more on Pentagon: "Climate Change Will Destroy Us"

[Dave Farber <dave () farber net>]

-----Original Message-----
From: L Jean Camp <jean_camp () harvard edu>
Date: Sun, 22 Feb 2004 19:20:10 
To:dave () farber net
Subject: Re: [IP] more on Pentagon: "Climate Change Will Destroy Us"


On Sunday, February 22, 2004, at 12:24 PM, Dave Farber wrote:

> The emphasis is on plausible not sci fi so such futures usually are 
> considered possible. That suggests  that current actions be sensitive 
> to such possibilities as they were paid attention to in the Cold War 
> (much of the time) djf
>
>
> From: Esther Dyson <edyson () edventure com>
>
> this is interesting, but from what I know of scenario planning, the 
> report outlined a variety of *plausible* scenarios without predicting 
> that any of them *will* happen.
>
> "The document predicts that abrupt climate change could bring the 
> planet
> to the edge of anarchy ...."   i.e. IF there is climate change, 
> then....

A study that the west is going dry was in Science this month. Not 
exactly a hotbed of alarmists. As I understand the debate is "as 
climate change begin or continues how fast will the changes be and how 
severe?"  Not "IF".  Of course, there  is uncertainty but it is the 
uncertainty of WHAT will happen not IF something will happen.

Discussing possibilities when there is tremendous uncertainty is not 
alarmist. Refusing to consider the worst case ensures only that we are 
nor prepared for it. Iraq has  illustrated some pitfalls of 'best-case' 
planning.

> THere's a big difference between saying the government (and all of us) 
> should take the possibility of climate change seriously, and saying 
> that the UK is likely to turn into  a Siberian climate (why would the 
> seas rise when the temperature is freezing??).  This seems like an 
> alarmist report about a measured scenario analysis that is indeed 
> worth paying attention to.

Global climate change does NOT mean that every day will be slightly 
warmer. It DOES mean changes in an immense complex global climate 
system.

Temperatures rise.  The melting of glaciers as results from average 
global temperature, then the atlantic "conveyor belt" fails due to the 
imbalance in salt/fresh water cause by the glacier melting. The 
conveyor belt failure causes high temps in the tropics and lower temps 
in the north.  This was initially covered in Science and then picked up 
by the NY Times.  Neither went into depth about possible social and 
political implications.  As I understand the theory there is a belief 
that it would eventually "restart" and tip back -- but would that take 
a decade or a century or an epoch?

I cannot locate a pointer to the report itself. That would be 
interesting.

Might any of your readers have a pointer to the report itself?

regards,
Jean

> It would be interesting to hear directly from the authors.
>
> Esther
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