ELEPHANT TO PLATT:
After a while I got to be a bit more troubled by your representation of the
range of scientific veiws:
PLATT WROTE:
> Both Elephant and Danila possess a greater concern about the
> prospect of environmental catastrophe than me, but that doesn’t
> mean I subscribe to the idea, “To hell with butterflies, full speed
> ahead.” There are qualified scientists who say the threat of
> disastrous man-made damage to the environment is
> exaggerated. Others say it is worse than anyone imagines. So I
> think Elephant has got it right in saying: "What does the
> precautionary principle tell us to do in any specific case? Well,
> that’s why the UK has such interminable public inquiries. We
> ought to have more."
ELEPHANT:
It's a favourite trick of oil companies, copied from the efforts of the
tobacco biz, I fear. Sure, there are enough scientists that you can
generally find one to support your veiw, right down to creationism, if you
search hard enough. But I think, Platt, that there is a degree of consensus
about the Greenhouse effect among the higher cadre of scientists which your
breif survey of scientific opinion, quite correct as far as it goes, does
not pay proper attention to.
Public Inquiries: yes. But lets not make them literally interminable by
arguing that science takes no consensus veiw on the likelyhood of
catastrophe. As you have observed, a big part of the argument, now, is
about how bad that catastrophe is going to be, and who will be worst
effected. Bangladesh seems like the first to suffer because of the
criticallity of sea levels to the frequency of flooding emergencies in that
part of the world. Not much oil/votes in Bangladesh, but quite a large
number of human beings. I guess things will only be taken seriously in the
US when the insurance companies start to go bust/refuse cover - by which
time it will be too late. Bangladeshis don't have any insurance.
After densly populated sea-level nations, next to suffer in catestrophic
fashion will be northern europe, because the viability of our agriculture
depends completely on warm ocean currents (the Gulf stream) producing an
anomalously viable climate for the latitude. Ironically, the melting of the
northern polar ice cap threatens to turn off the convection pump, the
sinking of cold water, which draws up the warm water from the gulf of mexico
towards Norway. Global warming at present is largely concentrated at the
poles. As the ice caps receed, which they do every year now north and
south, ocean currents that are fundamental to climatic conditions worldwide
are under threat. I really don't think US voters appreciate the Titanic
forces they are playing with yet. By the time they do, it may be too late -
at which point the land of the free will presumably say: "Sorry
Bangladesh/England/Africa etc, I guess it's too late now - every man for
himself". Things could get very nasty if we don't think about the lifeboats
at an early stage.
The annoying thing is that, like north atlantic icebergs, the catastrophe is
entirely avoidable. All the alternative energy generation/conservation
technologies necessary already exist in a high state of cost-effectiveness,
and would be cheaper still with mass production and consumption. The
enviroment could be the next big e-commerce boom. The trouble is that we
are just too stuck in our static patterns to notice. And in Europe, there
is a distinct awareness that if the US does nothing to escape it's static
patterns, whatever we do will be p*****g in the ocean, and p*****g on our
competiveness in the short term too. Good bye Holland - nice knowing you.
Elephant.
MOQ.ORG - http://www.moq.org
Mail Archive - http://alt.venus.co.uk/hypermail/moq_discuss/
MD Queries - horse@wasted.demon.nl
To unsubscribe from moq_discuss follow the instructions at:
http://www.moq.org/md/subscribe.html
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat Aug 17 2002 - 16:00:57 BST