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I know the Pascal's wager argument for action on Climate change (which is that if there is even 1% chance of climate change being real then why not act on it si

I know the Pascal's wager argument for action on Climate change (which is that if there is even 1% chance of climate change being real then why not act on it since the downside of acting is nothing <to one political ideology>), but the question is, what if climate change is NOT man-made? If there is even 1% chance that climate change is a naturally occurring phenomenon then all our efforts to 'stop' greenhouse gas emissions is not going to give the results we want. Maybe building levies and moving cities inland be a better action plan? Maybe faster economic growth is a better solution than subsidized solar and wind. I am trying to figure our arguments against the above argument.

saudioger 8y ago
Even IF it were occurring naturally the downside of curbing our contribution is that everything we do is significantly cleaner and we aren't precipitating the problem. That's one of my biggest annoyance with deniers — worst case scenario is that we're doing something good for no reason.
dagss 8y ago
Argument against is simple: Mitigating effects climate change as you suggest will be extremely expensive. (Protecting cities from rising sea levels is really the least of problems...) If we can do something much cheaper (prevent climate change) and there is a 99% chance of it working then of course you should; probibalistically... Yet despite what the math says, the path the world is on is obviously to do nothing. The efforts done now to stop man-made global warming is a rounding error.... The Paris agreement is short of what is needed, and no country is close to fullfilling the Paris agreement. So our children have to pay for the enormously more expensive mitigation instead.
- splintercell 8y ago
  > Mitigating effects climate change as you suggest will be extremely expensive. But as I said, if there is 1% chance that climate change is not anthropogenic, then our actions would be futile. Moreover, the literal argument you're making is what Climate Change skeptics make against curbing climate change measures.
lozenge 8y ago
It's about risk management. What you suggest would work in the 1% case (using your suggested 1% chance without debating it), but we would still need to do something about the 99% case. This is called the precautionary principle.
yongjik 8y ago
If there's 1% chance that we're all mistaken how climate works, why would building levies would be a solution to anything? It means we literally have no idea what will happen, and there's no way to know if the levies will be high enough or if it will be needed at all. You will be wasting a trillion dollars in the off chance that (1) we don't understand climate and yet (2) the climate happens to do exactly the thing you prepared yourself for. Meanwhile, cutting back on fossil fuel gives us real, measurable benefit in the 99% of cases, and won't even hurt us that much in the remaining 1%. Unless you think "The Earth's wind just stopped." is a possibility. (The number is probably more like 99.9999 vs 0.0001%.)
- splintercell 8y ago
  Thanks for at least responding to my actual argument. > It means we literally have no idea what will happen, and there's no way to know if the levies will be high enough or if it will be needed at all. I got some big problems with the climate change mitigation methods which presume anthropogenic nature. The biggest one being, we can reduce our Carbon emissions and stuff, but this solution requires EVERYONE to do it. One defection (like China or India) and it might result in everyone defecting or our solution becoming futile. On the other hand 'building levies' (which is just a way to label the actions which try to fight climate change by negating its effect, require each individual country to act in their own interest and it can be effectively pulled off.
bjourne 8y ago
The following article might be of help: https://friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/Arrhenius%201906,%20final.pdf https://friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/Arrhenius%2019... It was published in 1906... I.e the knowledge that CO2 causes warming which causes water vapor that in turn causes more warning is more than 100 years old!
- splintercell 8y ago
  Thanks, but how does it relate to my argument?
canhascodez 8y ago
Climate change is man-made. We know how much oil we're burning, and we can measure the atmospheric CO2 carbon ratios, and also measure volcanic emissions. The picture is very consistent. There's also no real hope for an alternate mechanism. The actual effect of an increased partial pressure of CO2 is to push the CO2-rich region further out into space. Physics dictates that this must warm the Earth, by ~3.7 W/m^2 per doubling[0]. The history of the theory is perhaps relevant here. CO2-induced climate change was proposed in 1896[1], and shortly thereafter it was stunningly refuted, by multiple independent lines of evidence. Over the next fifty years, the soundness of that evidence was called into question, and eventually the weight of evidence was sufficient to shift the consensus. We have been trying to disprove AGW for more than twelve decades. At this point, we need a very large effect, because the H2O-CO2 feedback loop is pretty ugly, and the effect also needs to be small enough to not notice. There's not really any candidate theories beyond absurdities like, "everything we know about thermodynamics is wrong," or "CO2 molecules have free will and like to play practical jokes on scientists". Failing that, I'm deeply sorry to say that AGW is real. [0] https://www.skepticalscience.com/christy-crock-6-climate-sensitivity.html https://www.skepticalscience.com/christy-crock-6-climate-sen... [1] http://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf http://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf
- splintercell 8y ago
  I guess you don't know "Pascal's Wager" argument for climate change. Because this is equivalent of hearing "But Bible is real, God himself wrote that in the bible, how dare you suggest that there might be 1% chance of God not being real?" in an actual 'Pascal's wager' argument.
  - canhascodez 8y ago
    Do you know what empiricism is?
    - splintercell 8y ago
      Do you know what a thought experiment is?
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

saudioger 8y ago

Even IF it were occurring naturally the downside of curbing our contribution is that everything we do is significantly cleaner and we aren't precipitating the problem. That's one of my biggest annoyance with deniers — worst case scenario is that we're doing something good for no reason.

dagss 8y ago

Argument against is simple: Mitigating effects climate change as you suggest will be extremely expensive. (Protecting cities from rising sea levels is really the least of problems...) If we can do something much cheaper (prevent climate change) and there is a 99% chance of it working then of course you should; probibalistically... Yet despite what the math says, the path the world is on is obviously to do nothing. The efforts done now to stop man-made global warming is a rounding error.... The Paris agreement is short of what is needed, and no country is close to fullfilling the Paris agreement. So our children have to pay for the enormously more expensive mitigation instead.

splintercell 8y ago
> Mitigating effects climate change as you suggest will be extremely expensive. But as I said, if there is 1% chance that climate change is not anthropogenic, then our actions would be futile. Moreover, the literal argument you're making is what Climate Change skeptics make against curbing climate change measures.

lozenge 8y ago

It's about risk management. What you suggest would work in the 1% case (using your suggested 1% chance without debating it), but we would still need to do something about the 99% case. This is called the precautionary principle.

yongjik 8y ago

If there's 1% chance that we're all mistaken how climate works, why would building levies would be a solution to anything? It means we literally have no idea what will happen, and there's no way to know if the levies will be high enough or if it will be needed at all. You will be wasting a trillion dollars in the off chance that (1) we don't understand climate and yet (2) the climate happens to do exactly the thing you prepared yourself for. Meanwhile, cutting back on fossil fuel gives us real, measurable benefit in the 99% of cases, and won't even hurt us that much in the remaining 1%. Unless you think "The Earth's wind just stopped." is a possibility. (The number is probably more like 99.9999 vs 0.0001%.)

splintercell 8y ago
Thanks for at least responding to my actual argument. > It means we literally have no idea what will happen, and there's no way to know if the levies will be high enough or if it will be needed at all. I got some big problems with the climate change mitigation methods which presume anthropogenic nature. The biggest one being, we can reduce our Carbon emissions and stuff, but this solution requires EVERYONE to do it. One defection (like China or India) and it might result in everyone defecting or our solution becoming futile. On the other hand 'building levies' (which is just a way to label the actions which try to fight climate change by negating its effect, require each individual country to act in their own interest and it can be effectively pulled off.

bjourne 8y ago

The following article might be of help: https://friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/Arrhenius%201906,%20final.pdf https://friendsofscience.org/assets/documents/Arrhenius%2019... It was published in 1906... I.e the knowledge that CO2 causes warming which causes water vapor that in turn causes more warning is more than 100 years old!

splintercell 8y ago
Thanks, but how does it relate to my argument?

canhascodez 8y ago

Climate change is man-made. We know how much oil we're burning, and we can measure the atmospheric CO2 carbon ratios, and also measure volcanic emissions. The picture is very consistent. There's also no real hope for an alternate mechanism. The actual effect of an increased partial pressure of CO2 is to push the CO2-rich region further out into space. Physics dictates that this must warm the Earth, by ~3.7 W/m^2 per doubling[0]. The history of the theory is perhaps relevant here. CO2-induced climate change was proposed in 1896[1], and shortly thereafter it was stunningly refuted, by multiple independent lines of evidence. Over the next fifty years, the soundness of that evidence was called into question, and eventually the weight of evidence was sufficient to shift the consensus. We have been trying to disprove AGW for more than twelve decades. At this point, we need a very large effect, because the H2O-CO2 feedback loop is pretty ugly, and the effect also needs to be small enough to not notice. There's not really any candidate theories beyond absurdities like, "everything we know about thermodynamics is wrong," or "CO2 molecules have free will and like to play practical jokes on scientists". Failing that, I'm deeply sorry to say that AGW is real. [0] https://www.skepticalscience.com/christy-crock-6-climate-sensitivity.html https://www.skepticalscience.com/christy-crock-6-climate-sen... [1] http://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf http://www.rsc.org/images/Arrhenius1896_tcm18-173546.pdf

splintercell 8y ago
I guess you don't know "Pascal's Wager" argument for climate change. Because this is equivalent of hearing "But Bible is real, God himself wrote that in the bible, how dare you suggest that there might be 1% chance of God not being real?" in an actual 'Pascal's wager' argument.
- canhascodez 8y ago
  Do you know what empiricism is?
  - splintercell 8y ago
    Do you know what a thought experiment is?

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]