This isn't really picking sides, it's more of an analysis of consequences. It's about nine minutes and well worth the watch.


Edit: Just to clarify, I don't necessarily agree with this. I found it on StumbleUpon and thought it would make an interesting discussion here.

Very interesting.

That was pretty awesome, though the up close and personal part at the end with the cliche dialog seemed out of place.

Eat the slug!

The eloquence and gravitas of the argument do not compensate for the hideous, miserable flaws in his logic.

You cannot analyze this situation in the manner he did because none of the outcomes have a quantifiable probability. The grid makes perfect sense if both rows have a 50/50 chance but they don't. He is trying to force you to compare the worst possible outcome due to inaction and the best possible outcome due to action.
Furthermore, he is dolling up the best possible outcome due to action by not expanding the data across the grid correctly: if unnecessary action will result in a recession, so will necessary action. Excessive action could very well have the same consequences as taking no action at all.

No reasonable individual doubts that human-caused environmental change is a reality. What we are arguing is the magnitude of the change, and what response (if any) is reasonable. This involves an analysis quite a bit more complex than what will fit inside 4 squares on a whiteboard.

By using this man's logic, we should build massive space guns in every city because the odds that Martian elves will someday try to crash dragons into the Washington Monument are non-zero.

i love you joncy. will you have my children?

I prefer my argument to video man's argument:

Ignore the idea of global catastrophe for a momen and think about things on a purely local scale. Almost all of the actions we as individuals are being asked to take improve the quality of our locale environment in ways that are easily quantifiable. The air quality in industrial and urban areas is terrible compared to the countryside, we should do what it takes to lessen this difference (within reason).

Recycling (as long as it's done efficiently), lowering power usage and using cleaner modes of transport are things which have immediate benefit. It doesn't matter that they might one day save the world as well.

The only reason we're not doing anything is because we're all pretty lazy when it comes to this stuff and the people running the companies that are the worst offenders are scared of losing their wealth and control.

Nothing wrong with doing what you suggested, but changes to the environment are inevitable as natural causes continue to tower over man-made causes. :/

BUT GUYS

ECONOMIC COLLAPSE

I think mb knows a lot about things collapsing.

beneath him

I'm really confused as to how, if global climate change were true and we did spend the money, why that would not result in a global depression. Are companies going to go, "Oh, gee, we saved the planet, so that will surely help balance the bottom line!" No, they're going to go, "Hey, cleaner air and no flooding - but we still have to lay off everyone to make sure we don't go under. Whoo! At least the unemployed will enjoy a more temperate climate!"

(This is, of course, assuming that the first situation of global depression where global climate change is false and we spent the money is a valid situation)

Not to mention the fact that fixing global warming will probably not cause a recession. Someone is going to have to produce and implement the technologies to fix the problem and, if forced to, people are going to buy them. The only reason this isn't happening already is because it would force the oil companies to spend their ill-gotten money outside the company rather than investing it back into themselves.

And weather we can do anything about it that's not worse than letting it happen.

alot of the stuff that is suggested to curb "global warming" and i really hate that term, is not a bad idea. most of it DOES save some money in the long run, even if it is a little more expensive now. and i definitly am not against cleaning up the air i have to breathe every day. the thing that bothers me is how "global warming" has become such a rallying point, when there is really so little understood about it. meteorologists have trouble predicting the weather accurately more than a week in advance, nevermind 10, 20, 30 years from now.

im not saying were not contributing to the warming trend, im just saying no one knows yet what percentage of temperature rise is natural and what part is man made. and mankind definatly does not know enough about how to "conserve" nature to be running around ordering that people stop this and start doing that and use grass blades instead of dental floss.

Don't tell me you're going to suggest that volcanoes produce more CO2 annually than humans do? That argument was shot to dust a long, long time ago. Total greenhouse gas production of volcanoes is about less than 3% of what we create.

What's retarded is that most of the people who care about the problem, care about it so they can parade their idiotic absolutist naturalist, anti-industry ideals, and improperly represent it most of the time. This is bad because it makes no one take it seriously, and it gets ignored.

For all the legit. research on the subject, too much is drowned out in "ZOMG industries are killing the world we'll all die! Woe is us!", which is all fine and good until you realize that forecasting doom and gloom is more important to them that accurately representing the sources of the problem (eg. hyping carbon emissions as opposed to other green house gasses), and that for all the whining they've done they haven't actually thought of any kind of solution that would be effective at all. They'd rather rage against the man because they think it's totally possible to run your cars on water.

CO2 isn't really the problem.

Human kind kicks ***.
Name one other species that can destroy the entirity of everything.
(Other then that bacteria from a couple million/billion years ago)

Oooh the moment where people start going "Hey. There's only 5% of oil left on Earth" is going to be some fun times.

That's when we'll have World War 3.

I have a friend who says that World War 3 will be over water.

World War 3 wouldn't be a war. It would simply be the end of everything in an hour or so. If push really came to shove no super power will be deterred by MAD.

Why would WW3 by cause by water? If our rate of fresh water consumption exceeds the rate that it gets replaced, (Unlikely to happen for a long while), we'll just have to start do massive desalinization, which will just makes us use the water we have more efficiently.

The fun thing is, is that WW3 will be over oil, But the factions will run out of oil before they can really get to it.

If I were to stipulate that man influenced global warming were a possiblity, I would have to say that I like his logic. But since that notion is asinine, ignorant, and arrogant I would have to disagree that thrusting more of the world into economic despair is worth the "risk".

Running out of oil isn't going to be a sudden thing where we have oil one day then none the next. There's still a whole lot of oil around, but it's becoming more and more expensive to access the oil. It will eventually become too expensive to be worth exploiting.

What do you mean? Yes, we have enough bombs probably to split the earth in half if that's what you're referring to.

Dude.

He's just trolling.

Nah, just put a few dings in the surface.

I wouldn't be too sure about that. Ever heard of a carbon bomb? It would only take a dozen of them deep underground to blow the earth into chunks.

I guess. If man had the ability to get them there. Moot point, though.

Ever seen that one planet of the apes movie?
Dirty bombs are the way to go.

No we don't, not even close.

The fusion of carbon requires conditions only found in the core of a supergiant star. A thermonuclear explosion involving carbon has only been observed once, on the surface of a neutron star. We do not currently have the technology to superheat and supercompress a sufficient mass of carbon to initiate carbon fusion.

And even if we did, it would not split the planet apart. Destroying Earth would require something in the area of 748 million yottajoules which is equivalent to the total energy output of the sun over 22 days. This is so far beyond our current level of technology that I'd find it baffling that you think would be within our reach in 200 years, let alone within our capabilities today.

This brings to mind a point that I think a lot of people miss in this debate and environmental debates in general. Our efforts will never "save the Earth." The Earth itself is not fragile. It is such an enormous system that we could never completely bring it down. We could kill off most of the life forms currently residing on it (including ourselves, but something would survive. The Earth itself will endure; the seasons will change; water will evaporate and rain down. But we can influence, say, whether that water will be drinkable or not, or whether the land will support plants that we can eat in large enough quantities to sustain us. That's what's fragile. What we have to ask ourselves is, what sort of world do we want to live in? Do we want it to be able to support us as a species? What about the other species we depend on? What about species that we don't directly depend on?

I don't understand why so many people are worried about the Earth. Earth is fine and will be for a long, long time.

We humans however are screwed.

HUmans are baby squriel baby they ran up my thigh yeseerday and then rna in the pocket fecess


YEHA YE HA YE HAY HEA AYE Y


ooooooooooooooooooooooo yeahhhhhhhhhhh

Good.

Less of us, the better.

Wheres the love JG?

Isn't this just a variation of Pascal's wager?

Never acquired.