My impression (which is only a handwavy impression, and I’ll be happy to be corrected) is that climate-change “skeptics” used to say that there was no global warming, then that there was some but it probably wasn’t anthropogenic, then that there was some and some of it was anthropogenic but that it was a good thing rather than a bad thing, and now that there is some and some of it is anthropogenic and it’s probably a bad thing but the cost of stopping it would outweigh the benefits. In other words, that what’s remained constant is the bottom line (we shouldn’t make any changes to our industrial practices, economic policies, etc., to mitigate anthropogenic climate change), but the justification for it has become more and more modest over time, perhaps in response to strengthening evidence or to popular opinion.
(Of course not everyone who can be categorized as a “climate-change skeptic” holds the exact same opinions; the above is intended as a rough characterization of what I think the typical “respectable skeptic” position has been.)
Bernard Woolley: What if the Prime Minister insists we help them?
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Then we follow the four-stage strategy.
Bernard Woolley: What’s that?
Sir Richard Wharton: Standard Foreign Office response in a time of crisis.
Sir Richard Wharton: In stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
Sir Richard Wharton: In stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there’s nothing we can do.
Sir Humphrey Appleby: Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it’s too late now.
Yes, Minister
(Note I don’t mean this is an intentional strategy as applied to climate change, even one operating at a subconscious level within individuals. Given a range of skeptics with different opinions, it could be that different ones are coming into the spotlight so that the “most defensible” argument for doing nothing appears at the appropriate time. I just thought the parallel was funny.)
Funny—a lot of the skeptics complain about the same tendency among people who want to halt industrial capitalism—it’s one of the biggest sources of grumbling I see.
My impression (which is only a handwavy impression, and I’ll be happy to be corrected) is that climate-change “skeptics” used to say that there was no global warming, then that there was some but it probably wasn’t anthropogenic, then that there was some and some of it was anthropogenic but that it was a good thing rather than a bad thing, and now that there is some and some of it is anthropogenic and it’s probably a bad thing but the cost of stopping it would outweigh the benefits. In other words, that what’s remained constant is the bottom line (we shouldn’t make any changes to our industrial practices, economic policies, etc., to mitigate anthropogenic climate change), but the justification for it has become more and more modest over time, perhaps in response to strengthening evidence or to popular opinion.
(Of course not everyone who can be categorized as a “climate-change skeptic” holds the exact same opinions; the above is intended as a rough characterization of what I think the typical “respectable skeptic” position has been.)
OK now I have to quote this:
(Note I don’t mean this is an intentional strategy as applied to climate change, even one operating at a subconscious level within individuals. Given a range of skeptics with different opinions, it could be that different ones are coming into the spotlight so that the “most defensible” argument for doing nothing appears at the appropriate time. I just thought the parallel was funny.)
Funny—a lot of the skeptics complain about the same tendency among people who want to halt industrial capitalism—it’s one of the biggest sources of grumbling I see.