Wondering minds: global warming video

“I was only endeavouring to present the facts, uncoloured by my own opinions, unless you are referring to my responses to direct questioning in the comments?”

Yeah, right, Shaun. Funny that your objective analysis leads to the wrong risk management outcome.

A risk management approach has to include a cost-benefit analysis. The action demanded by activists will have certain negative economic effects (with the poorest harmed most) whereas the positive benefits, if any, are far from certain, especially as the real world data are increasingly diverging from the virtual world models upon which the anthropogenic global warming theory rests.

The risk management outcome would be that the best course of action is to build up the global economy as a bulwark against climate change, anthropogenic or natural, or any other potential disasters. In that way, more people are lifted out of poverty and only money that needs to be spent on mitigation would be. Nicholas Stern basically came to this conclusion, demonstrating that a future world will be much richer than we are today even with global warming catastrophes, so that it made more sense for them to pay than us.

Another curious fact is that the history of the world shows that a warm plant is a healthy and productive planet whereas a cold planet leads to extinctions and poor growth. Yet apparently this time, there are only negative effects of global warming, there are no benefits to be factored into the analysis.

If the best proof you have is that the NAS and AAAS say it is so, then you have no proof. These organisations have become political, just as James Hansen is more politician than scientist these days. What people need is evidence of the proof of the theory, not “I’m right because I’ve got more scientists than you” (I’d actually argue that there are more climatologists, atmospheric physicists, meteorologists and geologists opposed to the theory than for it, that would and should be neither here nor there except that you don’t have another argument). Neither the NAS nor the AAAS provide such proof, they just put out a committee statement, that is not science. There are very few papers that actually deal with the question: “is climate change caused by humans?” Most take the assumption that the answer is “yes” as a starting point.

As for companies, there are two reasons why they support some form of action. One is that they know that some form of action is inevitable, politicians in the modern world can’t solve real problems so they like solving virtual ones. Companies like to operate with certainty as to the constraints on their businesses so they are pressing governments to tell them what these constraints will be. Secondly, these companies are certain that if there is money to be made out of this scare, they’ll be the ones who are making it.