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HappySqurriel on 31 July 2009
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Sqrl said:
megaman79 said:
None of us are scientists therefore we don't know how to judge the research and evidence.

It works both ways but only one of these options will almost certainly cause irreversable environmental damage. If you have children why would you risk it?

Anyway im sick of arguing this. European political leaders, right and left, are supporting the ETS and emissions cuts. There is proof that IT IS NOT a political issue.

@First bit: Absolute rubbish.  Science is science.  Anyone who takes the time to comprehend it will be able to, that is the basis of science.  The "people are too dumb to get it" routine is hardly new and time and again throughout the history of science this rhetoric has been, to borrow a line, discredited as the refuge of weak science.

@the rest of it,

Your use of the precautionary principle is predictable but the "why risk it?" bit is a question I can answer.  How about because the historical evidence says that warmer climates are a good thing?  One of the persistent thorns in the side of AGW proponents has been the Medieval warm period.  But what is associated with this time of significantly warmer temperatures?  You guessed it! - Growth, prosperity, bumper crops, exploration, discovery, etc...

We have far more to fear from an ice-age (both in likely-hood and substantiated impact).

 

 

I just wanted to add something on the topic of Science ... All science is based on the scientific method which (for the most part) is the rigorous testing of that hypothesis to demonstrate that it can not be false.

Being that the hypothesis surrounding "Climate Changes" is (essentially) that there is an unusually rapid change in the average temperature of the earth, that is being caused by humans, and will lead to negative consequences in the long run what must be demonstrated to validate this hypothesis is:

  1. That the climate is not changing at a rate that falls within historic norms. Being that there is evidence to suggest that the Earth has seen much more rapid changes in the climate to much more extreme levels over the past several hundred thousands of years this will be difficult to demonstrate.
  2. That this climate change can not be caused by anything except for humans. Being that their is a strong correlation between solar activity and the changes in the average worldwide temperature, and we have had a period of unusually (from our understanding) high solar activity this will be difficult to demonstrate.
  3. That the climate change presented can not have a positive or neutral impact on the world. As you have already pointed out, there is evidence that suggests that periods that were as warm if not warmer than we're currently translated into higher crop yields where people were (generally speaking) better off than periods where it was colder than we're currently.