Randal Hoven over at American Thinker thinks about the “just in case” argument supporting expensive action on C02 and finds it “flawed”:
The average annual temperature in Memphis, Tennessee is 62.3o F. The temperature of Lexington, Kentucky is 54.9o F. That is a bigger difference than the IPCC’s worst-case scenario.
Could mankind handle that kind of adaptation – moving from Memphis to Lexington in the next 100 years?
Thomas Friedman thinks it’s worth $2 trillion a year to avoid even the slightest probability of that.
He also notes that:
- We are now in what is called an interglacial period, or the time between ice ages. Previous interglacial peaks were three degrees warmer than now. In Antarctica, these previous peaks were actually six degrees warmer.
- Since the last ice age, the oceans rose about 400 feet. Most of that occurred before the pyramids were built (and well before modern use of fossil fuels), but the trend for hundreds of years up to the present has been rising sea levels.
Basically, we aren’t causing whatever “it” is and even if we were $2 trillion / year would require a catastrophe eliminating 2/3rds of the planet GOP to be cost effective.
In other words… doing something about global warming is stupid in two ways… first it isn’t real, second it will hurt more than it helps.