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We can't "do something" about something when we don't understand how that something works. Yes, we can. We don't know what the outputs of the system will be f

by gmac 15y ago

We can't "do something" about something when we don't understand how that something works. Yes, we can. We don't know what the outputs of the system will be for all inputs, but we know that the key input is greenhouse gases. We can reduce that input if we choose, and our fundamental lack of knowledge about what the outputs might be means that is almost certainly a good idea. There is a developing literature on such fundamental uncertainty ('ambiguity') in policy problems of this sort. E.g. See here: http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/5454 http://www.voxeu.org/index.php?q=node/5454

ChuckMcM 15y ago
Nice link. I think you missed my point. The climate is going to change, humans cannot at this stage of our evolution and sophistication, prevent it from changing. We're dumping CO2 and our farm animals are dumping methane into the atmosphere. Check. And we can do lots of things which will change how much CO2 and how much methane we dump into the atmosphere. Check. Here's the sticky bit: If we could leave the planet, en-masse right now with all our farm animals and remove ourselves from the equation completely, the climate is still going to change from what its like today to something different. We know that to be true because there is lots of evidence that it was different before we arrived on the scene, both hotter and colder. We are beginning to see several different studies that some of those previous periods changed quite rapidly. We know those changes had zero anthropogenic contribution. Based on that argument I make my claim that whether or not we are on the planet the climate will change. We don't know all of the factors that cause the balance in the system to become unbalanced. As this MIT observation has shown, yet again, that our current best guesses about what the balance is in that system are incorrect (but that is good science, we'll keep putting together the pieces to develop that understanding) Based on that evidence I make the claim that we don't know enough of the factors which affect how climate changes to accurately predict any outcome of any action we might make. I am unaware of any chain of reasoning based on actual science that supports either the conclusion that humans can "control" the Earth's climate, or a conclusion that any action we might take now will stop climate change from happening. The flawed reasoning that some people put forward is "Humans are the proximate cause of climate change if we stop doing things that affect the climate, the change will stop." However, as we are not the only cause of climate change (which is shown by the fact that the climate has changed without our help) and the fact that we do not have a model which accurately accounts for all the factors (we keep finding new things where reality and the model differ, this MIT observation is yet another example), impeaches this line of reasoning.

by gmac 15y ago

ChuckMcM 15y ago

Nice link. I think you missed my point. The climate is going to change, humans cannot at this stage of our evolution and sophistication, prevent it from changing. We're dumping CO2 and our farm animals are dumping methane into the atmosphere. Check. And we can do lots of things which will change how much CO2 and how much methane we dump into the atmosphere. Check. Here's the sticky bit: If we could leave the planet, en-masse right now with all our farm animals and remove ourselves from the equation completely, the climate is still going to change from what its like today to something different. We know that to be true because there is lots of evidence that it was different before we arrived on the scene, both hotter and colder. We are beginning to see several different studies that some of those previous periods changed quite rapidly. We know those changes had zero anthropogenic contribution. Based on that argument I make my claim that whether or not we are on the planet the climate will change. We don't know all of the factors that cause the balance in the system to become unbalanced. As this MIT observation has shown, yet again, that our current best guesses about what the balance is in that system are incorrect (but that is good science, we'll keep putting together the pieces to develop that understanding) Based on that evidence I make the claim that we don't know enough of the factors which affect how climate changes to accurately predict any outcome of any action we might make. I am unaware of any chain of reasoning based on actual science that supports either the conclusion that humans can "control" the Earth's climate, or a conclusion that any action we might take now will stop climate change from happening. The flawed reasoning that some people put forward is "Humans are the proximate cause of climate change if we stop doing things that affect the climate, the change will stop." However, as we are not the only cause of climate change (which is shown by the fact that the climate has changed without our help) and the fact that we do not have a model which accurately accounts for all the factors (we keep finding new things where reality and the model differ, this MIT observation is yet another example), impeaches this line of reasoning.