4 ms·

Depends on the risk. The chances of some calamity may be so low that the cost of prevention is not worth it.

by basurihn 10y ago

xapata 10y ago
Of course. But that isn't the case here.
- basurihn 10y ago
  I'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 ago
    I 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 ago
      Did you read those opposing phd opinions yet?
      - xapata 10y ago
        Did 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 ago
        What 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.
        xapata 10y ago
        When considering insurance, one usually tries to estimate the cost of an event multiplied by the likelihood of an event. The insurance company needs to charge slightly more as a premium, but if it's not too much more, that's a good purchase. It's a good idea for individuals to trade a small amount of expected value for a big reduction in variance. The odds of a nearby star exploding are fairly easy to calculate, as far as I know. I could inquire from a few astronomer friends if you'd like. It's probably on Wikipedia, too. The cost of avoiding a star explosion... I guess Elon Musk is working on it. The US spends about $600 billion annually on defense. Investing a few billion in reducing the risk of catastrophic climate change sounds quite reasonable, since trillions of dollars are at stake. Heck, even the "non-catastrophic" result of only a couple feet of sea level rise would swallow hundreds of billions of dollars of land value. I'm not sure what rhetoric needs to be tuned down, since I have already read much of the literature from "minority researchers". I guess not the recent stuff, as I've gotten tired of it. As far as I can tell, the effort spent silencing scientists is mostly the exertion of fossil fuel companies. Who stands to profit from restrictions on fossil fuel consumption? I guess some renewable energy companies do, but few others in the short term. I have a hard time understanding the theory of a vast left-wing conspiracy to get us all to... what? Where's the motivation? It clearly is an ineffective technique to gain political power. Much more plausible is the idea of a few businesses trying to spread uncertainty. We saw that before, with cigarettes. When you say, "listening to" do you mean believing the analysis of? It's funny you seem to hold PhDs in such high esteem. Almost everyone I know has a doctorate. Well, about half of them. And many of those in "hard science" or specifically environmental studies. I respect them, of course (since they're my friends), but I also think about their claims critically. Many of them need some coaching with statistics and non-linear dynamics, but hey, we can't all be experts on everything.

Depends on the risk. The chances of some calamity may be so low that the cost of prevention is not worth it.

xapata 10y ago

Of course. But that isn't the case here.

basurihn 10y ago
I'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 ago
  I 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 ago
    Did you read those opposing phd opinions yet?
    - xapata 10y ago
      Did 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 ago
        What 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.
        xapata 10y ago
        When considering insurance, one usually tries to estimate the cost of an event multiplied by the likelihood of an event. The insurance company needs to charge slightly more as a premium, but if it's not too much more, that's a good purchase. It's a good idea for individuals to trade a small amount of expected value for a big reduction in variance. The odds of a nearby star exploding are fairly easy to calculate, as far as I know. I could inquire from a few astronomer friends if you'd like. It's probably on Wikipedia, too. The cost of avoiding a star explosion... I guess Elon Musk is working on it. The US spends about $600 billion annually on defense. Investing a few billion in reducing the risk of catastrophic climate change sounds quite reasonable, since trillions of dollars are at stake. Heck, even the "non-catastrophic" result of only a couple feet of sea level rise would swallow hundreds of billions of dollars of land value. I'm not sure what rhetoric needs to be tuned down, since I have already read much of the literature from "minority researchers". I guess not the recent stuff, as I've gotten tired of it. As far as I can tell, the effort spent silencing scientists is mostly the exertion of fossil fuel companies. Who stands to profit from restrictions on fossil fuel consumption? I guess some renewable energy companies do, but few others in the short term. I have a hard time understanding the theory of a vast left-wing conspiracy to get us all to... what? Where's the motivation? It clearly is an ineffective technique to gain political power. Much more plausible is the idea of a few businesses trying to spread uncertainty. We saw that before, with cigarettes. When you say, "listening to" do you mean believing the analysis of? It's funny you seem to hold PhDs in such high esteem. Almost everyone I know has a doctorate. Well, about half of them. And many of those in "hard science" or specifically environmental studies. I respect them, of course (since they're my friends), but I also think about their claims critically. Many of them need some coaching with statistics and non-linear dynamics, but hey, we can't all be experts on everything.