Thursday 6 August 2009

A common sense approach to climate change

I have had a response to the posting of July 31st from Paul Mitchell of Green Horizons Environmental Consultants Ltd, UK. His full response can be found in the Minerals Engineers news discussions on LinkedIn.
Paul has referred me to a new book :
What's the Worst That Could Happen? A rational response to the climate change debate by Greg Craven, Published by: Perigee
Craven's ingenious argument is that when it comes to global warming, the facts we fight over don't actually matter. Far more important is that the experiment is already running. We will see soon enough who is right, but in the meantime, Craven believes we should analyse the situation using the tools of risk management. Here, the answer is indisputable. If we take strong action and global warming turns out to be no big deal, we have needlessly incurred a serious economic cost. If we fail to take strong action and global warming turns out to be catastrophic, we have sacrificed the entire planet and everybody's future. Clearly, inaction carries the greater risk.
Amid all the hysteria of whether or not global warming is taking place, whether it is man-made etc, etc, this seems to be a sensible, straightforward approach to the issue.

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