On Sep 1, 2007, at 8:40 PM, Dan Minettte wrote:
> OK, I didn't explicitly mention that alternative means are now
> available but
> at prohibitively high costs explicitly....and I probably should
> have. The
> cost would be so high that going to sources that are considered
> green for
> the majority of world power need would cause a horrendous, long
> term world
> depression. So, we are sorta talking about flip sides of the same
> thing....not really differing much at all....if I read you right.
It is not necessarily a foregone conclusion that using less-polluting
energy sources will lead to global economic collapse or depression. It
may even be that by reducing our current energy-spendthrift ways, we
may actually improve the global economy. It's not like we're going to
burn money to drive our cars: much of that money will merely be spent
differently. It seems to me that there is a bundle to be made.
Then again, assuming economic collapse as a downside of taking
action to curb global warming can be useful to determine whether to
take action or not...
You may have seen the "Pascal's Wager" analysis of whether we
should act to curb global warming:
+-----------------------------------------+
| | Act | Don't Act |
|------+---------------+------------------+
| | | |
| GW | Unnecessary | Everybody's |
| False| Costs... | Happy! |
| | Economic | |
| | Depression? | |
| | | |
|------+---------------+------------------+
| | | |
| GW | Necessary | Global |
| True | costs, but | catastrophies: |
| | Environment | economic |
| | saved | political |
| | | health... |
| | | |
+------+---------------+------------------+
So, the argument goes, Global Warming due to human activity is either
true or false, and we can choose either to take action to mitigate
those effects or not. Each spot in the resulting truth table has an
expected outcome.
If we hold the truth of global warming as an unknown, we can only
choose to act or not act, and decide whether the combined risks and
benefits of the "Act" column or the "Don't Act" column are more
onerous.
The downside of the "Don't Act" column includes global
environmental, economic, political and health disasters in the event
that global warming is true.
The downside of the "Act" column is
global economic dislocation in the event that global warming is false,
but the healthy condition of the environment benefits recovery.
Dave
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