Well, in response to John Camp and Svein-Frode,
If there's a 50-50 chance that greenhouse gases will extensively damage the ecosystem, I suggest it would probably be a good idea to do something about them...just in case. Or even if it's 20-80. And in spite of the possibility of error.
I don't know where I've written that I think we should be doing nothing about this.
What I'm trying to say is, it looks like the problem is too hard for us and that it's going to be a case of too little too late. In which event, let's hope that the authors of the IPCC report have got it wildly wrong as sometimes the meteorologists do with regard to local weather forecasts.
The problem as I see it is, we can't achieve anything without expenditure of energy. If the current sources of energy are mostly coal, oil and gas, as they are in most countries, France being one of the few exceptions with a high proportion of its energy coming from nuclear power, then even the construction of non-polluting power stations such as windmill farms, nuclear power plants, solar reflectors and heaters, photo-voltaic cells etc. are going to require that existing (dirty) power plants work flat out until the transition is made.
However, that in itself is not an insurmountable problem. The old power plants could be gradually phased out as new, clean ones come on stream.
The problem is the
cost of that new clean energy. Our prosperity is dependent upon the cost of energy and the efficiency with which we use that energy. Are we able to increase the efficiency of all our appliances (on average), and make sufficient savings by reducing wastage, to offset that unavoidable increase in the cost of energy from windmill farms.
If we can't, then our material standard of living will fall and/or the poverty of undeveloped nations will continue or get worse.
A 20 watt energy-saving lightbulb produces as much light as a 100 watt conventional, tungsten filament light bulb. If we could replicate that increase in efficiency with other appliances such as vehicular transport, air travel, bull dozers, dumpers and prime movers etc, then we'd be home and dry.
What’s interesting isn’t the current estimates, but how they have developed from the first IPCC report back in the 1980s. How someone isn’t frightened by the picture that is being developed is beyond me. I’m not one of those who need to knock myself in the head with a hammer to know that it hurts.
A recent survey of public opinion in Australia rated global warming as the number 1 concern, greater than terrorism in fact. However, if we tackle this problem in a manner which results in a severe economic downturn, then I would expect that high rates of unemployment would be the number 1 concern.