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I'm constantly reminded of the cartoon where a heckler is standing up during a Climate Change presentation, yelling, "What if it's a big hoax and we create a be
by gdubs 8y ago
I'm constantly reminded of the cartoon where a heckler is standing up during a Climate Change presentation, yelling, "What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?"
I'm a big believer in the scientific method. I think wherever possible we should gather evidence to confirm or deny our hypothesis. But sometimes we have to make decisions without time for all the facts, all the calculations to come in. You could stand there in the street as a car careens toward you, slide rule in hand, being absolutely sure the car will collide with you before finally stepping out of the way. But, of course that's ridiculous.
So, the fear is that making the necessary changes to society would be far too disruptive, too expensive, resulting in ultimately more death and devastation than what Climate Change may or may not bring.
That's quite a gamble. We seem totally fine spending trillions of dollars on other experiments [cough] tax cuts [cough]. We go to war, sacrificing lives and national treasure on uncertain outcomes, on shaky premises, and on and on. Why, with this one issue, are we so reluctant to make the leap with a significant scientific consensus around the issue?
- blackflame7000 8y agoThe thing is that is much more complex than just “stepping out of the way”. There’s a cost associated with it and you can’t just get some to buy into it, you need everyone to buy into it for it to work.
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 8y ago> I'm constantly reminded of the cartoon where a heckler is standing up during a Climate Change presentation, yelling, "What if it's a big hoax and we create a better world for nothing?" The truth is that if climate change really is the catastrophe that people are talking about, we will have to take drastic action that will make the world worse. Maybe we have to convert large portions of our land into solar and wind farms spoiling previously pristine wilderness with installations and power lines? Maybe we will have to embrace nuclear power and decide that having a Chernobyl every decade or so is a tolerable risk? Maybe we will have to decide that seeding with sulfur in the upper atmosphere is required to help with temperatures and that acid rain will just have to be an acceptable trade-off. If people really believed that climate change was the catastrophe that they say it is, they would be willing to practically give away everything in exchange for getting legislation through that would help climate change. If democrats went to republicans and said "Look, climate change is a life or death thing. If you support an effective global carbon tax, we will support everything else in your platform." You could probably get legislation passed by next month. Of course, nobody really views climate change as being that much of a crisis!
- meko 8y agoI don't follow your logic. Giving way to a fascist Republican agenda is only going to make climate change worse.