hell’s handmaiden

I don’t believe, contrary to how it may appear, that anyone has made a slam-dunk case for human caused global warming. I do think a strong case has been made, but it isn’t 100%. I’d say it is well over 50% proven though– even upwards of 85% I guestimate. No real surprise there. In the real world we rarely get the luxury of 100% certainty. What this means is that we have to gamble. So, time to take sides. Are humans responsible? Are we not to blame? Even if it is our fault can we do anything about it? For that matter, is the planet warming at all?

I’m going to skip the last question. Very few people on either side maintain that the planet is not warming at all. The fight is over the cause of that warming, over whether human activity is responsible or not. So place your bets. Calcucate the odds. Remember, the wager is your children’s and grandchildren’s lives, and perhaps your own, depending upon how fast things prgress.

Let’s say that global warming is not human caused. Well, in that case we are screwed either way and no matter what we do. However, some, not all, of the things we might do to stave off global warming– futilely in this case– would work to our benefit anyway. For example, if the world is getting hotter we are going to need more power to stay comfortable, to adapt to the warmer temperatures. We’ll need to cool buildings, refrigerate food, transport water, etc. Not everyone can move North or South. There isn’t room. So large numbers of people will have to live on some warm chunks of Earth. Well, more efficient power plants and alternative energy generators work in favor of providing that additional power. More energy efficient building design and water usage works in everyone’s favor as well, excepting the oil companies. Fossil fuels are limited no matter what the global temperature does. The Earth is not an endless reservoir of oil and gas. Eventually supplies will run dry. Again, access to alternative energy supplies and more efficient technology works in out favor.

The down side? Economics. Doing something would take effort and, in the short term, cost money. In the long term, increased efficiency would be a good thing economically. This is the case no matter what the global temperature does. Those countries with the most efficient technology are going to have the edge. This alone ought to be a good enough reason to implement the kinds of things being sold as responses to the global warming problem. That the US is stubbornly and intentionally refusing to upgrade its technology while most of the rest of the developed world does so is something that smells of raging lunacy.

Now let’s say that we are responsible for global warming, at least in a significant degree. The arguments above apply if we mere mortals are responsible, but it is too late to do anything about it and we just have to ride things out. On the other hand, if we are responsible and can do something then we ought to do what we can. Things will work out better for everyone in the long run.

There is some debate about this last point. I’ve seen arguments claiming that a warmer planet would be a better thing anyway, that a warmer climate will provide more cropland and longer growing seasons and other such happy things. Maybe, but that is a tough call. What isn’t such a tough call is that if the climate changes so does the distribution of farmland. And it doesn’t take a lot to create big problems. A changing distribution of farmland means global economies change. Changing economies mean turbulence and turmoil and, usually, blood. You might end up with something more conducive to human habitation when everything shakes out, but the transition will be messy and there is no guarantee that the end will in fact be an improvement. The US, now a major agricultural producer, may end up with little to nothing arable. The famous Bread Basket is a titch on the drought-ie side as it is. But who knows? Do you want to gamble?

So here we are. We have a messy problem with limited information and we have to bet on an outcome– doing nothing is betting on an outcome, despite how some phrase the issue. And if we have to gamble it seems to me that there is only one bet worth making. We need to bet on global warming and try to do something. Even if we lose the bet, we come out ahead relative to where we’d be if we bet against it and do nothing.

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This entry was posted on Saturday, April 28th, 2007 at 10:05 am and is filed under Global Warming. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.