Hi All,Recently i wrote the following about climate change :"I...

Hi All,

Recently i wrote the following about climate change :

"I have to admit Im a complete fence sitter when it comes to climate change.
However even some of the most hardcore advocates against climate change do not fully rule out a slight possibility that humans are having an impact on our climate.

Now I put to you the following : If there is a possibility that humans could be causing irreversible damage to our climate which could cause catastrophic consequences or even extinction exactly what figure would you yourself be willing to accept as reasonable to gamble on our future... 1 in 100? 1 in 1000?
At this stage both sides have reasonable grounds of argument... my problem is I have trouble trying to put a relative figure on what percentage chance i would accept to gamble the future of the human race on...
So unless someone here can give me research that categorically proves well beyond the 2 figures i expressed above that climate change will not occur then i have a tendency to lean towards doing everything in our power to reduce greenhouse emissions until more study is done."

Don't worry, Im still none the wiser and slowly running thru a lot of correspondence, articles and scientific journals on climate change. There are just way too many variables to factor in for any current day computer modeling software to generate a near accurate figure on this.
So, what do we know :

1. A number items we pump into the air are having a harmful impact which cannot be accurately measured and cannot be proven or disproven as to whether these pollutants are or are not being effectively absorbed without causing a lasting impact.
2. See #1... we basically do not have any other conclusive evidence either way other than both parties agree that we pollute the air which may or may not have lasting effects.

My reasoning of why we should tackle climate change comes from a doctor who is a friend of mine who put it this way :

A patient comes into a hospital as he has had his body temperature rise and fall by unusual amounts recently. The hospital runs some tests and believe that some of the substances he uses at work are most likely the cause of his illness which may cause a life threatening illness if he does not stop ( eg cancer etc ). The patient advises the doctors that it will cost him a lot of money to have to resign at his current job and it may take years to get back to earning the same amount of money in a different occupation.
Not liking just one opinion on the matter the patient then goes to another hospital to find that they believe it's nothing to do with his work but is just natural fluctuations in his core body temperature. They advise he can continue working with confidence knowing that he is all fine. To prove the point they show the patient numerous other patients who have had identical issues in the past.

So the patient now has a dilemma... he has two options :

1. He can stop work which will mean most likely many years of austerity measures trying to work on a lower income but means he will have 100% confidence that if it is the substances at work causing this he wont have any future issues. However he still has at the back of his mind that it could be any number of other things not related to work that could be causing it.
2. He can continue working and living a life he has always wanted with some sound knowledge that a group of medical doctors advised him that it's nothing to do with his work. He also will not have to spend many years suffering with lower wages. However he still has at the back of his mind the other medical doctors who advised that it might be work related.

I know this is a watered down version of current events but it implies a simple concept of a choice we make based on our current knowledge of events.
Currently I would take option 1 because after weighing up the consequences of both potential outcomes I would take the conservative path of reducing all possible chances of me dying :)
However, just because i chose a path does not mean it is the right path...