A case of modern megalomania?
Homo sapiens. A fly’s faeces in the vast of the universe? Or a major player - powerful enough to smash and trash the planet we live on? Do we underestimate our influence? Or do we think too highly of ourselves?
In the current climate debate humans are often portrayed as greedy villains who proliferate, exploit and devastate. In order to save the Earth and thereby ourselves from destruction we must turn away from the sin of burning fossil fuels and adopt an environmentally sustainable lifestyle. The latter is defined as anything from refraining from flying to embracing the humble ways of the Amish. Is it fair?
Six and a half billion human beings are accused of jointly polluting the atmosphere to a catastrophic extent. Slowly but surely, we will boil ourselves, melt the ice caps, exterminate all species and put an end to all life on Earth. Are we really that powerful? Or are we just a bunch of megalomaniacs?
When our grandparents were in school it was thought that the universe was very small, perhaps only 5,000 light years across. 500 years ago it was thought that space was only a little bit bigger than the Earth. In modern times, with the power of technology, we are finally starting to grasp the immense size of the universe, and it is much bigger than anyone could have ever imagined. What do we know about all the forces that rule the universe? What do we know about all the mechanisms ruling the climatic system?
The Earth is around 4.5 billion years old and there have been at least four major ice ages in its past. It has withstood asteroids, reverses in polarity and many other truly catastrophic events. The modern form of Homo sapiens first appeared about 100,000 years ago and the Industrial Revolution started in England around 1733 with the first cotton mill. Supporters of AGW claim that in just about 300 years man has managed to strike a deathblow to the Earth’s fragile climate. Reversing the course of things will require total abstinence from fossil fuels.
I don’t have all the facts. Neither do I have all the answers. However, I dare to believe that blaming man for altering the climate and destroying the planet is giving ourselves way too much credit.
4 comments
No, we haven’t struck any “deathblow” to Earth. The Earth has survived many mass extinctions before and will survive this one as well. The “end all life on Earth” is a strawman. Not that this fact helped the dinosaurs. Living through a mass extinction is unpleasant, and even if odds are that we will survive as a species, millions may still die.
“What do we know about all the forces that rule the universe?”
Surprisingly much, actually. Stars millions of lightyears away seem to obey the same laws on nature that are valid here.
“What do we know about all the mechanisms ruling the climatic system?”
Do you want to take a chance that there is some miraculous unknown science that will jump in and save us? I keep insisting that we should make decisions based on the knowledge we have, imperfect as it is. I know, it is convenient to pretend that we can’t really destroy anything and can therefore go on without a worry in the world, but is it realistic?
Hi Thomas,
In my opinion (coming from one who proudly labels himself a skeptic, denier, whatever you want to call me), we would be much farther ahead in terms of agreeing upon reasonable measures to reduce CO2 concentration buildup if the AGW alarmists had not been so overly-confident of their understanding and had not attempted to push a crisis upon the world’s societies that clearly is over-stated. If they had instead said… “This is a theory that MAY be occurring, and to be safe, lets work toward reducing our emissions, because we don’t know what the consequences of such a build-up would be.” If they had taken that approach, I believe that most people would have been willing to cooperate. I personally have always been for reasonable ways to reduce emissions. I just wish that junk science had not been used to try to terrify people into supporting such CO2 emission reduction measures.
(BTW, I concede your point in an earlier thread that James Hansen was not quoted as raising concerns about global cooling in the 1970’s. You appear to be correct in saying that a colleague of his actually did, after claiming to use Hansen’s climate models. Although one may speculate that being colleagues, both of whom were representing GISS, that they may have been in agreement at that time, 1971. But it would be only speculation, and your point was correct.)
Aaron, I’d be interested to know who you consider “alarmist” vs serious. Are IPCC “alarmist” despite pointing out what is known and what isn’t? How certain do you have to be?
I also hope you realize that uncertainty works both ways. You may believe that IPCC paints a too bleak picture, but there are just as many who think that IPCC are too optimistic. We are conducting a gigantic full scale experiment, and given that we live on Earth and have nowhere to go if the experiment turns out bad, I think that is a bad idea.
And just for laughs, consider if the owner of a nuclear power plant had made a similar statement “We don’t really know how this stuff works, it may explode or it may not”. There would have been an outrage and the plant would have been forced to shut down the same day as people expect nuclear power to guarantee safety. Why should coal and oil be any different?
Ah … but there’s the rub Thomas (comment #3). Uncertainty is the key: a “too bleak picture,” a “too optimistic” one? How can you tell the difference if the uncertainties are so large?
Personally, I would suggest that taking the IPCC’s “best-effort” literature review (not the Summary for Policy Makers) as “too optimistic” is the ad hoc definition of alarmism in the climate debate.
Your choice of a nuclear power plant is a poor one — since it’s comparing apples to oranges — and I’ll admit that I got a laugh out of it. Congratulations on making me smile (thanks!), but let’s run with it.
The owner of a nuclear power plant knows that it will not “explode” (or other bad stuff will happen) because of the results of models that have been used to examine the various possible scenarios, including scenarios with an extremely low probability. These models have been benchmarked and certified against multiple tests, experiments, mock-ups, and prior data and experience obtained from operating nuclear reactors. Thus, certainty in their results is quite high.
Compare that to the models used in climate science. Please do.
In fact, I would love to see modern climate models put through the process that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission has developed as part of the qualification process for computer models used for the licensing of nuclear power plants. Even at the early PIRT (Phenomena Identification and Ranking Table) stage, these models would be ripped to shreds, and there would be no doubt that today’s climate models have a long way to go before we can take them too seriously, or at least as seriously as some people take them.
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