>By the time we know who was right, it'll be too late.
Only if Climate Change is correct, not if it isn't.
>critics should be proving that something else is causing the recent heat records.
Hal addresses that in his letter.
>or that some esoteric and uncontrollable phenomenon is responsible for some of the warming does nothing useful to help us decide how to act.
It does a great deal useful, in instructing us how not to act. Science is as much about process of elimination as anything, and eliminating hypotheses is one of the most valuable outcomes of scientific method.
The problem of induction comes into play here - thousands of confirming observations cannot prove a theory true, but one single refuting observation can disprove it. It could be rather embarrassing when governments have invested billions, and top scientists have based their lives and careers on, proving it true, and it were to turn out false due to a few refuting observations.
Another problem here is that too many people have worked themselves into a tizzy of thinking we must solve the problem immediately, even if our understanding of what exactly the problem is may not be accurate. Given the lack of full transparency, sloppy data handling in some cases, and what appears to be a biased, corrupted process, it's hard for interested lay people to trust the accuracy of our understanding.
Don't misunderstand, I personally think we're trashing our world and need to do something about it. When the Amazon Rain Forest is vanishing and there's an island of garbage the size of Texas drifting around in the northern Pacific, we've got clear, systemic problems that need to be solved.
And that's not to mention another extremely strong reason to transition away from fossil fuels - self reliance. Having to be constantly at war, either hot or cold, to protect the energy supplies that allow a modern economy to run is about the most undesirable political situation you could possibly have.
Trashing the world + self reliance should be enough justification for government to strongly incentivize solutions, without resorting to a complex, difficult-to-prove, scandal-plagued theory like AGW. And solving those clear problems may even have a side effect of mitigating AGW, if it is indeed correct.
Only if Climate Change is correct, not if it isn't.
>critics should be proving that something else is causing the recent heat records.
Hal addresses that in his letter.
>or that some esoteric and uncontrollable phenomenon is responsible for some of the warming does nothing useful to help us decide how to act.
It does a great deal useful, in instructing us how not to act. Science is as much about process of elimination as anything, and eliminating hypotheses is one of the most valuable outcomes of scientific method.
The problem of induction comes into play here - thousands of confirming observations cannot prove a theory true, but one single refuting observation can disprove it. It could be rather embarrassing when governments have invested billions, and top scientists have based their lives and careers on, proving it true, and it were to turn out false due to a few refuting observations.
Another problem here is that too many people have worked themselves into a tizzy of thinking we must solve the problem immediately, even if our understanding of what exactly the problem is may not be accurate. Given the lack of full transparency, sloppy data handling in some cases, and what appears to be a biased, corrupted process, it's hard for interested lay people to trust the accuracy of our understanding.
Don't misunderstand, I personally think we're trashing our world and need to do something about it. When the Amazon Rain Forest is vanishing and there's an island of garbage the size of Texas drifting around in the northern Pacific, we've got clear, systemic problems that need to be solved.
And that's not to mention another extremely strong reason to transition away from fossil fuels - self reliance. Having to be constantly at war, either hot or cold, to protect the energy supplies that allow a modern economy to run is about the most undesirable political situation you could possibly have.
Trashing the world + self reliance should be enough justification for government to strongly incentivize solutions, without resorting to a complex, difficult-to-prove, scandal-plagued theory like AGW. And solving those clear problems may even have a side effect of mitigating AGW, if it is indeed correct.