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Originally Posted by HalvOnHorseracing
If this was complicated science - like you couldn't measure temperature change with a thermometer, a tool that has been reliable since 1700, or you couldn't accurately measure sea level rise, or you couldn't use a camera, another reliable tool for a couple hundred years, to view the change in the size of the polar ice caps, or you couldn't document the retreating glaciers in what will soon be the park formally known as Glacier, or you couldn't see the water consuming beach in the Maldives or the Seychelles, or a first year chemistry student didn't know exactly how CO2 acts to trap heat in the atmosphere - then perhaps the discussion about climate change would be different. The one thing that is worth arguing about is the predictive accuracy of the models. The assumptions you make and the algorithms you construct will produce different results, but there isn't a model out there that says things will get better if nothing changes. You can argue about degree. You can't argue about direction.
The question isn't whether climate change is real or not. Even the Koch brothers have given up on this one. The question is just how bad will things get if we do nothing. And it is likely we will never know the answer to that one because doing nothing doesn't seem to be working out so well. In 75 years if we are talking about how all the dire predictions didn't come true, it is more likely it will be because things changed.
The other question is, other than ice melting and the sea level rising, and ocean currents changing, how adaptable would we be? If the polar ice caps melted, most of NJ and Florida would be under water, and some might be willing to make that trade off (take that in the tongue in cheek spirit in which it was meant).
In 50 years we will have self-driving cars (wait for the Hollywood version of how that works out), although they still won't fly, we will have perfected 24/7 solar (which we are within spitting distance of today), and we will have perfected small, modular nuclear generators (that's zero greenhouse gas and no difference in electricity reliability).
The point is that life will go on and no one will notice what changed. People in the regulatory business know the best strategies are the ones that people don't realize they are implementing. Anyone thought about the catalytic converter on your car lately? Didn't think so, but automobile emissions are 5% of what they were in the 60's. And performance is great. Anyone think about the stage 2 vapor recovery system on gas pumps in states like CA or NJ to name a couple? Nope. Gas go in car, car keep going. And controls on power plants seem to bother most people not at all because they never had to change their behavior. Does your new 95% efficient furnace bother you? Do you wish you had the old 75% efficient one so you could be spending more money to stay as warm? Didn't think so. In so many ways technology advances occur and nobody notices because life looks just about the same.
If in 75 years people say, none of those dire predictions came true, nobody, even the climate scientists, will be the slightest bit upset. But it is far more likely that if they do, it will be because we responded to the messages we got today. Yeah, it sucks for the coal miners and I hope we figure out how to improve their situation, but the answer isn't to save coal miner jobs at the expense of the environment. We'll deal with the problem because eventually it will become far easier to deal with it than not deal with it.
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