Humans are too stupid to prevent climate change

but I suspect there is a huge flaw in the logic of "Tragedy of the Commons".

As for the global warming thing it may be that they have never really made a convincing case that there is a huge danger, especially given the various contradictions, exaggerations and outright fraud. I still think that we don't know enough to do anything. The so-called fixes may do more harm than good.

People are already willing to use energy more efficiently and to try to keep the environment clean. But some of the more draconian stuff doesn't seem to make sense.

Just look at the way the various countries are behaving. It is in the economic self interest of most of the major players (short term, at least) to continue to develop using readily available/cheap hydrocarbon energy supplies.

OTOH it is obvious that if the climate theories that all the nations supposedly accept are correct, then it is vital that the planet as a whole seriously limit the amount of CO2 production.

The two notions are colliding and in the process they are producing some ludicrous results. I don't see any way that the underlying politics can be resolved. If leaders act rationally for overall global welfare they WILL (not might) lose the support of their political base because of the negative economic consequences for their country. OTOH if they do NOT act rationally for overall global welfare then (if the theory is correct) they end up losing anyway because the whole world suffers. The only way a leader can 'win' is to find a way to let his own economy develop unfettered while simultaneously stifling the increasing CO2 output from the rest of the world. I guess an alternative possibility is that demagogue could create a world government powerful enough to enforce reduced emissions. Not a very palatable prospect.

The whole situation sounds to me like a recipe for the next great war. And you know what Einstein said about what weapons will be used in the war after that (Has anybody read Canticle for Leibowitz?)

But then optimism has never been my primary personality trait.

And if they're not? Self interest averts a stupid disaster from taking place?

The theories may be wrong. I'm not convinced they are, but I admit it is a possibility. How certain do you have to be before you are willing to take action to prevent a likely disaster? That's the problem.

IF the theories are wrong and no preventive action is taken then the skeptics come out looking like heroes. This time. IF the theories are wrong and we try to prevent the predicted catastrophe then we lose our shirts, economically speaking, in competition with others who did not take the predictions seriously. Either way, it becomes harder to avert future predicted disasters that may or may not materialize.

IF the theories are right and we take no action then we sail into potential disaster. History will record that as one of the more monumental examples of human stupidity ... if there is any history left after whatever mess follows. IF the theories are right and we DO take action to prevent disaster, then we might be able to prevent/mitigate the effects. In that case the history will be split between two factions: (1) those who claim the theories were wrong and we suffered the pain needlessly and (2) those who want to memorialize Al Gore et al as true heroes. And we may still lose out in economic terms to others who did NOT take the predictions seriously.

A lot depends on which risks you are willing to run and how likely you believe each of those outcomes to be. Unfortunately, much may also depend on how much people dislike Al Gore. I'm only half joking about that. I'm pretty sure that there are some people who oppose climate change theory just because it is being popularized by the same guy who invented the Internet.

It seems to me that it would be wise to take significant steps toward reduction of greenhouse gases even before the science is certain because the downside risk is so large. My engineering professors used to talk about 'minimizing maximum regret' in decision making, though I'm not sure it is exactly the same as Game Theory's Minimax strategy. Whatever label you use, I think it makes sense to act to mitigate potential losses.

to minimiuze "greenhouse gasses". I see it everywhere. But it may be that some of the "fixes" would cause more harm than good. And there's no guarantee that they would do any good at all.

The earth has gone through many warm and cold periods. In general the warm periods are better for life than the cold periods. I gave heard lots of predictions of disaster. I tend to think they are exaggerated and probably flat out wrong.

I can't help but notice tat the warmeres' firest oinstinct seems always to be that people's freedoms shoud be reduced. That concerns me more than their diasaster scenarios.

The fixes sort of need everyone to act in concert tot be effective, and you know that's not gonna happen. We're to stupid. Or maybe we're too smart. But, whatever. How smart is it to come up with a solution that requires that many people to cooperate?

As I said, I am not a true believer in climate change, but IF the theory is true then it makes sense that the solutions would be complex AND it is not surprising that solutions would require cooperative action by large numbers of people. It is quite possible that there simply is NOT any simple easy technofix to the problem. The fact that a number of previous problems related to scarcity and growth have responded to technological fixes does not mean that all such problems will be addressed so easily.

You are right - large scale cooperation to fix the problem is not easy, and it may not happen. But that really is the point of the tragedy of the commons.

I haven't, but have intended to eventually. Was wondering what you thought of it if you have read it.

Roger

One of the themes in the novel relates to our inability to avoid doing obviously stupid things during power struggles.

I haven't read the sequel, but may get around to it someday. The stack of 'to read' stuff is pretty large right now.

There is the possibility that he is right. It is fairly clear that the Democratic process interferes with rational decision making some (most?) of the time. We are willing to accept inefficient/irrational decision making as part of the price for maintaining a greater degree of liberty on a day-to-day basis. We do generally give up some degree of liberty when fighting a war because the risk of losing the war somewhat overweighs the loss of liberty. The point to the article is that in one person's opinion the climate situation is (or should be) more-or-less equivalent to a war in terms of the social commitment that is required to achieve the desired results in a timely fashion. I don't know that he is right, but it is possible that he is.

I'm neither an climate-change skeptic nor a true believer, but I AM concerned about the fact that public opinion has so thoroughly rejected the fairly well accepted view of the climate experts. Experts are not always right (eg: their religious adherence to darwinian evolution) BUT I think we must CAREFULLY examine their conclusions before rejecting them. Public opinion is clearly NOT driven by understanding of science. In most cases it seems to be driven by ideologues who may or may not be telling the truth. In the case of the climate studies I am not at all sure that adequate care has been taken by the skeptics, but that does not appear to dampen their enthusiasm for expressing themselves. I am also concerned that some of the climate skeptics have a bit too much in common with the tobacco executives of 30-50 years ago who were perfectly willing to prostitute themselves for profit.

Yes, I know that the climatology lobby has not been entirely blameless, but you do have to keep things in perspective. For example, despite all the press given to the recent leaked emails, it is pretty obvious that the people were engaged in small scale impropriety (or fraud if you prefer) that does not substantially alter the science (or lack thereof).

My impression is that most of the heat being generated (there is VERY little light coming from either side as best this layman can tell) comes from zealots on both sides who are more interested in scoring rhetorical points than in communicating clear science. I've had a hard time finding information that I consider reliable and I find that alarming.

Personally I lean toward accepting the view that man made CO2 and other activity does have an affect on climate. The hypothesis has a certain face validity. Based on that, I think it is reasonable to try to reduce CO2 generation. I have to admit, though, that I lean that way partly because I am so offended by the rhetoric coming from the skeptics, not solely based on the science. It is OBVIOUS that a lot of the skeptics are arguing based on short term self interest rather than science. What is not obvious to me is whether there is (or is not) a kernel of truth to the claims of the skeptics.

Also, consider this historical situation: Modern statistical analysis shows that it is extremely probably Mendel misrepresented the results of his genetic studies on pea plants. The numbers he published were too good to be credible. Nowadays that is called sloppy work at best or scientific fraud if you are less charitably inclined. The more important question, though, is this: Was he right or not? The answer is that he was substantially correct. As recent posts have illustrated, he did not know about epigentic phenomena and he certainly did not have an adequate theoretical explanation for his observations but he was still essentially correct in his conclusions. IOW, sloppy work does not necessarily make the climatologists wrong. Furthermore, I do not know of ANY body of scientific research that is perfect. What degree of certainty do you require before accepting a result? It is obvious that a lot of the skeptics will not accept ANY need for inconvenience unless the science is perfectly packaged in an unassailable complete theory. Life doesn't work that way.

My suspicion is that, after all is said and done, the prevailing climatological view is correct. I'd like to see cleaner data but that's not the world we live in. If the prevailing view IS correct, then there is a real question whether the democratic decision making process will actually be able to cope with the putative looming crisis. And make no mistake: if the prevailing view is correct then it is quite possible, even likely, that there really is a tipping point at which change happens quite quickly. Complex non-linear systems can do that kind of thing.