Pascal’s Climate Wager/Sophie’s Climate Choice

OK, it sounds like the overwhelming verdict is in that global climate change is coming and likely the result of human activity (Source).

But if you listen to the “right” you get the impression that we really don’t know much of anything. Who knows? It could be that the climate will not heat up! It could be that the cause of this alleged heating is NOT human activity! It could all just be coincidence!

Sure, maybe, who knows? The data indicates that we are pumping tons of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere and the temperature is rising. Cause and effect? Well, no scientist can ever say with that this or that particular correlation implies causation.

It is the immutable wall of deduction. We assume that there is a statistical link. Only problem is, we don’t have any other planets we’ve done this to in order to compare results. If only we’d screwed up some other planet before we started working on this one!

This is the Pascal’s Wager Portion:

Pascal’s Wager is a theological wager that says, in effect, if you can’t prove God’s existence you can only make a choice based on potential outcomes. If you believe in God and there is a God, you hit the jackpot! If there is no God, when you die it’s no big deal because you’ll just cease to exist. Didn’t cost you too much during your earthly life (especially if you didn’t value reason, the ability to question and explore everything, or being free of fear).

But if you didn’t believe in God when you die and you find you were wrong you are in a world o’ hurt. Eternal torment at worst. Eternal punishment for, what, maybe 70 brief years of “free thought”. Hardly worth it, really.

So the Wager says it makes more sense to choose to believe in God because the outcomes are likely a win or a draw.

Climate Worries are a lot like that, imho. If you believe we can and should change our habits to affect a better climate if you find you are wrong, you simply end up living pretty much as we do today or maybe, if there was nothing we could do from the beginning, cooking on the planet but you got better gas mileage. IF, however you are right, then the planet is saved and humanity will go on! Our generation will be the next greatest generation!

On the other hand if you choose to disbelieve in “Anthropogenic Climate Change” and you opt to keep driving your giant SUV and pumping loads of CO2 into the atmosphere so you can pilot the Hummer (by yourself) through the suburban jungle, then if you find you were wrong we all cook. And in the end we will all know that YOU and your stupid gas-guzzler were largely responsible for our pain. Good job, asshole.

The reasonable thing is to work, and work hard, for an environmentally sustainable future that, at the very least will improve our impact on the planet and won’t make it worse! And who wants to pay more for gasoline?

Now here’s where Sophie’s Climate Choice comes in:

In the book Sophie’s Choice the eponymous character is forced at one point to make a choice between the lives of her two children.

Our choice for the most environmentally friendly power sources are coming up fast. Suppose we go all “Ed Begley Jr” on the environment and get an electric car. Well, that electricity has to come from somewhere and right now it’s coming from the coal-fired power plants by and large. Those things dump so much CO2 into the atmosphere as well as an alarming number of other nasties. We put scrubbers on the plants to keep down SOx which produces acid rain, so that’s good, but you can’t really keep from making CO2, it’s gonna get out on a largescale basis.

What about nuclear? Well, yeah, that’s overall cleaner. No combustion byproducts and on a daily basis, a nuke plant spews out less radioactive material than a coal fired powerplant! (http://www.ornl.gov/info/ornlreview/rev26-34/text/colmain.html). You’d be surprised what is in coal. It isn’t just fun carbon and hydrogen and a little oxygen. It has just about any metal you can imagine, including thorium, lead, uranium, mercury! It’s a veritable Periodic Table.

But then again, when a coal-fired powerplant burns to the ground in Salem, MA it doesn’t completely contaminate the entirety of New England. And you can live in Salem again within the next couple days.

This is a “risk choice” we need to make. Right now solar, wind and hydro power are still bit players, but have a lot of potential. They will require a lot more additional capacity to get us over the hump. And remember, we’ve taken Pascal’s Climate Wager and decided to DO something and time is running out! So our primary choice is nuclear at this point. At least it can buy us time to develop more eco-friendly, low-risk means.

Ugh. Which do you choose? The centralized, steady poisoning of our environment through a coal fired power plant? Or a ticking nuclear disaster that might or might not destroy vast swaths of land?

Man, this responsibility stuff is starting to suck! I’m gonna trade in my Yaris and get me a Hummer. Then I’ll log into Rapture Ready and “mark time” until the end! Or at least until alternatives are more well funded and start their exponential growth in development.