The Future? No Such Thing.
September 12th, 2007 by Peter SudermanScott Adams, yes, the cartoonist behind Dilbert, has listed out some smart ideas about the global warming debate over at his blog:
5. The people predicting likely doom because of global warming have not made their case. Humans are incredibly adaptive. And technological breakthroughs happen in steps, not predictable straight lines. Every other predicted type of global doom hasn’t happened because of human resourcefulness. No climate model can predict human resourcefulness.
6. Some say that even a small chance of worldwide catastrophe is worth the “insurance†of working to reduce the risk to zero, even at astronomical expense. But how small is a “small†risk? And how does the risk of global warming stack up to the other global risks for which we could use our limited resources? That’s where I hit the wall on my understanding of the issue.
This is, I think, incredibly important to remember: the development of technology is unpredictable, even by those who’re closely involved with the study of a particular scientific area. Not only do we not know what’s around the corner in terms of technological development, we don’t really know what sector major breakthroughs are going to come from. The lack of imagination of so many people when talking about the future–especially when discussing economics–can be incredibly frustrating, as the general assumption seems to be that thing swill always be more or less the way they are now, or that, at the very least, we can draw fairly accurate conclusions about how technological development will progress. But we can’t, and that sort of major uncertainty makes it very, very difficult to accurately assess how things will be (especially systems as complex as the Earth’s climate) decades into the future.
September 12th, 2007 at 12:54 pm
You know me well enough that I don’t have to preface my response with a note on my political beliefs — I’m no Greenpeacenik.
But I think a lot of people on my side of the political aisle miss the point: climate change is human resourcefulness in action. When we say things like, “Humans are incredibly adaptive. And technological breakthroughs happen in steps, not predictable straight lines,” why do we fail to see that the adaptations we’re talking about are already underway? The “technological breakthroughs” that are “happening in steps” are manifest in the very changes that people on the right continue to resist. Carbon offsets, CAFE standards, movies by former vice presidents, various and sundry international climate treaties — these are all attempts by man to use his resourceful mind to address a perceived threat; all are examples of the “incredibly adaptive” human intellect. We may (rightly) take issue with some of the strategies that humans devise to fight global warming, but it takes a real talent for doublethink to evangelize “human resourcefulness” as the magic bullet that will save us from a changing climate, and at the same time demonize climate change activism.
Activism is the response. We’re all looking for solutions. Some are good and some aren’t. Criticize the solutions, but stop condemning the search!