Climate catastrophe isn't so certain

[Napoléon]

Yet again Chuck you make a good fucking point.

[Reforged]

Not sure I like it but I definitely can't find a flaw in that logic. Damn.

[The Grand Nudger]

Why we would expect casualties at all eludes me. Are we assuming that people will do terribly stupid shit? Not that this isn't a valid assumption, don't get me wrong. But at that point, it's the stupid shit people do (and not climatapocalypse) that offed them.

As an example. Lets say that we have conclusive evidence that ACC will turn New York into a reliable target of killer waves and flooding (which would indeed take some pretty heavy shit to enable). Perhaps people should leave (or make plans to circumvent this issue). If not, it isn't ACC but ignorant and stubborn refusal to respond to a changing environment (or any environment at all) that would lead to casualties. You'd have a hard time convincing me that people such as this would be able to avoid swallowing large crayons.

[Anomalocaris]

Why we would expect casualties at all eludes me. Are we assuming that people will do terribly stupid shit? Not that this isn't a valid assumption, don't get me wrong. But at that point, it's the stupid shit people do (and not climatapocalypse) that offed them.

As an example. Lets say that we have conclusive evidence that ACC will turn New York into a reliable target of killer waves and flooding (which would indeed take some pretty heavy shit to enable). Perhaps people should leave (or make plans to circumvent this issue). If not, it isn't ACC but ignorant and stubborn refusal to respond to a changing environment (or any environment at all) that would lead to casualties. You'd have a hard time convincing me that people such as this would be able to avoid swallowing large crayons.

It doesn't matter if resources, human and material, is lost due to stupidity or whatever. So long as it is lost, it is casaulty.

It also doesn't matter if the immediate cause is suicide, stupidity or what ever. So long as one scenario sees more resource lost for whatever reason than the other scenario, selecting scenario one implies a casulaty equal to the additional amount lost compare to scenario two.

If, for sake of argument, chosing ACC scneario cause 1 million more poeple to die of stupidity than chooseing the other scenario, there is no need to quibble with whether the proximal cause is ACC otr stupidity. ACC will lead to a million casualty.

[Minimalist]

The scientific maverick James Lovelock says climate catastrophe is not so certain as he previously suggested. A move applauded by sceptics, who argue that the certainties of climate science have been exaggerated, but one that will also infuriate mainstream climate scientists, who have been striving to quantify those uncertainties.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-17988492

I personally don't know where I stand with Dr Lovelock, for every single argument he makes that I agree with, he'll make another statement that I completely disagree with.

Well......

[The Grand Nudger]

What casualties are we invoking here though, is what I'm asking? Who's going to die and why? 1 million is a hell of alot, and it may not seem like it in light of the overall population but I still think it's a hell of alot. Who and why? Including material loss as a "casualty" sounds a whole hell of a lot like trying to use scarey language to say "money will be lost" btw. I understand that any loss is technically covered under the term casualty, buts that's not exactly how it's used in conversation is it.

Would you say that the ocean killed 3 jackasses who set sail in a boat with holes in the hull (with full knowledge of this situation)?

That's one thing that grinds my gears about ACC activists (why do we even need these?). From the language and choice of words you'd think that "Day After Tomorrow" was a damned documentary.

[Anomalocaris]

Well, the ocean DID kill them. But that fact alone has no policy implications if those 3 jackasses were always going to set sail in a boat full of holes and there were always going to be an ocean for them to sail on in any scenario.

However, let's say the boat was watertight but not barely seaworthy. In normal oceans the jackasses would survive, but in ACC the ocean gets stormier and the jackasses drown. Now that they drowned in ACC ocean has policy implications. They are casualties of ACC.

As to why it is reasonable to expect a thorough counting of all casualties to be expected from major world wide climate change to run into the millions, the answer is casualty ultimately traceable to even regional, relatively minor climate fluctuation has already ran into the millions several times last century. Take for example the 1984 Ethiopian famine. At least half million died.

[The Grand Nudger]

Was there warning in 1983? Were we in a position to do something about this? Why did our system of disaster relief fail in this scenario? I'm not comfortable laying the blame for human tragedies on the weather if we could insert ourselves and avert it.

I'm not on the other side of any fence here, I'm merely mentioning that claiming "millions" of casualties without quantifying the who's or how's is fear mongering, it doesn't help. We don't even need to give this rock a nudge to help it inflict millions of casualties in the first place. If people want to claim that they have somehow warned someone of impending catastrophe, they'd better be able to quantify it, otherwise they are making a vague prediction and then counting the "hits" after the fact (if the prediction becomes a fact in the first place). Common practice, for scam artists, not scientists.

Lets say, in our theoretical New York scenario, that water comes up a fraction of an inch a year. That's ample time. If it rushes over the seawalls all at once 80 feet high, it is not. The first is human stupidity, the second is ACC. The first is conceivable, the second, not quite so much.

IOW, does the ocean get stormier? Where, and by how much? How would we make boats more seaworthy after establishing these two variables at the very least? That would be good policy. Millions will die because the sky is falling, not so much.

(it would take quite a bit to utterly wreck a boat designated as seaworthy and kill the crew nowadays btw, a little extra wind isn't going to cut it. Operator error is a common cause for failure "the sea took them" doesn't make it to the lists very often)

[Anomalocaris]

Yes, there were ample warnings. In the best of scenarios the US and USSR would have cast aside their differences and out of an overflow of humanity diverted one one thousandth of their respective military budgets to saving every last one of the starving Ethiopians.

But is it reasonable to base policy decision on that utopian scenario?

A more reasonable forecast would be, if there is significant regional climate disturbance, millions of Ethiopians WILL die even though many nations on earth could have each individuallly saved all of them by devoting a tiny fraction of their discretionary budget to the cause.

So it is reasonable to forecast million WILL predicatbly become casualties in global climate change even if in theory we have more than enough resources to save them all.

[The Grand Nudger]

So, all we have to do is watch Ethiopia then? The theory that millions will die hinges upon them? I probably would have picked an area where ten million other variables wouldn't be available to generate a false positive. Nevertheless I'll be watching the news.

Is it reasonable that people would send adequate aide for distaster relief, yes. Is it likely..probably not.

I can see where you're coming from, but I think I'll stick to my assessment on this one. If and when disaster strikes, if we are capable of avoiding or averting it and we do not, it is ourselves and not the clouds that are to shoulder the blame (and the shame that history often records, as in your example of Ethiopia). People lending a hand to each other for their very survival does not make a utopia, talk about low standards....