Although I happen to share the same stance on global warming, this argument seems slightly flawed to me. Here are the basic categories of why it seems wrong to me.
1) User selected outcomes. Since this chart inherently depends on you filling in the four possible outcomes its seems like its impossible to convince yourself of something you don't already believe. I could easily make the worst possible outcome of either side worse or better and it would throw off my evaluation of which is the safer gamble. IE I could easily say that the global depression mention in a GCC false column would lead to catostrophic global war making making the GCC false column a slighly better gamble.
2) Binary Outcomes. Although the author concedes the chart is an oversimplification, I doubt ANY particular action we take could be represented as a binary choice with binary outcomes. If we're simply to weight "whats the worst that can happen" it degenerates into a game of "who can think of the worst outcome" again.
I DO believe however that the most important message in the film is the row vs column distinction, which is an extremely important (and insightful) point.
Are you kidding? Imagine a dude who believed that sort of reasoning could work in the presidency:
"I could make a diplomatic trip to a foreign country, or I could stay here. Well, if I go on the trip, I risk getting shot by someone in that country, which might trigger a big war, and that might escalate via alliances into World War III, and then the nukes come out, and there's nuclear winter for the rest of humanity. Or, I could stay here. At least if I'm killed here, it couldn't trigger a world war, because it's clearly a domestic dispute. So, clearly, I should never make any diplomatic trips ever."
In fact, we already have a US president that followed this exact same blueprint, and look where it got him:
"If we're wrong about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction, and we invade Iraq, then that's just tax dollars and a couple thousand lives, worst-case. But if we're *right* about Saddam Hussein having weapons of mass destruction, and we *don't* invade, then potentially millions of lives could be at stake, including nuclear assaults on US soil! Therefore, we should definitely invade."
The fact is, to say "X is possible" is to say almost nothing about X. Probabilities are relevant to anybody who isn't totally-and-completely risk-averse. Anybody who says otherwise is offering you a sucker's bet -- and if you take it, you'll be a sucker.
Bummer, but not convincing--and I agree with him. There's a huge hole in that argument.
His argument would mean something if I were the only person on the planet and it was solely my decision to act or not. Or, for that matter, if I could compel everyone on the planet to act as well. Then it's a simple matter of two columns. But, to be valid, you need about 6 billion columns, including some very key ones held by people who have much much more clout.
And that's obviously bullshit.
The problem is that no matter how much I personally conserve, somebody else can, and will, easily consume vastly more. By my lack of consumption, I lower materials costs which ENCOURAGE other people to consume. So, I'm fucked, the the classic tragedy of the commons manner.
A much better metaphor is an image of ten people in a boat--this boat representing the planet--and the boat is sinking with a hole in the bottom. There's water coming in, hard to know from where, and tough to know the exact rate. 8 of the 10 people in the boat are more or less incapacitated--representing the poor of this world, who neither contribute to global warming nor are in much of a position to do anything about it. There's me, aware of the fact and and trying to rouse everyone to action--and to pump like hell. The problem is, there's also one other guy, the only one with a life jacket--representing the really rich--who not only doesn't care about the sinking of the boat in fact is drilling holes like crazy. There is no amount of pumping I can do to bail the boat. So what do I do?
I hereby Post first!! under article 125 section 4 paragraph 6 ! Any glumerterians failing to claim posting first after doing thereof,so gives up that post or any claim of post thereafter on the thread thus in dispute!!
Jesus christ. Not that I don't agree with what he's saying, but it just took that guy ten minutes to say that it's better to be safe than sorry. It's just very basic common sense, wish he'd spent ten minutes telling us something we didn't already know. The only terrifying thing about this video is that it insinuates that you actually have to dumb it down this much for people to understand. Either you do, which would be terrifying for obvious reasons, or you don't, which would still be terrifying cause it means the people who actually have the opportunity to bring about a real debate are instead wasting our time talking to grown people like they're children.
This is Pascal's Gambit which, as I understand it, was used to show that believing in God is the best option whether He exists or not. The argument is 350 years old and while applying it to climate change is clever, I'm guessing it will be just as effective as it was back then.
You nailed it. The True/Yes square is going to still cause extreme global economic which would be catastrophic in nature. We would see massive amounts of death and destruction due to the economic instead of environmental issues. To me it looks like the "No" column is the better bet.
This argument makes the assumption that our actions can prevent castistrophic climate change.
What happens if we destroy our economies only to find that climate change is inevetable regardless of our actions?
he didn't cover that option only because of how obvious it it. It doesn't matter if we ruin the economy and it still doesn't change anything. All we are doing is destroying the economy before the end of the world instead of after.
I think that is better to take at least some sort of action than to sit here and do nothing while we screw over the environment at an increasingly rapid pace
I dont think he understands exactly what the argument is about. Very few people deny global climate change. The fact that is being debated is whether or not humans have an impact on the climate.
It does not matter whether we caused the climate change or not. Even if the nature or even some alien being caused it. We do not want to suffer from the climate change, so we should do something against it. It might well be unclear if we can prevent it, but the current discussion - mainly outside of Europe - does not focus on our possibilities, but whether we want to do something or whether we are lazy. If we start to discuss what our possibilities are and their chance of success, then we are a large step father.
Ok I also have to admit that the proposed argument in the film is flawed. At least mathematically it is not right. It really depends on the probabilities of the "rows" as he calls it. If the row 'a climate change will happen" has only a chance of 1%, then it would be best not to do anything at all. So the author implicitly assumes that both possibilities are equally likable. A claim he does not prove.
So the author's method is wrong but I really do support is opinion. It is really a good idea to start fighting global climate change. We waste our money everywhere, it won't be that bad to waste some money for a climate change which never was a problem.
Moreover I like to see that people in the United States start to change their mind. The last years the Bush administration hindered every progress in this area. Keep fighting those people.
A) the proposition assumes that both Yes and No have equal probabilities of occurring. This is one major disagreement in the debate. b) the proposition assumes that, given ANY amount of money and economic catastrophe, we can actually impact the outcome (many scientists argue that CO2 has already reached the limits of its "forcing" capability). c) the proposition leaves out the possibility of global warming resulting in an improvement in living conditions (as is the case in the Medieval and Roman Warmings of the past)
why is "gcc" so politically divided? is it because one side doesn't care about the environment they live in, and could care less about whether their kids live healthy lives? or is it about what the other side has to gain politically by pushing the issue constantly, and decide the fate of huge economic changes where large sums of money are involved? just think about it. if climate change is real, and we have any impact in it, we should definitely do something! but why is it so politically divided?
I would challenge you to consider the possibility that maybe, some of us have just read the IPCC reports, decided, "Oh, a couple of degrees Celsius over a hundred years. That's not so catastrophic-sounding," and figured that most of the surrounding context was hype.
Go ahead. Read the actual scientific data. Get as well-educated as you'd like, then take a step back, and compare it to the world as you know it. Say "how bad is it really?" every once in a while. If we warmed up a room at the speed and magnitude that the IPCC predicts, you'd never notice, standing inside, that it was warming up.
What makes you think that the Earth is so much more sensitive than you?
And what makes you so sure that we could arrest the warming of the Earth to any significant degree?
drostie: my argument was this:
people who disagree with global warming DO NOT wish for the destruction of the earth and,
people who push global warming probably DO have alot invested in it.
i did not make the clear, i apologize.
Oh my God, yet ANOTHER heap of fabricated projections. I have been around a long time, I have seen the "end of the world" predicted many times, along with other "dooms day" schemes. I have yet to see one even come close. Predictions seem to have a way of never happening. There is an answer to that, but you will have to figure it out yourself, the same way I did.
In short, do not believe ANY of this dooms day crap. Read more, get to understand it, but don't get caught up in it.
Which prediction of his do you think is fabricated? He covered every possibility including us doing nothing and nothing happening. You may have been around a while but there has never been a threat like this in the last human lifetime. And my guess is if you've been around as long as you say you and your doubts won't be around to witness the problems your offspring will have to face. Good for you I guess but I still think true leadership means preparing for all possble outcomes.
In case you didnt read it above. The True/Yes square is going to still cause extreme global economic depression/colapse which would be catastrophic in nature. We would see massive amounts of death and destruction due to the economic instead of environmental issues. To me it looks like the "No" column is the better bet.
What was that? What would be worse - a potential global economic depression or a potential global economic depression plus a ruined planet whose weather is too unreliable or inhospitable to agriculturally recover from a potential global economic depression?
it doesn't cost that much to make a difference. all you have to do is go to lowes/home depot and get some of those high efficiency light bulbs to replace some regular ones. you actually save money on electricity and the environment benefits as well.
listen drunkfool!!!he addressed that issue--if we destroy our economy while solving gcc, we would have reduced its severity but if sit around and argue about it and do nothing, we face a catastrophic loss in every sector.
reduce its severity? for how long? what if we continue to dump money into it and all it does is reduce/postpone the inevitable what if we not only end up economically in the dump, but down the line we also end up with the SAME environmental problems(we would have been in had we done nothing) but also with a screwed up economy?
its a lose/lose situation. you spend money and slow global warming, or you spend money and it does nothing.
either way you are spending funds that could go to other areas that would have SIDE EFFECTS of helping the global warming situation.
How have we reduced it's severity? Broke is broke no mater how good the weather is. Go ask some poor people if they fell better about being poor when the weather is better, that's a ridiculous point.
well. we seem to be dumping hundreds of billions of dollars into ruining one part of the world, why not divert those funds to improving our own part? what we're talking about here is not counterproductive to the quality of human life. its cleaning up the air and the water. to the people who are talking about how this could cause some sort of depression, get realistic. we make enough corn and soy to run every automobile in the country as it is. the initial hit of newer cleaner building materials and factories would be eventually be made back if the proper energy is spent developing such technologies.
The problem here is that people want to keep the same old wasetful habits and arent used to being told what to do by nature. Nature like the human body is resilient but all natural systems can be abused to a breaking point.
Many people are still in the 1980's mindset that says "If I can afford my (wasteful) llifestyle I should be free to live as I want." I think that major economic collapse will come if people try to hold on to old energy hog habits when change comes. Right now a waste mentality builte into the economy. If we change over to a conservation based economy we can keep on going. This is about choice and the world has to get ready to make a good one.
The damage has been done and it is too late to fully reverse it. We may be able to "patch up" the cracks by looking after it and being careful not to damage it further, but eventually the cracks will start to grow again.
Sooner or later, the windscreen will need to be replaced.....
Because you asked for someone to poke holes in the argument, I will do so.
I'll start with the small ones. First, there is no proof that the "worst that can happen" scenarios are real. For instance, it could turn out that despite a warming of ten or fifteen degrees or whatever, we don't get increased hurricanes, massive desertification, political upheaval, and so on. Or it could turn out that the costs are massively overstated, and that the technology produced by funding a fight against warming will ultimately prove beneficial. The odds are unknown. (More on unknown odds in a couple of paragraphs.)
Next, using the extreme problems/solutions and extrapolating from those is logically unsound. It could be that there are intermediate solutions that offer guaranteed success or much smaller risk, no matter what.
The biggest problem with your argument is that the extent to which we are causing warming is unknown, as is the effect of any amount of action we might take. Even assuming that the division of the argument into extreme cases is sound, you run into this problem. The chart is misleading. You simply can't make decisions without assessing the probabilities.
We'll assume that the chart you've depicted is absolutely correct, and that those are the only possible outcomes. Now, there is either a 100% chance that global warming is happening, or else there is a 100% chance that it is not. This is certainly not the same as saying that there is a 50% chance of each (or any other pair of probabilities). In the former case, the best choice is to fund research. In the latter, the best choice is to do nothing.
Basically, this fact breaks the chart. Either the top row represents the real world, or the bottom one does. But you can't have both.
If you were to do a risk analysis, as you have proposed, then your decision would be based on something like this:
Let r = the probability that there is global warming
c = the cost of doing something and being wrong
d = the cost of doing something and being right
e = the cost of doing nothing and being wrong
f = the cost of doing nothing and being right.
Then your decision comes down to simple math. Is c(1-r) dr greater than f(1-r) er? And that's essentially your argument, stating that e, the cost of doing nothing and being wrong, is so big that we simply must do something.
But you don't know what r is. And remember, r is either 1 or 0 -- there's no in between -- and by your premise there's *no way* of assessing which it is. Which means that you can't begin to solve that inequality, so you can't make any sort of rational logical decision about the best course of action.
As a somewhat pertinent aside, the reasoning you've used is related to something called the Envelope Paradox.
exactly correct. The logic of the model is correct but the variants are based on extreme results. The efficiency of the model is reduced by the probability of the the result being extreme. It is more probable that the extreme variants will not occur. It is the same reasoning that a person who plays the lottery may ponder. That the extreme positive is a greater reward scenario than the the minor risk of the extreme negative. This is true but does not effect the probability which remains based on chance.
Absolutely correct. I hope that you do not mind I have copy/pasted your legitimate argument to another place this video was posted. I did not take credit as my own respectively, but did not want to say "Snarkophilus said this". Good to see that there are free-thinkers out there.
I should have read your post before making mine. You see the same errors in logic as I do. He said he talked with many people about his thinking and found no one who could find fault. I would be very interested in where he found his people for his survey. A college campus? A nightclub? A mall?
It only goes to show the sorry state of our public education, Kindergarden through college. Right now when most of the older generation is gone the only source for logical thinking will be homeschoolers and the self taught.
I am a computer science student and have been researching the computer climate models. The media and climate doomsdayers leads us to believe that powerful computers CAN'T possibly be wrong; after all they are "powerful" computers.
There are many people who say the models are far from perfect, it is impossible to accurately predict something as chaotic as the earth's climate. The climate doomsdayers are using the fear of the unknown future to promote their socialist agenda of higher taxes and more government. They attempt to shut down any dissenting views by labeling skepics as "deniers", or to make it look like their opinions are extreme. The flaw with this guy's argument is accepting the erroneous belief that the predictions will come true. If we were to take action on anyone's and everyone's catastrophic predictions, we would spend our lives wasting our time planning for things that would have never happened anyway.
This can be applied to nearly anything. I wonder if this fellow believes in the War on Terror. Put up the premise : Terrorism- fighting it will benefit humanity vs the False reality that fighting it will do nothing. If we act -> :) if we do not - apocolytic predictions, etc.
Come now, you can't simply put a smiley face on possible positive benefits of making decision. It minimizes the benefit of such decisions. Hence we should always "act" because there is always a possibility of apocolyptic outcomes, and we can't risk any apocolyptic outcomes accodring to this gentleman.
This guy should have done some research. Amazingly, he is not the first person to have thought of odds and impacts of scenarios in this way. He might start with the decades-long modeling project executed by the Yale School of Forestry and Department of Economics to do for real what he is showing on a whiteboard. For that matter, he might have read the UN IPCC WG2 and WG3 reports which reference a lot of relevant research on this question.
Here are some (example) problems with his video:
1. His "bad case" is overblown and rhetorical. Under a reasonable scenario for global economic and population growth (Scenario A1B), the IPCC projects about 2.8C increase in global temperatures by 2100. According to any competent modelers (for example, the Yale project), this would lead to about break-even net global economic impacts, i.e., the positive benefits of warming would about equal the negative impacts. It's only when you get to warming of about 4C in 22nd and 23rd centuries that you, according to the IPCC, see a net reduction in global GDP of about 1- 5%. That's a lot of money, but it's hardly the Armageddon that he is describing.
2. According to the IPCC, no global climate model currently predicts any of the disaster scenarios he describes for the next century.
3. Without any quantitative consideration of odds of an outcome, you could apply this same 2X2 matrix argument to the risk of space aliens descending from the sky and killing everybody. Why don't we have crash programs that risk global depression against space aliens and a meteor strike and a global pandemic based on a modified version of Avian Flu and, and and....? Because the list of such anxieties is endless and our resources are finite.
The idea that industrial regulation in order to combat global warming is incorrect and crap that the Bush complex and conglomerate media are pushing on the general public. What is more likely to happen is that increased government and societal interest in creating a green environment would shift our resources towards more research and development, more careers in science, and negate the need for wars over oil. Bush has actually said it many times now (finally) "we need to reduce our dependence on oil for energy". So the best choice isn't necessarily the best choice because global warming exists or is caused by us, but rather because it's nicer to live on a planet which is cleaner and with more natural resources that are healthy or less spoiled by the travails of ourselves. I say let's combat "global warming" whether or not it is real or is caused by us, and let's do it by working on alternative energy sources instead using our old fashioned technology of combustion engines. Also, climate models are mostly always wrong. Read "State of Fear" by Michael Chriton (sp?)
BRAVO!!! Very nicely said "bigbad", when people like this guy and others use the extremes to get us to believe in something there's too much controversy over the thing that dont matter, like if what he says could happen or not. Lets just do it so we can live in a healthier enviroment, and at the same time figure out how we can do it without going broke. Aren't we suposed to be the smartest species?
imthebigbadwolf, I would not depend on Michael Crichton for anything resembling science. :)
Climate models are pretty good, actually. I know it's hard for people who don't actually do scientific modelling to understand, but even given the uncertainties in the inputs, they do a remarkable job. You have to understand that thousands of very smart people have *each* spent many thousands (tens of thousands?) of hours studying this stuff. The results we have now are pretty accurate.
Also, redraxil said, "snarkophilus you have missed the basic point which is the results of inaction far outway the results of action."
Read what I posted again, and you will realize that you actually can't logically make that statement. What you've said is true if and only if warming is happening and will cause a significant problem. But we don't know if that's the case, so it is senseless to come to that conclusion.
When western civilization began culling its foundations in classical eduaction, our abilities to reason were the first to diminish. The gentleman in the video has set up what is called a "strawman" argument (yes, the same Pascal's Gambit earlier mentioned. However, Pascal argued on behalf of individual souls and his gambit was only a piece of his rationale.) ; frame an argument such that you can support or destroy it in very simple terms. Replace climate change with, oh...I don't know, my uncontrolled back hair. The cost of inaction is catastrophic. Or, for a less ridiculous analogy, the writer earlier mentioned our fears in the 70's over Global Cooling and a coming Ice Age brought about by man's particulate emissions. (The first Earth Day hinged almost entirely on this eminent doom.) Remember, scientism has proclaimed these truths to be self-evident.
(I must interject a little sidebar: War for Oil? Is the writer kidding? How does Bush lead a war for oil while decrying our need to lessen our dependency on black gold?)
Our Earth has been warmer than it is now and it has been cooler. The Northern hemisphere seems to be in a warming trend while the Southern Hemisphere is holding steady. (The last 50 years are fairly reliable temp. measurements.) The world is as knowable as it has ever been...science is still observe, test, re-test, ad infinitum...regardless of the new devices.
Finally, I submit that our hemisphere's environment is he cleanest it has been i 35 years. Anyone care to check that out?
No i dont care to check that out.
to quote Jacques Yves Cousteau twice
"The road to the future leads us smack into the wall. We simply ricochet off the alternatives that destiny offers. Our survival is no more than a question of 25, 50 or perhaps 100 years."
AND
"Water and air, the two essential fluids on which all life depends, have become global garbage cans. "
Nice to see someone putting some critical thought to the issue and looking at all sides. Let me say that I agree that we need to do something, spread the word, and accept that it might mean that our pocketbooks might be affected by helping with GCC.
The argument though, is not a "Silver Bullet." There still is and always will be debate... as well there should. Seems that this line of thinking got our current administration convinced they should invade a country that might be holding WMDs. I mean, the worst case scenario (what has happened) should have outwieghed the risk of non-action (getting blown up by Saddam.) So the methodology is far from fool-proof.
We all know the right answer now. And don't try and say that the War was never about WMDs, just use this video and that argument as the scope, please.
A rip off of Pascal's Wager. The problem is the premise. Even though it is plausable that the global temperature may be slightly higher on average by 1-2 degrees, we are lead to beleive that this is not normal, man made and going to continue until total devestation. Remember the same people touting global freezing 20 years ago? The thing is, the earth has experienced global warming and freezing throughout the ages. In the 1200's we had global warming. This explains crop production in areas that would not be supported today and proof of a lush forest and crops in Greenland. Yet in the 1500's, we experienced the "mini-ice age". This changed the face of Greenland to a temperature that is present today. We know that many indians have crossed the Bering Strait into the US on ice that is no longer there? Did humans really influence the weather then?
It's all poppycock and a way for UN enthusiasts to preach to the world wealth redistribution. (i.e. Kyoto Treaty, etc.)
Ahh you got to love statistics. He has a flaw in his thinking. He says that if we do something and there is no global warming then there will be cost and a depression. Though if there is global warming then there will only be cost. FALSE, FALSE, FALSE.
If you assume that you pay for global warming and assume an economic depression then when global warming does occur you cannot assume that the economic depression does not happen. The assumption has to be the same in that there are costs and an economic depression.
So using his logic Ticket A is actually the worse off ticket because you are ensured of paying too much and ensured of going into an economic depression. Whereas by not paying for global warming you are taking a chance.
To explain my argument more fully. Let's say that you bought ticket A and had an economic collapse and cost. How do you know if global warming did or did not happen? You can't because you committed yourself, thus you can distinguish the effects with or without global warming.
Thus his conclusion of no economic disaster with global warming is false.
That is exactly what i was thinking. If we have a global depression in the first row then there has to be a global depression in the second row. So if we do something about global warming then we will be in a global depression according to this guy...... There is no way he didnt think about that when he created his chart, so he left it out on purpose. Conclusion he has an agenda just like the rest of the global warming yahooooos
There is an enormous hole in this guy's premise for column A, and that is that taking extreme action WILL ACTUALLY PRODUCE RESULTS. It comes down to the flawed, but clever, marketing on fear to induce people to believe that voting on how to spend money, and then spending it, will allow us to control the weather.
The most compelling evidence I have seen, which is routinely attacked as irrelevant by the CO2 camp, is that the CO2 lines on the graphs do not coincide with the temperature graphs. However, the curves of solar activity almost exactly mirror temperature data.
That is the simple argument that is no more than the obvious: the only reason we have life, climate, weather and everything else on this planet is that it is in mostly fortuitous proximity to that particular star. When the star experiences changes, guess what? It affects us! No $#! , eh, Sherlock?
So the premise for the lottery ticket is in fact, are we willing to believe that if we regulate human behavior ENOUGH and reserve enough money to do it, not to mention vote for the "right" people, we will then be able to control the activity of the sun?
That's the real no-brainer. And it is in fact socialism to the nth degree. Humans will become wage slave to government programs to control the sun. It is a stone age argument that will leave us all cave men.
A question for this ever so reasonable fellow on column B: If the food producing areas of the world become dustbowls, and famine and disease are rampant, how will there be masses of overcrowded people having wars? Can't have both, ace. There may be small bands of rovers out of Mad Max or Waterworld, but not crowds fighting over the spoils.
The better argument is how do we continue to improve our technologies to allow us to adapt to the INEVITABLE changes that will occur in the earth's, AND THE SUN'S, cycles.
Which means the eco folks better get on the bandwagon with allowing windfarms in their "viewsheds", stop tearing down hydroelectric dams for the sake of the salmon (sport fishing by wealthy "stewards" of the wild), and coming to the table on nuclear power.
This argument assumes that the worst that could happen in Column "A" is economic in nature. If we acted to cool the planet via some of the idea out there (Man-Made Sulfer Dioxide Volcanoes, Sun Reflectors in Space, Man-Made Forests, Algae Blooms) the worst wouldn't just be cost related... we could inadvertantly cause another ice age and Eff up the planet in the totally opposite way! All the same stuff that happened on column "B" would happen on Column A. An ice age do to overcooling or "acting when we didn't need to" would destroy farmland, displace living space and do all the same things rising waters would. This argument is total BS, and I believe something needs to be done. I just don't think this is a very convincing way to argue that point! If I - as a green supporter - can rip this apart, I can only imagine what a staunch republican would have to say about this.
Yes, this is important. It is an interesting argument but I think that we can do more than just watch this video and pass it on!!!!! Unless you actively participate in reducing green house gases global warming will continue...with or without public policy! So quit using electricity, unplug your computer and ride your bike to today's destinations!
this is a very interesting argument/discussion and while I could say a lot of different things in reply to certain comments and whatnot right now- I just have to say this... Though Global Warming is (in my opinion at least) an actual problem- whether it be life-altering or irrelevant- there are things that could kill us in an instant that are never even considered. And these things we cannot detect nor can we prevent. Honestly, I recommend anyone interested or intrigued with this sort of thing to brush up on some detailed geoscience- it may put some things in perspective.
You made three very big assumptions in your two columns. Each in error and each left out of your grid of options.
The fist assumption that is NOT based on facts is the grid that is True (man caused global warming) and Yes (we should act). The erroneous assumption is the government and social action will prevent global warming. For example is the effort for bio-fuels. Corn based products are costing more fossil fuels than it saves but it is promoted as if it will reduce CO2 and help prevent global warming (GW) It is driving up the cost of food in third world countries and is adding to CO2. This will have a reaction in poor countries and even advanced ones such as increased clearing of forest for food production. Much of that clearing will expend fuels that are not need at this time. We all know what the result will be. More greenhouse gases and less forest to absorb them.
The second assumption is that a factor as to what is stuff man is doing that is causing it. Even if we are causing it the culprits identified may be mistaken such as CO2. Remember CO2 is for plants what oxygen is to animals. Rising CO2 may or may not be helping minimize GW. Remember one of the efforts some are promoting as a preventative action is the planting of forests. Which is being undermined by bio-fuel promotions in industrial countries trying to prevent GW.
The third assumption is GW a bad thing. More people live in the tropics than live in the artic and a rising tropic earth could feed and support more people than is here presently. The receding glazier are exposing evidence of ancient human settlement such as the mines in Europe that were abandoned for the winter that never ended as the glazers grew over them and only now are receding. Higher global temps will result in increased evaporation of the oceans. Don’t believe me take a towel and soak it in a cup of water than put one out in the hot sun and the other in your fridge. Which do you think will dry faster? Keep in mind a modern fridge dehydrates the air to prevent frosting and the summer humidity outside is very high this time of year and yet the towel outside will still dry faster even if you keep it away from the sun. The point being made of the ills of GW is man made and doing nothing will hurt is in error. We just do not know but your grid assumes this. The seas may not rise and most of the other things as well. There is loads more on this issue.
Factor in these corrections to your assumptions and you will have to take out the smiley face in the True/Yes grid. You do not know if the action will help and in fact may hurt the situation more. Also take out the list of ills in the True/No grid and replace it with a huge question mark. We do not know if GW will be a good thing or a bad things and historical evidence points more to the good than the bad. We have lived in warmer climates than we do now, we just do not know how a much larger number of people will deal with it now vs the past.
God save us from the reformer. When they see a problem they will not rest until they have made matters worse.
If you want uplifting working solutions to solve the problems that are already here-read World Changing- users guide to the planet. There are so many solutions we could be using now if the government got out of it's own way.
The only flaw in the whole thing is acting on GCC causing an economic depression. The fossil fuel industry actually employs very few people. Switching to a renewable energy system would require huge numbers of people to screw solar panels to roofs, and erect wind turbines etc.
What will cause an economic depression is Peak Oil. Peak Oil (and Peak Coal) may in fact cause serious problems in building the sustainable future we need.
Unless we abandon growth as a religion, we are screwed one way or the other.
Interesting video -- and I enjoyed the discussions after.
Unfortunately the skeptics I know would not be convinced to act based on the two column, two row model. One 'deluded' friend believes that man is not responsible for global warming and therefore we can't do anything about it. He points to the warming of Mars as proof...
I cannot convince him. I just figure he'll find out eventually and in the meantime I am going to do what is right for myself and future generations.
My belief is we shouldn't waste time trying to convince the skeptics. They will never 'see' the problem until it's too late. We have to act now, individually and collectively because it is the right thing to do. Just because my neighbor won't give up his car, his power mower, his poorly insulated leaky house, his swimming pool, his cottage, his imported food, his Caribbean vacations, etc., etc. is no excuse for me to live that way. 'My Green Conscience' and my green visual essays (e.g. To My Future Grandkids in 2020) deal with the struggle to be green in North America -- and how hard it is. I think that Gandhi said it beautifully, "You must be the change you wish to see in the world."
“My belief is we shouldn't waste time trying to convince the skeptics. They will never 'see' the problem until it's too late. We have to act now,…”
You are just what I am talking about when I say “God save us from reformers. When they see a problem they will not rest until they have made matters worse.”
Your premise is “doing something is right, doing nothing is wrong” That is not true in anything let alone this. The opposite is no more true either. I hope that gives you comfort.
Allow me to give you an example and one related to saving the world (one toad at a time). In the American west there is a rare variety of toad. Endangered and often found as road kill in a western state. A local politician was determined to save this poor creature so she lobbied to have the road raised to prevent the toads from crossing the road and build save tunnels for the toads to cross from one side to the other. The seemed real important to the toads at the time.
Now I am not anti-toad. In fact I am very pro-toad which is why I find such activists so sorrowful (especially for toad’s sake). But the end if the story is the toads never used the tunnels that were designed to save their lives and the higher road prevented their crossing. The end result was a rare species in decline disappeared from the area in question. Even the politician that promoted all of this admitted they most likely never used the tunnels at all, but “at least her heart was in the right place.” Right?
Wrong. Her heart was vain self satisfaction no matter who suffers as long at it is not her. This example was a toad but proponents of GW will not stop until mankind is ruined to satisfy their vain self delusions.
Total all human contributions to greenhouse gases, close all plants, stop all combustion engines even hybrids, don’t even stop with your homes, stop even cow farts adding methane gas, you can even take it to the very CO2 we exhale as we breath and you are still in the single digits. Remove it all and you still can not get past 5% give or take.
Still no matter the heart of the activist is in the right place. So start by reducing the CO2 as you exhale, all of us, but you activist must set the example first.
That should help the rare western toad since no more politicians and activist to “save” them.
I jest of course but your complaints about the skeptic’s works both ways. Science be damned do something is the motto of the day. Feel better about your self is more important than doing something useful works as well these days.
Here is a problem I have. You assume in column A that there is a cost that could cause global depression. For one thing, how can you assume we can ever convince the entire world to conserve. So even if we decide individually to conserve it could possibly cause a U.S. only depression. I know we could probably convince some countries to conserve, but that would only do so much. Plus if less developed countries decide to start using more due to falling costs of resources the benefit could be offset. Somewhat likely, but possible if they have developing industries and can find markets we may have left or cannot fully serve anymore. The market for using natural resources is not going away anytime soon and we cant stop everyone from using them. Second, someone else kind of said this earlier. If we are right and we stop global warming, we still could be in a global depression as a result. I mean we are alive, but you claimed a possiblity of depression worse that the Great Depression. Is that really better? How can we be sure that wouldnt happen just because we succeeded in stopping global warming. I think I could make an argument for the do nothing lottery ticket. Because your ticket will lead to depression most of the time and no global warming half the time. The other ticket will lead to total diaster or life as usual. Atleast ticket B has a scenario where every will be fine with no consequences. Ticket A is going to have financial consequences as you chart cleary shows no matter what. I think you need a better chart for your theory.
I'm not sure how many people you've shown your video, but I find it hard to believe nobody's found a flaw.
You can't use binary statistics to scientifically prove a choice including a multitude of variables. You might be able to convince someone in an argument, but scientifically, your demonstration is full of holes.
Your argument assigns equal probability to either true or false. Anybody with an opinion will immediately assign more weight to one or the other, breaking your binary statistics.
If I believe there's a 99% chance the planet is going to burst into flames and a 1% chance it's not, your chart *clearly* shows everyone in the world how simple our choice is. Conversely, if I believe there's a 1% chance we'll even notice an impact from global warming, I'm going to choose financial stability every time.
If I have two lottery tickets with the same odds of winning, you've got an easy model. If I purchase a $1 Powerball ticket with 1 in 25 million odds of winning or a $1 church raffle ticket with 1 in 100 odds, I would never pick the Powerball in hopes of meeting a strategic goal. In your example, the viewers bias will dictate which of your lottery tickets is the Powerball and which is the raffle ticket.
This argument works for all kinds of crap; chocolate vs vanilla, belief in god, etc.
Also, your worst case scenario for "take action, false" falls substantially short of the worst that could happen. Whereas, your worst case for "take no action, true" would be actively argued by anyone who doesn't share your opinion.
What a fucking terrible video, having no connection to reality. One plain fact is that the financial cost to avoid the supposed global warming is not even close to cause financial instability to the world. It will merely cause the few dozens of people with the world's highest personal assets to lose a few.
A friend forwarded this message to me and I thoughht that it was very interesting and a rational take on this problem but felt that althought examplified as a somewhat mathematical equation it lacked the possible outcome should a higher power, specifically God, intervene. With this unknown in the equation all, even illogical outcomes, are possible.
Surely if we can decide on the row, we don't need to worry about the risks the columns bring? I personally think global warming is a load of rubbish (simply look at temperatures going back in thousands of years, not decades)
but we have time to find out, hopefully. The economic depression is a pointless outcome. We can make the right choice. Don't accept global warming as a fact: don't even accept it as a possibility. Thousands of scientists know that their jobs depend on this theory continuing to be known as fact. Eliminate it from the equasion, and see a good answer, and a stupid answer.
In Game Theory this is called "Chicken" or (depending on the weights of the a1 and b2 boxes) "Coordination with Conflict". Even if I agree with his conclusion that we should immediately act to make climate change a matter of public policy , I think the argument is flawed since the beginning. These type of games can reach an equilibrium with "mixed strategies", but the author here is using "pure strategies" instead. The problem is the following: row A and row B DO NOT HAVE THE SAME PROBABILITY! More than 99% of scientific studies/articles on climate change agree that global warming is a product of man via industrial greenhouse gases. If you analyze climate cycles millions of year back, the only point where there have been unusual graph points or variations occur post 19th century industrial era. Also, the tendency graph of CO2 concentration in the atmosphere is identical to the tendency graph of temperature change starting when humans first produced greenhouse gases. (This means that the probability of the FALSE row is extremely small...statistically negligible). Thus, in order for the game to be played correctly, each box needs to be ponderated with its actual probability of ocurrence. If you repeat the game with mixed strategies and using each row's real weight, the outcome is to act (a1: Yes column and True row). I agree with "enammy"'s comment. And "skeptic", please download some temperature charts for the last million years.
Great conceptual analysis. Now let's apply the same logic to, say, weapons of mass destruction in Iraq or the threat of global terrorism. Does the author have the hutspa to promote such a viral viral video for these possibilities with the same "cost of the mistake"? Bet not. Now let's see what he will do about! Will he spread the word?
What the climate catastrophe experts want us to do is eliminate CO2 to avoid global warming. CO2 is a natural part of our environment and is not a problem. The amount of CO2 in our atmosphere is small compared to other so called greenhouse gases. The doomsayers suggest we can change weather by stopping CO2 from getting into the atmosphere, only problem is it can't be done. We can't change the weather and the natural process of the earth by cutting a tiny percentage of a tiny percentage of CO2. This guys argument will lead us to financial ruin. It will ensure people in undeveloped countries will continue to live half the lives of the people in developed countries. Global warming is a lie based on a lying politicians movie. Spread that word, not this guys bogus logic.
Very flawed thinking - who is going to take 'action' and what is the mechanism by which this action would work? If the action involves trying to manipulate atmospheric CO2 in order to pedictably control the weather/climate, then it is doomed to fail. What if we sacrifice mobility, the economy etc, and the worst happened anyway? The real win/win is adaptation to inevitable climate change, rather than wasting trillions on a King Canute exercise.
Go read the book "With Speed and Violence, Why Scientists Fear Tipping Points in Climate Change" by Fred Pearce. Each chapter is about a climate scientist's work and thinking. The book is authoritative and irrefutable; many of the scientists are Nobel Prize winners and at the top of the profession. It's very, very frightening. Before I was halfway through it I went and bought a Prius. I've had twisty lightbulbs for years. I signed up for slightly more expensive green electricity from my utility. I bought a front loader washer and my electric bill dropped $30. I'm going to dump another 8" of celluose insulation in my attic. Humans beat the CFC's ozone problem. We can beat global warming.
The flaw in the theory is that both squares in column A should have the same entry. If we bent over backwards to prevent climate change and climate change did not occur, our global economic state would be identical regardless of whether that change would have occurred. You can't come to an informed conclusion on this without actually looking at statistical likelihoods of various outcomes. When you do that I believe the odds are high that we are causing climate change and need to take drastic action against it.
At no point does he discuss 'discounting' - or 'risk discount pricing'. In short, without adding this fundamental concept this man's thesis is flawed. As are the majority of eco-doom theories.
Your lifespan, assuming you will live to be 80 is .00005 of the age of the universe, 13.7 billion years. If the time was compressed into 24 hours , you will have lived 1/10,000 of a second. Enjoy yourself and act responsibly. Mathus said the human race will exceed the capacity to feed itself in the 1700's. Wrong! China and india will be the super powers of the future . let them deal with it.
Go read the book "State of Fear" by Michael Crichton. Then you'll understand that we are wasting our time worrying and spending money fighting over global warming issues, when in actuality it is impossible to predict if it is really true.
Global warming is inevitable. If you think this is the first time we've had global warming you haven't taken earth science. Earth has been our current temperatures much longer than not. Since the Pre-Cambrian period, millions of years ago, earths averge temperature has been 22 degrees C. There have been three instances of ice ages,and we are just coming out of one. This is all based on paleo climatology. Those instances were supposedly caused by huge meteors hitting earth (ergo demise of the dinasaurs). We have been taking instrument measurements daily for 100 years or so. Our average is high, but I don't see how you can compare the average data of 100 against 5 millon years. The short term change of earth's temperatures might be associated with the Sun, which has hot and cold spells, and as we all know, do affect the temperatures and climate of the planet. However, we do have the means and technology to improve our environment, not because of the global warming scare, but because of our every day health. Do we need to tax people to death to do this? How much of a emergency is all this? I would say, educate and encourage, but taxing just causes the 4th "Something will happen/ and let's do something about it" scenario as far as I'm concerned. People have been starving, and so on for as long as there's been people. Humans are living longer than ever befor (unless you believe the bible and people did indeed live into their hundreds. How much do we really know about all this except from past pre-history and known history...not enough to make any assertions. I vote for letting innovation take it's course. Humans are pretty resourceful, and we don't need a bunch of radicals to make decisions for all of us.
You're going to get Political, Environmental, Political, Social, and Health problems in the other category as well. Worldwide Depression includes all of these factors....
Global Warming is a starving scientists way of scaring you into pulling out your wallet and handing him some cash... OR frighten you to vote in office a political party that will finance his research with our taxes. All while working in a non-green building that employs 1000 of non-green employers.
100 years of research (and really, how well was that research 100 years ago) verses 5 million plus years of this planets life. Stop hugging the trees, set down your hippy peace pipes come 4 wheeling in my polluting 1970 Dodge. OH! bring water, its getting hot outside...
Quite interesting, but there is a fault in his reasoning. His "column A" implies that things are better if we have global warming than if we don't. Surely having global warming and doing something about it, does not mean that the effects of global recession etc will not occur just because it was worth doing. Furthermore all the effects of his "column B" with global warming will not be mitigated by "column A". So the choice to be made is not between the things he says, but rather
ColA ColB
true cost catastrophe?? but
global depression not the end of the world
some irreversible damage
social change
false cost no effect :-)
global depression
social change
There is no smiley face in True A. In the end there is not much difference between True A & True B as far as society as we know it is concerned, but there is a hell of a difference between False A & False B. So you really do need to have some idea about whether global warming is true or false, otherwise you force the situation into undesirable effects.
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