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

Part of the prolem with predictions is that they are past on as fact. The
data may be factual, but the predictions are just possibities (or
probabilities).
 
In the early hours of Katrina, the mayor of N.O. said that thousands were
dead. This was not based upon actual numbers of dead found (facts) but on
the report done years prior which made predictions of worst case scenarios.
 
Does anyone who is in full (human caused) support of global warming see a
picture that is anything less than the worst case? Or, are we going to end
up like Nagan apologizing for being alarmists for basing our "facts" upon
something that is only a possibility?
 
Don

  _____

From: asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu [mailto:asa-owner@lists.calvin.edu] On
Behalf Of David Opderbeck
Sent: Thursday, January 18, 2007 1:14 PM
To: Al Koop
Cc: asa@calvin.edu
Subject: [Norton AntiSpam] 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 <mailto:koopa@gvsu.edu> > wrote:

>>> "David Opderbeck" < dopderbeck@gmail.com <mailto: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
<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  <http://www.davidopderbeck.com/> 
Blog:  http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html
<http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html> 
MySpace (Music):    <http://www.myspace.com/davidbecke>
http://www.myspace.com/davidbecke 
-- 
David W. Opderbeck
Web:  http://www.davidopderbeck.com
Blog:    <http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html>
http://www.davidopderbeck.com/throughaglass.html
MySpace (Music):  http://www.myspace.com/davidbecke 
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