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

Al made some good observations about the war in Iraq compared to spending on
warming-related concerns, but let me turn that around a bit. I see Al Gore
as the Don Rumsfeld of warming. Rumsfeld et al. believed (or at least told
us) that if we didn't take drastic action Sadaam would soon be able to
deliver suitcase nukes to our door. So, damn the cost and damn the
planning, we invaded. Likewise says Gore: absent a full-on assault on
warming, warming will immanently nuke us.

Now, what if, instead of reacting based on the worst-possible-case scenario,
we had used more limited means to contain Sadaam, recognizing that he was a
real threat but that the worst-possible-case was unlikely? Who knows, but
my guess is that the world would be more secure, lots of innocent lives
would have been spared, trillions in war costs would have been put to more
productive uses, the U.S. would have retained a position of international
leadership on moral issues, etc. Doesn't the danger have to be truly clear
and present before committing to war?

It seems clear to me that warming is a very real problem caused at least in
some significant part by human activity. I don't think, though, that the
threat yet justifies the kind of action most warming advocates seem to
propose: essentially a surrender of national sovereignty to unelected
international bodies and a huge tax on present economic growth. IMHO, the
policy answers should be geared towards developing cleaner energy
technologies and reduction in single-occupancy gas-powered cars -- goals
that can be pursued incrementally at the national level through tax and
competition policy, grant and infrastructure funding, patent prizes, and the
like.

On 1/18/07, Kenneth Piers <Pier@calvin.edu> wrote:
>
> Friends: If I may chime in as well. I do not know how likely it is that
> global
> warming will be catastrophic - for humans or for other populations- so far
> it
> seems to be good for West Michigan; our summers are pleasant- no
> hurricanes, no
> tornados, no wild-fires, no catastrophic flooding - and winters are warmer
> -
> always a good thing for bicyclists!. But, at the same time, it seems that
> warming, so far, has not been good for the southern coastal areas of the
> US and
> probably also not for the southwestern parts of the US. In fact this
> winter
> again we have a remarkably surprising distribution of weather across the
> US.
> For not a small number of people what has been happening must already seem
> quite catastrophic and we are in the very early stages of the warming
> regime.
> A very big problem with the warming of the globe is that the warming is
> not
> uniformly distributed but seems to be most strongly expressed in the polar
> regions. So an average increase of 2 or 3 degrees globally might mean an
> increase of 1 degree or less at the equator with much stronger warming at
> the
> high latitudes. If this happens melting of the polar ice caps (and
> Greenland)
> will be accelerated - and climatologists are already thoroughly startled
> at the
> rate of melting occurring in Greenland. Such warming could very well lead
> to
> melting of the permafrost in northern latitudes with a potential release
> to the
> atmosphere of a huge amount of methane - now sequestered in the
> permafrost. If
> this happens I think no one knows what sort of warming may occur - but it
> might
> well be "runaway" warming - no amount of human remediation will be able to
> offset it. And that would likely result in substantial melting of the
> polar
> icecaps - and attendant rise in Ocean levels - the melting of the
> Greenland ice
> sheet alone will lead to a rise of over 20 ft in average ocean levels -
> and
> that would be truly catastrophic since about 80% of the world's population
> lives within 20 miles of and ocean coast.
> Moreover, I don't think that making an orderly but fast transition away
> from
> fossil fuel use to sustainable and carbon-neutral energy sources needs to
> be
> economically ruinous for the developed world. It will be challenging and
> will
> require a firm commitment to change the way we now operate and may well
> mean
> that we consume at a lower rate. But it need not be ruinous if we adopt
> good
> policies and practices that protect the poorest among us.
> In my view, the risk of not beginning the transition now is too great.
> respectfully
> ken piers
>
> Ken Piers
>
> "We are by nature creatures of faith, as perhaps all creatures are; we
> live by
> counting on things that cannot be proved. As creatures of faith, we must
> choose
> either to be religious or superstitious, to believe in things that cannot
> be
> proved or to believe in things that can be disproved."
> Wendell Berry
>
> >>> "Al Koop" <koopa@gvsu.edu> 1/18/2007 12:20 PM >>>
> >>> "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.
>
>
>
>
>
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-- 
David W. Opderbeck
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