Earth at Its Warmest In Past 12 Centuries

Doug Henwood dhenwood at panix.com
Thu Dec 10 08:45:03 PST 1998


Enzo Michelangeli wrote:


>For a second opinion, see:
>
>http://www.reason.org/climatefaqs.html

Cato, Reason, such lovely company the anti-warmers keep.

I loved this passage from the FAQs (drawn from risk/reward theorist Aaron Wildavsky:


>What's apparent in this anticipation / resilience framework is that it is
>not our knowledge, but our uncertainties which most strongly indicate the
>choice of pathway. This is because: 1) the conditions needed to assure a
>reasonable chance of success for anticipatory actions are quite stringent;
>2) there are more ways to get things wrong than to get them right; and 3)
>mistakes leave us less well prepared to deal with other current or future
>problems.
>
>RPPI's research, and that of many other analysts, indicates that given our
>current state of knowledge, we are not in a position to take anticipatory
>action that has a good chance of producing a net increase in our safety,
>or that of our children, or grandchildren. More research is clearly needed
>to bring levels of uncertainty down far enough to make for reliable
>decisionmaking.

Putting this as carefully as possible, there's considerable, if not clinching, evidence of a climate change that could be absolutely disastrous for human life. But since we can't be sure, it's best to do nothing. How reasonable.

Doug



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