The Forum > Article Comments > Global Warming Danger: Catastrophic? > Comments
Global Warming Danger: Catastrophic? : Comments
By Geoff Davies, published 8/2/2011New work by James Hansen shows Antarctic ice melting at an exponential rate leading to 5 metres of sea rise in 89 years.
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"Scientists (including me) who appeal to the precautionary principle do so as ordinary people, not as part of their science. It is NOT a scientific conclusion, just something that seems a sensible way of proceeding, like buying insurance, or not getting on a plane that has a 10% chance of crashing.
If you say scientists should stick to science, well I don't agree. We are people too, with as much right as anyone else to argue for a policy."
If climate (and other)scientists also want to be activists arguing for a policy, if they want to use the so-called precautionary "principle" to justify their views, that's fine.
Unlike you, however, quite a few folk do so while either hiding behind a public cloak of being disinterested seekers of truth. So-called 'facts' are all too often "theory-laden" and contaminated by confirmation bias, "projections" morph into "predictions", etc.
Now you, a physicist, are using "mainstream economists" to justify imposing a 'carbon (dioxide) price'/tax/ETS on Australia based on some kind of "risk-management" argument.
Why all the kicking and screaming, Geoff? Many believe this is unjustified, based on hard empirical evidence - not hypotheses, models, proxy datasets, circular arguments, and so on.
As for mainstream economists, their "cost/benefit" assessments of the future are just as, perhaps even more, debatable and controversial than those of climate scientists.
As one economist said recently: "In economic (climate) policy we are necessarily dealing with the future and in this we are all blind. I suppose economic theory is a bit like the blind man's stick, of some but limited use, particularly when crossing a busy road and the path of economic activity is a busy road indeed. Too much reliance should not be placed on it."
Alice (in Warmerland)