Thanks, that's interesting as well as refreshingly reasonable with respect to our limited knowledge. However, your summary seems at odds with the field of climate science's continuous and confident prescriptions for human life. If that is the extent of our knowledge, how can we tell any nation to accept lower growth and poorer health by curtailing fossil fuel use?
I would be interested in seeing "confident prescriptions for human life" in an actual paper. What I have seen, and when I've been present at Q&A sessions with scientists presenting their results, was a lot of discomfort and equivocating when someone would ask the question "If we do <x> will it mitigate or reverse the changes in climate?". I watched one poor guy not answer the question "If I had a magic wand and removed all anthropogenic CO2 from the air, would it stop global warming?" The questioner was clearly a climate skeptic but the truth is that science doesn't actually know. That was the root of the resistance to the iron fertilization experiments[1]
As a result we have a lot of research which clearly indicates that humans are destabilizing the climate which will induce it to change, but no one that I have found has been willing to stand up and claim they could drive the climate in a particular direction or speak definitively on what the eventual result of our destabilizing influences will have.
Our ability to predict outcomes is limited by our understanding of the complex interactions (which is why I like the recent Nature article, it really gets to that point) We can make fairly mechanical predictions of the form "If this much fresh water was dumped into the ocean, it would go up by this many meters." Some have also speculated that the increased weight on the mantle of all that water will cause a massive increase in volcanism as magma is compressed.
The most definitive statement I have ever read from an actual scientist is that by generating fewer green house gases we will destabilize it less. The elephant in the room then is without human participation the planet has seen warm spells and ice ages. So at best, our influence is eradicated and it goes back to what ever was previously changing the climate before we came along.
As a result I don't think telling anyone to accept lower growth and poorer health by curtailing fossil fuel use is a reasonable strategy. You can tell them that the more energy efficient they are, the better their economy will be able to support them. Telling them to suffer because it will stop climate change does them a disservice. Telling them to get off fossil fuel because they will be healthier and more prosperous if they can live on renewable sources benefits from being demonstrably true.
Comments
Thanks, that's interesting as well as refreshingly reasonable with respect to our limited knowledge. However, your summary seems at odds with the field of climate science's continuous and confident prescriptions for human life. If that is the extent of our knowledge, how can we tell any nation to accept lower growth and poorer health by curtailing fossil fuel use?
I would be interested in seeing "confident prescriptions for human life" in an actual paper. What I have seen, and when I've been present at Q&A sessions with scientists presenting their results, was a lot of discomfort and equivocating when someone would ask the question "If we do <x> will it mitigate or reverse the changes in climate?". I watched one poor guy not answer the question "If I had a magic wand and removed all anthropogenic CO2 from the air, would it stop global warming?" The questioner was clearly a climate skeptic but the truth is that science doesn't actually know. That was the root of the resistance to the iron fertilization experiments[1]
As a result we have a lot of research which clearly indicates that humans are destabilizing the climate which will induce it to change, but no one that I have found has been willing to stand up and claim they could drive the climate in a particular direction or speak definitively on what the eventual result of our destabilizing influences will have.
Our ability to predict outcomes is limited by our understanding of the complex interactions (which is why I like the recent Nature article, it really gets to that point) We can make fairly mechanical predictions of the form "If this much fresh water was dumped into the ocean, it would go up by this many meters." Some have also speculated that the increased weight on the mantle of all that water will cause a massive increase in volcanism as magma is compressed.
The most definitive statement I have ever read from an actual scientist is that by generating fewer green house gases we will destabilize it less. The elephant in the room then is without human participation the planet has seen warm spells and ice ages. So at best, our influence is eradicated and it goes back to what ever was previously changing the climate before we came along.
As a result I don't think telling anyone to accept lower growth and poorer health by curtailing fossil fuel use is a reasonable strategy. You can tell them that the more energy efficient they are, the better their economy will be able to support them. Telling them to suffer because it will stop climate change does them a disservice. Telling them to get off fossil fuel because they will be healthier and more prosperous if they can live on renewable sources benefits from being demonstrably true.
[1] http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v457/n7229/abs/nature07...
I suppose I have been distracted by media reports, but certainly everything you've written here is reasonable.