Just another Reality-based bubble in the foam of the multiverse.

Thursday, December 11, 2008

Science in charge of Energy Policy?

Doubtless there's shock among the Faithful.

Chu:

... Consider this. There’s about a 50 percent chance, the climate experts tell us, that in this century we will go up in temperature by three degrees Centigrade. Now, three degrees Centigrade doesn’t seem a lot to you, that’s 11° F. Chicago changes by 30° F in half a day. But 5° C means that … it’s the difference between where we are today and where we were in the last ice age. What did that mean? Canada, the United States down to Ohio and Pennsylvania, was covered in ice year round.

Five degrees Centigrade.

So think about what 5° C will mean going the other way. A very different world. So if you’d want that for your kids and grandkids, we can continue what we’re doing. Climate change of that scale will cause enormous resource wars, over water, arable land, and massive population displacements. We’re not talking about ten thousand people. We’re not talking about ten million people, we’re talking about hundreds of millions to billions of people being flooded out, permanently...



..I will leave you with this final image. This is — I was an undergraduate when this picture was taken by Apollo 8 — and it shows the moon and the Earth’s rise. A beautiful planet, a desolate moon. And focus on the fact that there’s nowhere else to go.


Which, among the Faithful, is not a bug but a feature. After all, without a captive populace, who would be their servants?

2 comments:

Wiglaf said...

3 degrees centigrade * 9/5 = 5.4 degrees Farenheit, not 11. But yeah.

Personally in Utah I am enjoying the milder winters compared to those of my childhood. But I feel guilty about it.

kelley b. said...

I know what you mean. I live in Michigan.