, some listening to minority researchers first. Considering the effort spent in silencing them, the whole thing stinks to high hell. Who else but phds have credibility in climate science, other than perhaps phds in another hard science? Some citizen advocate? Please. If we had this nonsense in medical science eggs would be illegal by now.