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Pastimes : Let's Talk About Our Feelings!!! -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Father Terrence who wrote (49650)	8/7/1999 11:13:00 PM
From: E	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 108807

<<<Here's the key to the entire "sober" fright article: (though whether rising gases trigger rising temperatures, or vice versa, remains unknown) >>> Let's assume for a minute that the opinion of the many independent scientists who believe that rising- gases- trigger- rising- temperatures is correct. If we act on that assumption, it is possible that it isn't too late to avoid catastrophe. However, if we fail to act on it, and it is correct, the results are unimaginably disastrous. (I did mention the guy we had dinner with a few nights ago who is a portfolio manager for a small mutual fund, and whose specialty is oil and gas, I think: he said that all the technical people, the scientists, in the industry, and the high level officials, know, all of them, that global warming is real; in private, they acknowledge it; it is only the PR people in the industry, whose job it is to get that argument out, who deny it. This was especially striking to me because he is a quite conservative fellow who last time I asked, which was a few years ago, so perhaps he's become more intellectually sophisticated, called himself an Objectivist. He would smile and shrug at your remarks, Terry, and say you have been duped by paid shills as you were intended to be.) Now let's assume that the global warming phenomenon is what the paid industry shills and Terry say it is-- no problemo! Not at all! It's rising temps causing the gasses! And let's say we foolishly try to correct this non-problem. Can you see that the results are much less horrendous, Terry? Risk/reward, or cost/benefit applies to every decision in life. If you are wrong, in this case, the 'benefit' has been saving some corporate profits, and not having to change certain of our ways of living, and the 'cost' has been planetary disaster. If Christine and I and the scientists and oil industry people who know the score and aren't paid to lie for profits are right, the 'benefit' has been saving the goddam planet, and the 'cost' has been economic. Do the calculation with risk/reward, Terry. Same thing. The consequences of your wrongness are SO infinitely greater than the consequences of ours, that it makes your position seem most deranged. Thanks, Christine, for carrying the burden of this argument.