AGW is a hysterical version of Y2k
D. Quist (00:22:16) :
Stef
” Don’t even begin to compare AGW with Y2k”
I think AGW is a hysterical version of Y2k. The difference is that there was no political value in Y2k. It did not occur during an election year in this country. In addition it had an end-date. Not much political use, once the date was passed.
I am very aware of the actual costs of what had to be done for Y2k. That money was mostly well spent. The excess and hysteria I speak of, is the kind that is completely unrelated to the actual facts. My favorite being the remark that “some coffee makers use controller chips that are vulnerable to the Y2k problem”. Now who the h— sets the date on coffee pot? Never mind what coffee pot relies on the date to actually brew coffee. And what pot would care if the current year ends in 00. It is not calculating interest rates now is it?
AGW is rehashing many of the same cataclysmic end of civilization predictions. The cause is different, the result is all the same. The human race can’t handle it. We are doomed, etc.
The most laughable is the idea that sea-rise will cause massive problems. Who in their right mind can think that a 1-10mm per year over 100 years is going to cause a massive crisis. My possible grand children will be in their fifties! To worry about a three foot sea rise over 100 years is nonsense. Every road, port, rail track, house, building or bridge, in existence today, will have to be replaced/repaired within the next hundred years. Having to move it or raise it a few feet will add little to the overall cost. The areas that are low lying, can do as the Dutch, get a few trucks, a loader or two and add a few feet of dirt and concrete, they’ll have decades to finish the project!
No, the problem is the media. We get idiotic movies like “The day after tomorrow”.
Mankind is very resilient. If we need to we can, and will, prosper in a changing world. Even the idea that there might be mass extinction of plant and animal life is ridiculous. As we develop a better understanding of biology we realize that many species are very adaptable. The few that aren’t we can most likely help, come the time, 40-80-100 years from now.
As, I said. Our children will stand on our shoulders. Look back at the last hundred years, see the enormous challenges and accomplishments. Each generation over the last hundred years have provided enormous leaps forward, using ideas and solutions that were mere fantasies a generation before.
To believe that the next three or four generations coming after us can’t do the same is ignorant. The knowledge we have in store now, is more like a keg of TNT. Future generations will find countless ideas, in every aspect of human existence, and put them to use in ways we are incapable of imagining.
So AGW, if it is real, is no more challenging then Polio, or the nuclear threats of the cold war.