Re: [asa] Global Warming, Ethics, and Social Sciences

> Al, that's an interesting graph, but what is the basis for those scary
> predictions? Another Wiki entry on the report notes that the report's
> "predictions are based on scenarios, and the IPCC did not assign any
> probability to the 35 scenarios used."
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Third_Assessment_Report
>
> In fact, the IPCC report itself states with respect to socioeconomic
> scenarios that *"Socioeconomic scenarios in general have been developed to
> aid decisionmaking under conditions of great complexity and uncertainty in
> which it is not possible to assign levels of probability to any particular
> state of the world at a future point in time. Therefore, it usually is not
> appropriate to make a statement of confidence concerning a specific
> socioeconomic scenario" * (
> http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/wg2/127.htm)
>
> So, yes, we can create plausible scenarios in which all the bars on a
> graph turn red and society melts down. But we can also create plausible
> scenarios in which the bars only reach orange, or stay green. There doesn't
> really seem to be any real predictive "science" to this kind of
> scenario-making, which is why I included "social sciences" in the post
> title.
>
>
> On 1/18/07, Al Koop <koopa@gvsu.edu> wrote:
> >
> > >>> "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com > 01/18/07 9:56 AM >>>
> > *My thinking concerning the consequences of global warming is that there
> > is
> > about a 99.99% chance that it will be an unmitigated disaster if the
> > temperature of the earth goes up a few degrees Centigrade in the next
> > several decades*.
> >
> > Al, what's the basis for that statement? What studies support this kind
> > of
> > claim?
> >
> >
> > http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming
> >
> > Look at the figure in the upper right corner. By that assessment, if
> > the temperature increases 6 degrees C in the next hundred years, there will
> > severe impacts across the globe--many extinctions, many extreme climatic
> > events, negative impacts almost everywhere, extensivel negative economic and
> > ecological impacts, and some significant chance of abrupt and irreversible
> > large scale transitions. If significant amounts of Greenland ice and
> > Antarctic ice melt, I understand that the ocean levels will rise meters, and
> > I cannot imagine that could be good for most coastal areas. From what I
> > know about ecology, ecosystems cannot adapt to such large temperature
> > changes over such short times, and the balance that now exists will be
> > thrown off and the results can hardly be anything but bad.
> >
> > It all depends on the amount of temperature increase; the worst impacts
> > won't be felt by today's older generations no matter what happens. Any
> > changes will be a gradual over decades and the visual evidence won't be
> > convincing to anyone who wants to see something obvious happening now.
> >
> > I really don't think the question is whether a 6 degree temperature
> > increase will be catastrophic; it will be. The question is whether there
> > will be that much of a temperature increase.
> >
> >
> >
> >
>
>
> --
> David W. Opderbeck
> Web: http://www.davidopderbeck.com
> Blog: http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html
> MySpace (Music): http://www.myspace.com/davidbecke
>

-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Web:  http://www.davidopderbeck.com
Blog:  http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html
MySpace (Music):  http://www.myspace.com/davidbecke
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