As a young child, I heard the story about Chicken Little and how he thought the sky was falling. He ran around saying that the sky was falling until most of the chickens believed him that the sky was really falling. As I see it today the story about Global Warming is about as logical and true as the story about Chicken Little. I think the reason that his name was "Little" was due to the size of his brain. Now, Global Warming.
Let's apply good decision theory methods to this problem. If we define global warming as an event that will significantly affect our quality of life in the next 50 years, we have basically two possibilities. Global warming will affect us in a significantly negative way or it will not...Those are the two possibilities. Do you agree with that? This is just step one.
Given the above two possibilities, we have at least three possible actions. The first one is to do exactly nothing. The second one is to try to stop global warming. Third is to mitigate the affects of global warming. With me so far?
Next, we need to understand exactly what the affects would be if we have global warming. If we don't understand the possible affects, how can we possibly figure out what action is best. Isn't it interesting that so far the debate has not gotten to what the affects might be. I think that we could agree that the affects should be judged on how they affect the quality of life for us citizens of the USA and the rest of the world. I divide this into to two groups because I think that our government should give priority to "us" who are citizens of the USA. What will happen if global warming is real is that some places will be warmer or better off and others will be too hot and not as well off. Given that humans live in a wide variety of climate conditions now, we already have experience with the potential affects of global warming. This not some big mystery. Like all changes in the past, people who are living in worst places will try to move or migrate to places that are more favorable. It happened during the dust bowl here in the USA and it continues to happen every day some place in the world. This is a fact and is nothing new. It just happens that the USA is a very nice place to live and even if we experience global warming, much of the USA will continue to be a nice place to live. Just like people move out of the dust bowl or out of Detroit, we will see this same thing if we have serious global warming.
Most people don't see beyond the migration and the affect that migration has on the places where the migrants move too. I contend that it makes it "worse" for the people who already lived in the areas where the migrants move too. Look at it this way. Is California a better place to live now than it was in 1935 before millions of migrants moved in? The answer is simple. It is a lot worse and it will be the same for every place where a significant number of immigrants move in. What I am trying to point out is the affects of global warming so that you can form your decision on what is best. You now live in the USA, do you want more immigrants?
The next point that needs to be made is, "what if our efforts to stop or slow global warming don't work? If that is the case, all the cost will have been worthless. Remember that the cost resulted in a lower standard of living for you and me while our wealth was diverted to battling global warming. There is no free lunch. The cost of fighting global warming was food taken from the mouths of your children. Like anything else, you have to ask yourself if it was "worth it or not"?
I was thinking about getting into the details of the probabilities of each of the above events actually happening, but realized that I would lose most of you. By grinding out the probabilities and the cost of each of the alternatives and possible out comes, it would be possible to find the "best" decisions. I am going to jump to the end and state that, "if you have food and energy" you will be able to either survive any projection of global warming or at least be the "last man standing". Compared to most of the rest of the world, we have food and energy!
Given the above, we should not be trying to save the world and prevent global warming. What we should be doing is figuring out how we can best survive global warming and "not" spend any money or punish any of our business in an effort to stop global warming. As I stated above, when the time comes people in bad places are going to try to immigrate to better places. What we will need to do is to prevent that from happening. If you are following this point, why don't we get started right now? Rather than spending our wealth trying to prevent global warming, we should be preventing any more immigration into the USA. I think we should have "zero" immigration and anyone who is here now who violated our immigration laws should be deported. Just as more immigrants into California have made the quality of life worse in California, it has been and will be the same for the rest of the USA.
Finally, how about the probabilities. What is your probability estimate of whether global warming will have a significant affect on the quality of life in the USA in the next 50 year? Further, what is your estimate that squandering our wealth on trying to prevent global warming is going to be affective? If you grind the numbers, you are going to find that Obama is making a very bad investment of your wealth. What has been his batting average on solar power, wind mills and Obamacare insurance Co-Op's?
I need to say no more!!!
Let's apply good decision theory methods to this problem. If we define global warming as an event that will significantly affect our quality of life in the next 50 years, we have basically two possibilities. Global warming will affect us in a significantly negative way or it will not...Those are the two possibilities. Do you agree with that? This is just step one.
Given the above two possibilities, we have at least three possible actions. The first one is to do exactly nothing. The second one is to try to stop global warming. Third is to mitigate the affects of global warming. With me so far?
Next, we need to understand exactly what the affects would be if we have global warming. If we don't understand the possible affects, how can we possibly figure out what action is best. Isn't it interesting that so far the debate has not gotten to what the affects might be. I think that we could agree that the affects should be judged on how they affect the quality of life for us citizens of the USA and the rest of the world. I divide this into to two groups because I think that our government should give priority to "us" who are citizens of the USA. What will happen if global warming is real is that some places will be warmer or better off and others will be too hot and not as well off. Given that humans live in a wide variety of climate conditions now, we already have experience with the potential affects of global warming. This not some big mystery. Like all changes in the past, people who are living in worst places will try to move or migrate to places that are more favorable. It happened during the dust bowl here in the USA and it continues to happen every day some place in the world. This is a fact and is nothing new. It just happens that the USA is a very nice place to live and even if we experience global warming, much of the USA will continue to be a nice place to live. Just like people move out of the dust bowl or out of Detroit, we will see this same thing if we have serious global warming.
Most people don't see beyond the migration and the affect that migration has on the places where the migrants move too. I contend that it makes it "worse" for the people who already lived in the areas where the migrants move too. Look at it this way. Is California a better place to live now than it was in 1935 before millions of migrants moved in? The answer is simple. It is a lot worse and it will be the same for every place where a significant number of immigrants move in. What I am trying to point out is the affects of global warming so that you can form your decision on what is best. You now live in the USA, do you want more immigrants?
The next point that needs to be made is, "what if our efforts to stop or slow global warming don't work? If that is the case, all the cost will have been worthless. Remember that the cost resulted in a lower standard of living for you and me while our wealth was diverted to battling global warming. There is no free lunch. The cost of fighting global warming was food taken from the mouths of your children. Like anything else, you have to ask yourself if it was "worth it or not"?
I was thinking about getting into the details of the probabilities of each of the above events actually happening, but realized that I would lose most of you. By grinding out the probabilities and the cost of each of the alternatives and possible out comes, it would be possible to find the "best" decisions. I am going to jump to the end and state that, "if you have food and energy" you will be able to either survive any projection of global warming or at least be the "last man standing". Compared to most of the rest of the world, we have food and energy!
Given the above, we should not be trying to save the world and prevent global warming. What we should be doing is figuring out how we can best survive global warming and "not" spend any money or punish any of our business in an effort to stop global warming. As I stated above, when the time comes people in bad places are going to try to immigrate to better places. What we will need to do is to prevent that from happening. If you are following this point, why don't we get started right now? Rather than spending our wealth trying to prevent global warming, we should be preventing any more immigration into the USA. I think we should have "zero" immigration and anyone who is here now who violated our immigration laws should be deported. Just as more immigrants into California have made the quality of life worse in California, it has been and will be the same for the rest of the USA.
Finally, how about the probabilities. What is your probability estimate of whether global warming will have a significant affect on the quality of life in the USA in the next 50 year? Further, what is your estimate that squandering our wealth on trying to prevent global warming is going to be affective? If you grind the numbers, you are going to find that Obama is making a very bad investment of your wealth. What has been his batting average on solar power, wind mills and Obamacare insurance Co-Op's?
I need to say no more!!!
