Yes, climate change is happening and mostly anthropogenic. (I believe this not because I’ve studied arguments and counterarguments, but because this is the claim that several public “global warming skeptics” have changed their minds to believe; there’s a good bit of diversity among people who think AGW exists.)
I’m really skeptical that we can do anything about climate change through policy. I’ve seen the kinds of bills that get passed in the US; they don’t actually reduce carbon emissions on net. I’ve seen what happens at international meetings; poorer countries want a chance to industrialize too. A third option would be exhorting people to live green—but to actually have an effect on climate change, we’re not talking a few CFL bulbs, we’re talking a complete overhaul of one’s lifestyle, and most people (myself included) are not willing to live like that. Many simply can’t.
I’ve also seen convincing arguments that, even giving ideal policy and angelic people, the cost of mitigating climate change isn’t worth the benefit.
So basically I think we’re all going to die. In rich countries we’ll buy our way out of most of the trouble, and feel it mostly in higher prices and water rations in desert regions and truly nauseating summers. People in poor Equatorial countries will actually have humanitarian catastrophes. The rest of us won’t care very much.
You may be curious about this information collecting project. Concerning “skeptical that we can do anything … through policy”: Just a few months before people teared down the Berlin wall, even the most respected researchers in sociology and economy estimated that East-Germany would last at least one hundret years more. Like cold war, which was generally extected to be solvable only by politics, but that this should be extremly complicated. Actually, it was easy. (And even more urgent than everyone had guessed, as an aquaintance had researched.
(I believe this not because I’ve studied arguments and counterarguments, but because this is the claim that several public “global warming skeptics” have changed their minds to believe; there’s a good bit of diversity among people who think AGW exists.)
Warning, “there should be” statement ahead: How good a measure of truth do we think this method provides? There should be a source that analyzes what (and what type) of minds have been changed to and from positions on all Big Issues, the diversity of types of minds on each side, stratification of contrarian and meta-contrarian positions. Perhaps Take On It could or already does serve in this capacity? Is there something to this; a meta-memetic analysis of widely held beliefs?
My own brief and mostly ignorant thoughts:
Yes, climate change is happening and mostly anthropogenic. (I believe this not because I’ve studied arguments and counterarguments, but because this is the claim that several public “global warming skeptics” have changed their minds to believe; there’s a good bit of diversity among people who think AGW exists.)
I’m really skeptical that we can do anything about climate change through policy. I’ve seen the kinds of bills that get passed in the US; they don’t actually reduce carbon emissions on net. I’ve seen what happens at international meetings; poorer countries want a chance to industrialize too. A third option would be exhorting people to live green—but to actually have an effect on climate change, we’re not talking a few CFL bulbs, we’re talking a complete overhaul of one’s lifestyle, and most people (myself included) are not willing to live like that. Many simply can’t.
I’ve also seen convincing arguments that, even giving ideal policy and angelic people, the cost of mitigating climate change isn’t worth the benefit.
So basically I think we’re all going to die. In rich countries we’ll buy our way out of most of the trouble, and feel it mostly in higher prices and water rations in desert regions and truly nauseating summers. People in poor Equatorial countries will actually have humanitarian catastrophes. The rest of us won’t care very much.
You may be curious about this information collecting project. Concerning “skeptical that we can do anything … through policy”: Just a few months before people teared down the Berlin wall, even the most respected researchers in sociology and economy estimated that East-Germany would last at least one hundret years more. Like cold war, which was generally extected to be solvable only by politics, but that this should be extremly complicated. Actually, it was easy. (And even more urgent than everyone had guessed, as an aquaintance had researched.
Warning, “there should be” statement ahead: How good a measure of truth do we think this method provides? There should be a source that analyzes what (and what type) of minds have been changed to and from positions on all Big Issues, the diversity of types of minds on each side, stratification of contrarian and meta-contrarian positions. Perhaps Take On It could or already does serve in this capacity? Is there something to this; a meta-memetic analysis of widely held beliefs?