Re: [debate] global warming is b/s? nice hatchet job

[chris () blask org]

--- On Sun, 7/12/09, Anton Chuvakin <anton () chuvakin org> wrote:

> > The answer to 2 may be the kicker.  It is entirely
> possible that we *should* be doing everything we can to warm
> the planet because natural trends are in the opposite
> direction.  It is also possible that the trend is towards a
> warmer environment, in which case we would now be
> accelerating that change, which would be bad.

> Yup, my point exactly - that is the question that needs to
> be answered and nobody seems to be  bothered with it. People only
> debate #1, but not really touch #2.
 
> > I have seen reports that the sun seems to be entering
> a cooler period, so maybe we will find that all our carbon
> emissions have been a good thing and that efforts to slow
> them down will be bad.  But we can't forecast solar trends
> worth a hill of beans yet, so really we just don't know.

> Indeed, figuring this out IMHO needs to happen before any
> debate, but debate rages on while this question is not being answered.

Well, therein lies the primary problem.  Figuring out *all* of these things will likely take much longer than we really 
*have* in which to decide what changes we should make.

My views on this whole thing lie (like the majority of my views) in the pragmatic middle.  First off, we aren't going 
to change everything overnight so if we really do need to it simply isn't going to happen, anyway.  Not burning a bunch 
of shit to move our things around is a good idea for lots of reasons and we should do more of not doing that, however 
we can actually make real progress in that direction.   All this against the reality that people like things that work 
(like transportation, lights etc) - and imnsho they're  right - so shouting about radical changes in behavior is just 
another non-starter.

We may find ourselves spending way more to fix the related problems decades later than we would if we started sooner, 
but what else is new?  As long as we tend on average to do as many smarter things sooner as can pragmatically be 
achieved we'll probably figure it all out in the end (or if not, at least we'll make a really spectacular smoking hole 
in the universe on the way out ;~).

-chris


      

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