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Politics : Foreign Affairs Discussion Group -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Ilaine who wrote (50489)	10/9/2002 11:23:20 AM
From: Dennis O'Bell	Read Replies (2) \| Respond to of 281500

Do we really want to pay $2.2 trillion for what even optimistic Kyoto supporters say would be climate moderation of one-twentieth of a degree Celsius by the year 2050? I'm immediately suspicious about such numbers as "one-twentieth of a degree". The problem is that the climate is an extremely sensitive and complex nonlinear dynamic system, and (at least on geological time scales) we are at the end of a global warming phase. These time periods are the scene of very high climate volatility, whether our industrial societies are contributing significantly to global temperatures or not. It seems to me that there is a definite risk of far greater than "one-twentieth" of a degree temperature variations within a couple generations, but it's entirely possible there is nothing we can really do about it. Not the least because political horizons are extremely short, and it'll take a really scary wake up call to get people motivated to act together in a significant way. Until then, it's business as usual. We are going to have to reduce energy waste in any case, as fossil fuels will start to dry up at least in the same time frame as some of these climate concerns. Try a Google search for the "ocean conveyor" for links about just one of the worrisome sensitivities of the climate we're beginning to understand.