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>> "no one knows what we know" One thing I don't really particularly understand is what value the knowledge would be. We already know we should use less energ

>> "no one knows what we know" One thing I don't really particularly understand is what value the knowledge would be. We already know we should use less energy, be more efficient, use cleaner energy. You can't really argue against those. Anyone who thinks we should continue burning coal/oil/etc forever isn't thinking straight. But what is the aim of climate research? Just say it reported "We'll all explode in 10 years". What are the chances we'd be able to all group together and change the climate ourselves? What if it went wrong? Doesn't seem wise to me. Obviously I can see some uses - eg if it's expected to be a lot hotter for the next 10 years, then we can plan for that etc. But the amount of money being poured into the research seems a bit over the top for the likely return.

DougWebb 17y ago
>> "We already know we should use less energy, be more efficient, use cleaner energy. You can't really argue against those. Anyone who thinks we should continue burning coal/oil/etc forever isn't thinking straight." If these things were free or at least cheaper than what we're currently doing, we'd already be doing them. The problem is that they're expensive: using less energy means a lower standard of living for most people, being more efficient means spending more initially and hoping for long-term savings, and getting cleaner energy requires massive infrastructure investment today for cleaner energy years from now. Achieving these goals requires huge investments at a time when no one has the money to invest. We need to know that the investment will be worthwhile, and the AGW-proponents approach of hiding/losing data, making grand "trust us" pronouncements, and ridiculing and suppressing skeptical debate is counter-productive. In my opinion, we need to be building lots and lots of nuclear power plants using modern safe designs and including breeders so we can keep processing the fuel until there's no usable energy (or waste radiation) left in it. That will give us plenty of clean energy which will help us to deal with whatever climate change occurs, without having to sacrifice our standards of living. And, if it turns out that the climate doesn't change that much, or it's a completely natural change, we won't have wasted our investment; the nuclear power plants are worth having anyway. All that extra low-cost power brings other benefits too, like lowering the cost of manufacturing efficient cars, homes and products, and making electric vehicles truly viable (and not just fueled by coal/oil/gas at-a-distance).

DougWebb 17y ago

>> "We already know we should use less energy, be more efficient, use cleaner energy. You can't really argue against those. Anyone who thinks we should continue burning coal/oil/etc forever isn't thinking straight." If these things were free or at least cheaper than what we're currently doing, we'd already be doing them. The problem is that they're expensive: using less energy means a lower standard of living for most people, being more efficient means spending more initially and hoping for long-term savings, and getting cleaner energy requires massive infrastructure investment today for cleaner energy years from now. Achieving these goals requires huge investments at a time when no one has the money to invest. We need to know that the investment will be worthwhile, and the AGW-proponents approach of hiding/losing data, making grand "trust us" pronouncements, and ridiculing and suppressing skeptical debate is counter-productive. In my opinion, we need to be building lots and lots of nuclear power plants using modern safe designs and including breeders so we can keep processing the fuel until there's no usable energy (or waste radiation) left in it. That will give us plenty of clean energy which will help us to deal with whatever climate change occurs, without having to sacrifice our standards of living. And, if it turns out that the climate doesn't change that much, or it's a completely natural change, we won't have wasted our investment; the nuclear power plants are worth having anyway. All that extra low-cost power brings other benefits too, like lowering the cost of manufacturing efficient cars, homes and products, and making electric vehicles truly viable (and not just fueled by coal/oil/gas at-a-distance).