So there's 2 different things : 1) chaos theory This is an existential problem for climate theory. If you believe in statistics' mathematical foundation, then

So there's 2 different things : 1) chaos theory This is an existential problem for climate theory. If you believe in statistics' mathematical foundation, then climate theory is wrong. Why ? Because the time series that are being used as the basis of the models do not satisfy the central limit theorem, ergo you cannot even correctly measure the climate (because no finite amount of measurements will ever be complete enough to give an accurate measurement of the whole system). Of course this is a mathematical argument that few people even understand. And it is extremely pedantic (like stating that in particle physics there's 2 contradicting theories, ergo we have no working theory), but in some ways this is correct. The reply, when honestly discussed, is that chaos theory in practice applies to half the things you might measure in the real world, and disallows the use of statistics to predict the future. But ... those predictions "work". Just look at the numbers ! (In my opinion those numbers in fact they do exactly what chaos theory says they should, they work in the short term, fail in the long term. See for example the first few IPCC reports, and note that their predictions were wrong. The more recent ones are right - so far). Utilitarianism in action. Of course the utility of climate theory varies, from genuine interest in the future evolution of the planet to political reasons. It will come as no surprise to anyone, these days, if one states that the vast majority of people have only political reasons - both on the left, right, green, red, blue, ... sides of the aisle. 2) mitigation Mitigation would move us from a situation where "nature" is doing the damages, more or less randomly, to a situation where you can directly point at a specific human being/country that did the damage. Given that most world leaders are lawyers, this is seen as extremely undesirable. Right now climate changes are the result of a "generic" action executed mostly by Europeans that are long dead. Hell, their 90% or so of their grandchildren are dead. If America were to directly change the climate, and as a result, say, the region around Delhi/Beijing/... changes into a desert ... Even if it present global advantages.