Lingyis said:
1. yeah 2. steady supply of journal articles 3. obviously need american support 4. see below 5. see below
While it's important to gather evidence of AGW, it's much, much, much more important to realize the following. Even if there's a 10% chance that AGW is real, actions should be taken because the downside is unseemly large. Sadly, politicians seems to glance over this and this kind of logic, though unassailable, is something the general populace seem not to be capable of reasoning. More likely, they're just ignorant. Now I'd put the chances at closer to 99%. Some commision came up with the figure 90%. I'm disappointed with the 90%. 99% might as well be the threshold where theory becomes fact. Now I respond to 4 and 5. It's impossible to "prove" or "disprove" something like this. There are just too many variables, period. This is why there's debate--it's the scientific method, you need to turn every stone. But outside of this realm, you just need to make a leap of faith. I'm sure that REPUTABLE scientists on both sides of the debate will tell you whether or not it's human caused, action should be taken because of the potential downside. I hope more people can take my view. It's like smoking--by the time sufficient quantities of research has been done to show very strong links with cancer, many people are dead. And even now there's studies once in a while that show no correlation, and somehow, those articles will make it in the headlines. On the other hand, sometimes there's one article that show that a certain type of food is carcinogenic and the public immediately eschews that item... and then that article turns out to be not trustworthy. The public mind works in mysterious ways. Sigh.
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I would agree with you Lingyis except for the fact that those who are pushing AGW want to spend billions, if not trillions, of dollars attempting to solve a problem that may or may not even exist. I feel that the money could be better spent on something we know is happening, such as preventing the 25 million people who die every year because they don't have food to eat or clean water to drink. The latest IPCC report claims we'll see at most a few degree's celcius increase between now and 2100. Nobody knows exactly how this will effect the world. Some claim it will actually improve many parts of the world. Others claim it will lead to mass flooding and the worst parts of the bible. But it is a measurable fact that in the next 12 months, around 25 million people will die because they lack basic and essential requirements.
So tell me, why is it so important to hedge our bets on something like AGW when we can see people dying today?
