Insurance

At lunch yesterday, Allan pointed out a flaw in the logic of the "Global Warming" video I posted in my blog a few weeks ago. Basically, he pointed out, the argument goes:

If we do nothing about (insert big risky thing here), then something terrible could happen. Therefore we should do something about it rather than sit back and wait for the worst.

Sound familiar? It should. It's your insurance salesman's bread and butter. In the case of the video, the crisis is global warming. However, the case could be made for an asteroid colliding with earth, global cooling (anyone remember the 70's?), or even a fire in your home. Effectively we're being asked to buy insurance against global warming.

There's no problem with that, per se. I'm insured up to my ears against things that seem reasonably risky (car, fire, quake, life, disability, health, liability). But the interesting point that Allan made (and that I failed to see until he pointed it out) is that the argument made in the video can be reduced to "buy insurance!"

And that's not enough. We should all spend our money wisely, so when someone says "buy insurance" it's worthwhile to ask why.

Allow me to illustrate:

Global warming is a grave and gathering threat to life as we know it. We have done the research. We know that carbon emissions are directly linked to the increase in temperatures that have resulted in massive changes in the environment. Polar ice caps melting. Sea levels rising. Mass starvation. We must act and we must do it now. We do not want the incontrovertible proof of man's environmental impact to come in the form of the extinction of our species.

If you're a Liberal like me, you read that and say, "right on!" Now try this on:

Saddam Hussein is a grave and gathering threat to freedom as we know it. We have done the research. We know that Saddam is directly linked to al qaeda and has been trying to acquire weapons of mass destruction. We must act and we must do it now. We must attack Iraq in order to prevent the terrorists from attacking us. We do not want the smoking gun to come in the form of a mushroom cloud.

Doesn't feel quite as convincing, does it?

As noted by many, there's still some room out there for interpretation about the "real" risk of climate change (or as another friend puts it, whether climate change is even real). We don't know enough about what's going to happen to the planet as a result of our misuse. So until there's enough proof/consensus/political will-- whatever you want to call it-- that global warming is a real threat, there's room for debate about what, if anything to do about it.

Don't misunderstand. I do believe global warming is a real threat. I don't understand why skeptics don't see it, but I respect their right to differ. I just hope that enough skeptics can be swayed by facts. Unfortunately, that is something of which I am quite skeptical, myself.