John Mullen wrote:
I totally understand. Leaning towards the GW denial position
allows you to use fossil fuels without guilt.

Unfortunately the science leans the other way.

Anyone reading this got house insurance? Life insurance?

The economic cost of anti-GW measures is the cost of the insurance
policy against global environmental dislocation (or disaster).
And the majority of climate scientists are saying that that that
dislocation (or disaster) is pretty much a dead cert. On that
basis, the cost of the anti-GW "insurance policy" is well worth it,
despite the expense. If there was a 70% chance of your house
being burnt down, a policy that cost 20% of its value would be
worth it.

Of ocurse there's a catch. It's pretty much human nature to tend
to do absolutely ****-all about inconvenient problems until some
major disaster happens -- since the disaster gives the average
person (e.g. politicians) an anecdote to "prove" the science
with. If we're lucky, that major disaster (which most likely
will have to kill many millions to count) will happen to somebody
else, and it won't happen too late for effective steps to be
taken. This disaster will never count as proof for rich
individuals or businesses who can make a short or medium term
profit regardless.

It's an insurance policy. The climate scientists might not have
got it right, but the chance of that is much smaller than the
chance they're right; so the reasonable position would be that
the anti-GW measures and their inconveniences are worthwhile.
Expecting a planets worth of national governments to agree on
something reasonable is, on the other hand, not reasonable.

#Paul