--- Joe Bauman <bau@desnews.com> wrote:
So there has been 1 C of warming in the last 200 years -- except that with their more recent research, that has dropped to 0.5 to 0.6 degrees. I repeat: How can such a tiny shift in 200 years result in all these supposedly catastrophic changes, even assuming humans are responsible? . . . .
For the moment, put aside the question of responsibility and human causation. There is little disagreement that since 1750, carbon dioxide concentrations have increased by 30% from 280 ppm to 380 ppm. It is at a higher level than at any time in the last 650,000 years. This increase is mostly caused by burning fossil fuels and deforestation. For the moment, assume that you just can't increase the levels of atmospheric carbon dixoide in a closed atmosphere and not raise the temperature. The costs of future increased temperature raises will be borne predominately by the Third World in the form of higher levesl of death by starvation from increased desertification.
(I'm paraphrasing.) Every tax dollar you slap on gas in a possibly-misguided attempt to stop global warming is a dollar out of everyone's pockets. It would damage commerce. People who are scraping by and putting aside everything they can to send their children to college may find themselves unable to pay tuition.
Again, set aside the question of retrospective moral responsibility and who or what caused global warming. The moral issue is prospective and concerns avoiding uncertain future effects. It concerns the level of obligation that you owe to aid distant people that you do not personally know - akin to what is the reasonable level of U.S. foreign aid to reduce famine overseas. Given that temperatures will increase and that global famine will increase as a consequence of it, if personally you or as a country we have the ability to ameliorate that future effect by reducing your or your country's CO2 emissions, what is our moral obligation to do so, even though it will benefit people that we will never meet? What is your moral obligation to aid distant strangers (those who starve to death from increased desertification) relative to aiding people in your own neighborhood (those young persons who might be able to go to college if taxes were lower)? If such persons were starving here in your community - let's say in cardboard boxes on 400 South - you would have little compunction about voting a tax increase to render aid - since poverty is boorish and ugly and wrong - particularly when you can see it. How does your personal moral obligation change if there is third way, even given uncertainty in the future effects of global warming? What if the alternative is not increased taxes, but simply forebearing use of oversized low-mileage pickups and SUVs in favor of smaller, high-mileage cars? How does that change your balancing of the ethical choices between future uncertain starving foreigners and present but certain conspicuous and excessive consumption? In that balance, is present conspicuous and excessive consumption, that produces unnecessarily high volumes of CO2, an ethical act? Just a philosophical thought on the question. - Kurt ____________________________________________________________________________________ Cheap talk? Check out Yahoo! Messenger's low PC-to-Phone call rates. http://voice.yahoo.com