AGW advocates tell us that unless we dramatically re-order society and take extreme measures to ensure that the poor remain poor and above all do not breed we are all doomed.
W . . . T. . . . F. . . ? No, no, no. First of all, one can recognize the science behind the AGW theory as sound and well-supported without becoming an "advocate" for any remediation policy, just as one can recognize that gravity is a natural phenomenon without offending certain religious folks (http://www.theonion.com/articles/evangelical-scientists-refute-gravity-with-new-int,1778/). More seriously, there's a big jump between recognizing gaseous composition and how infrared radiation reacts therein and instituting top-down mandates on social order and reproduction.
I don't know where you're getting this sloppy dreck, but I would seriously consider listening to those sources with greater skepticism.
My question is "how doomed?", Is the likely cost of mitigating that doom greater than the human cost of averting it?
A good question! There are as many ideas about mitigation out there as there are carbon molecules in the atmosphere, and most of these ideas are crap. That's why I linked, once again, to solutions that improve human life as well as provide low-cost remediation (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1711249.html), rather than draconian money pits designed to pay silly people to do expensive things that only work while the silly people are being paid. With just one of these solutions, the biochar, if adoption increases at just a few percentage points per year—displacing fossil fuel sources in the process and helping as well to restore damaged soils, increasing crop yields in the process—we could drop back to pre-industrial levels of CO2 in decades, not centuries.
The problem—and it's a doozy—is that carbon concentration changes seem to affect the climate 200 or so years after the concentration tipping point (either high or low) is reached. Meaning, given current concentrations, we literally have no historical precedent to "how doomed" we might be. If the human cost is, say, half the world's population shed in a few decades of famine, drought and the ancillary deadliness that accompanies these goodies, what "cost" is worth the effort to avoid it? (I say this as a human who likes to eat and drink on a regular basis.)
If someone points to an approaching hurricane and says, "Maybe we should find some shelter," is he a "doomsayer?" The only difference between that and AGW might be the known versus the unknown level of impending doom. Just as churches are built for Easter and not just a non-holiday crowd, perhaps preparedness should be based on a worst case scenario . . . just in case.
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Date: 11/9/13 02:44 (UTC)AGW advocates tell us that unless we dramatically re-order society and take extreme measures to ensure that the poor remain poor and above all do not breed we are all doomed.
W . . . T. . . . F. . . ? No, no, no. First of all, one can recognize the science behind the AGW theory as sound and well-supported without becoming an "advocate" for any remediation policy, just as one can recognize that gravity is a natural phenomenon without offending certain religious folks (http://www.theonion.com/articles/evangelical-scientists-refute-gravity-with-new-int,1778/). More seriously, there's a big jump between recognizing gaseous composition and how infrared radiation reacts therein and instituting top-down mandates on social order and reproduction.
I don't know where you're getting this sloppy dreck, but I would seriously consider listening to those sources with greater skepticism.
My question is "how doomed?", Is the likely cost of mitigating that doom greater than the human cost of averting it?
A good question! There are as many ideas about mitigation out there as there are carbon molecules in the atmosphere, and most of these ideas are crap. That's why I linked, once again, to solutions that improve human life as well as provide low-cost remediation (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1711249.html), rather than draconian money pits designed to pay silly people to do expensive things that only work while the silly people are being paid. With just one of these solutions, the biochar, if adoption increases at just a few percentage points per year—displacing fossil fuel sources in the process and helping as well to restore damaged soils, increasing crop yields in the process—we could drop back to pre-industrial levels of CO2 in decades, not centuries.
The problem—and it's a doozy—is that carbon concentration changes seem to affect the climate 200 or so years after the concentration tipping point (either high or low) is reached. Meaning, given current concentrations, we literally have no historical precedent to "how doomed" we might be. If the human cost is, say, half the world's population shed in a few decades of famine, drought and the ancillary deadliness that accompanies these goodies, what "cost" is worth the effort to avoid it? (I say this as a human who likes to eat and drink on a regular basis.)
If someone points to an approaching hurricane and says, "Maybe we should find some shelter," is he a "doomsayer?" The only difference between that and AGW might be the known versus the unknown level of impending doom. Just as churches are built for Easter and not just a non-holiday crowd, perhaps preparedness should be based on a worst case scenario . . . just in case.