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August 18, 2012

Lukewarmers

In the climate debate, we hear a lot from those who think disaster is inexorable if not inevitable, and a lot from those who think it is all a hoax. We hardly ever allow the moderate “lukewarmers” a voice:
those who suspect that the net positive feedbacks from water vapor in the atmosphere are low, so that we face only 1 to 2 degrees Celsius of warming this century; that the Greenland ice sheet may melt but no faster than its current rate of less than 1 percent per century; that net increases in rainfall (and carbon dioxide concentration) may improve agricultural productivity; that ecosystems have survived sudden temperature lurches before; and that adaptation to gradual change may be both cheaper and less ecologically damaging than a rapid and brutal decision to give up fossil fuels cold turkey. -- Apocalypse Not: Here's Why You Shouldn't Worry About End Times | Wired Science | Wired.com

Posted by gerardvanderleun at August 18, 2012 7:57 AM. This is an entry on the sideblog of American Digest: Check it out.

Your Say

I made the same point five years ago in "What of global warming is a good thing?"

Posted by: Donald Sensing at August 18, 2012 9:14 AM

We paid PBS a lot of money to tell us this morning that global warming is really, really bad.

Posted by: mjazz at August 18, 2012 1:10 PM

Climate change is a constant. It has been going on--colder, warmer, and back again--for eons. It likely will continue until the sun becomes a red giant and consumes the earth entirely, long beyond the time any of us will have to worry about it. Climate change does cause alterations in human activity--no more vinyards in England, no more agriculture in Greenland, to take two examples from the cooling period of the late Middle Ages--but humans are nothing if not adaptable. If it warms back up, we might be buying a nice Chardonnay from the Yorkshire Winery, or bread made from imported Thule wheat. And I refuse to panic when lefties who are more interested in controlling other people's lives than they are about anything environmental tell me the world is about to end unless we all obey their commands.

Posted by: waltj at August 19, 2012 12:33 AM

The greatest bs to come out of the global warming crowd is that if we give them unlimited amounts of money, restrict our lives as they see fit, do nothing that harms gaia according to their opinions, They can control the weather and climate which all intelligent folks know is total BS. God, i wish we could ship them to a island in the pacific and they can be happy telling each other what to do and how to live.

Posted by: wildman at August 19, 2012 6:22 AM

The "problem" with lukewarmism is that it narrates a scenario where you can't control people and making billions of dollars doing it. These is why a lukewarmist will be demonized by warmists every bit as much as outright skeptics are.

That this article appeared in "Wired" is a very good sign. More please!

Posted by: Don Rodrigo at August 20, 2012 9:06 AM

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