Re: [Phys-l] Climate change?

[Jack Uretsky <jlu@hep.anl.gov>]

Hi Rick:
	If you "haven't a clue", then you are hardly in in a position to 
make a contrary argument.  Why don't you find out where we disagree on the 
issues, and then make your argument?
			Regards,
				Jack



On Sat, 5 Apr 2008, Richard  Tarara wrote:

> I haven't a clue what Jack is talking about in relationship to laying out
> the possible degrees and consequences of global warming and then providing a
> rough probability (likelihood) of reaching each.  I would think a 2-3 degree
> increase in temperature is much more likely than the melting of the entire
> Antarctic ice sheet.  If nothing else, take the umpteen models and their
> best and worst case predictions and do some statistics on that.  It boils
> down to a matter of finite resources, multiple threats, and distributing
> those resources and our energies in a way that gives us the best chance of
> minimizing or eliminating --the negative effects/dangers of all.  If we take
> all of the threats to humanity--Climate, Disease, Asteroids, (Chemical,
> biological, or Nuclear) War, Starvation, etc. in the worst case forms--then
> we're stuck with trying to solve all of them immediately (or sooner) and
> that just isn't possible.  We have to have a basis for prioritizing and
> allocating effort and resources.  What would you suggest?
>
> Rick
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Jack Uretsky" <jlu@hep.anl.gov>
>
>
> > I have had a long-standing complaint about certain habits of economists.
> > I insist that it is nonsensical to put numerical probabilities on the
> > occurrence of one time events, as is the habit of inhabitants of the
> > University of Chicago economists.
> >
> > The intellectual support for this category of nonsense is something called
> > subjective probability - which is OK, as far as it goes.  But when people
> > insist on differentiating subjective probability functions, which cannot
> > be subject to any kind of smoothness constraints, they are wandering into
> > fantasy land.
> >  Regards,
> >  Jack
> >
> >
> >
> > On Sat, 5 Apr 2008, Richard  Tarara wrote:
> >
> > > Since this topic has come up and because certain people are assuming that
> > > anyone who is even slightly skeptical of the Global Warming
> > > science/reports/PR is somehow 'seriously flawed' (to put it kindly), let
> > > me
> > > outline a course of action on Global Warming that was presented on
> > > another
> > > list but comes from an economist--one with deep Physics roots.  This is
> > > my
> > > version of his plan.
> > >
> > > 1)  Layout the levels of Global Warming and their consequences--from very
> > > mild to catastophic.  Do the best we can to determine the relative
> > > probablities of these.
> > > 2)  Layout a plan of action to that would minimize the adverse effects at
> > > each level.
> > > 3)  Estimate what is would cost--all types of costs--to do each of these.
> > > 4)  Determine where Global Warming ranks with other threats/concerns that
> > > will compete for the time/labor/money available. [more on this below].
> > > 5)  Now pick an appropriate plan of action--based on the probablities,
> > > the
> > > priorities, and the available resources.
>
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--
"Trust me.  I have a lot of experience at this."
		General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
		just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley