My 2 cents:
I don't *believe* in global climate change.
I don't know if climate change due to human activity is happening, we can't know. We might never know.
I think that it makes sense to:
1) calculate cost of potential outcomes ( all the ice melts, sea levels rise, displace billions of people ... )
2) calculate probabilities of those outcomes based on our best theories and evidence
This gives you some rough idea on the resources you should expend to prevent the negative outcomes.
I can't know for sure that if I walk out into traffic that a car will hit and kill me. But it is a highly probable event and the cost to prevent it is small. I'll wait for the light.
But before deciding what and how much to do to prevent global climate change, we need to realize we have an energy problem.
The west uses more than its share of energy.
The current sources are running out.
Buying energy is resulting in a huge wealth transfer that we are on the wrong end of.
Our history of exploiting that energy has resulted in despotic, unstable and unfriendly governments controlling much of it. We are funding them and giving them power.
Burning stuff to make energy produces pollution that has massive negative health implications that have nothing to do with climate change.
We need new energy sources. When we transition to new energy sources, we should try to solve as many of those problems as possible.
Almost all of the green energy technologies solve ALL of the problems.
Security, economy, sustainability, pollution and climate change as a bonus.
I don't *believe* in global climate change.
I don't know if climate change due to human activity is happening, we can't know. We might never know.
I think that it makes sense to:
1) calculate cost of potential outcomes ( all the ice melts, sea levels rise, displace billions of people ... )
2) calculate probabilities of those outcomes based on our best theories and evidence
This gives you some rough idea on the resources you should expend to prevent the negative outcomes.
I can't know for sure that if I walk out into traffic that a car will hit and kill me. But it is a highly probable event and the cost to prevent it is small. I'll wait for the light.
But before deciding what and how much to do to prevent global climate change, we need to realize we have an energy problem.
The west uses more than its share of energy.
The current sources are running out.
Buying energy is resulting in a huge wealth transfer that we are on the wrong end of.
Our history of exploiting that energy has resulted in despotic, unstable and unfriendly governments controlling much of it. We are funding them and giving them power.
Burning stuff to make energy produces pollution that has massive negative health implications that have nothing to do with climate change.
We need new energy sources. When we transition to new energy sources, we should try to solve as many of those problems as possible.
Almost all of the green energy technologies solve ALL of the problems.
Security, economy, sustainability, pollution and climate change as a bonus.
