This argument vastly underplays the costs of taking action. If we choose column one we have a 100% chance of starvation in third word countries. Even if global warming is true, even if it is man caused, we still don't know that the consequences of inaction are worse than the cost of action. Very clever, but not convincing.

It's overly simplified, and to the layman, the set-up implies a 25% probability for each box.

He sets this up like an options problem (the economic kind), only the guy doesn't assign 1.) probabilities to the scenarios (important), and 2.) he doesn't quantify the real costs of each scenario (also important).

Assigning the costs and probabilities may end up making taking action the worst choice possible.

But would he have 3 million hits if this were the case?

The depression of the 1930s directly led to the rise of Hitler, Stalin and Mao. - i.e. genocide of nearly 100 million people, nuclear warfare in 1945, the development of thermonuclear weapons and the cold war which nearly wiped out the human race. A prominent Harvard economist has estimated that a 50% reduction in CO2 would cost half of the world's GDP - sending us back into a 1930's depression.

Younger people, like the YouTube author, have enjoyed prosperity and take it for granted. This guy has no clue what he is talking about when discussing the dangers of worldwide depression.

We currently live in very prosperous times, and no matter how hysterical people get there is no turning back for China and their new coal fired power plant every week. Any American foolish enough to believe that he can change the mindset of the Chinese is deluded.

At the other corner of the chart, most of the earth's history had much higher CO2 levels, and life flourished and evolved. The catastrophes he was hyperventilating over are simply not going to happen. People need to get a grip before they carelessly destroy the nice lifestyle they have come to enjoy.

creative use of cost benefit analysis, but his argument actually is flawed-the earth does not behave as an economic system. the model he is using assumes that the earth is a static system and the climate does not change unless acted upon by man. He makes the assumption that once man "corrects" global warming, all will be dandy and we will continue to live at the present "normal". This, however, is not possible. The climate will most likely continue to warm, as it has been since the end of the Pleistocene ice ages-and there is nothing we an do about that, no matter how much control some may think man has on the environment. Sea level will rise, coastal areas will be flooded, distributions of environments and resources will change. All due to natural fluctuations. Look even within human history at ancient civilizations that moved when the distribution of resources changed. wars were fought, diseases broke out, civilizations rose and fell. It is only recently that humans have developed this false idea of the earth's climate as a forever static system-> the main culprit in AGW hysteria. It is just in this past few centuries that we have mapped out the world with impassible political boundaries. as such, the resources provided a certain area are fixed, some people will win the geological lottery, some will lose. this is the issue that is now starting to come to light, it is just entangled in a web of AGW hysteria and inaccurate computer models. it may sound pessimistic, but the earth will change in ways that we may not particularly like it to no matter what we do.

Most terrifying image you will see
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/antarctic.jpg
and it ain't going away
http://arctic.atmos.uiuc.edu/cryosphere/IMAGES/current.365.south.jpg

Imagine the terrifying damage done by persons who actually believe the earth is warming due to AGG sequestrate Co2 out of the atmosphere, kill plant life everywhere, interfere with natural atmospheric processes (like sun cycles) much more more dangerous. One thing that is forgotten that more life (such as increasing life ie people) means more C02 because they need it to live (as they need more oxygen)

His conclusion is not inescapable as he claims. He thinks that we must act to avoid the worst case scenario, but that is not responsible risk management. He even says to play with probabilites, but he does not do it himself. What if the probability of global catastrophe is .01 and the probability of global depression is .5. This choice is not simple. Furthermore, scientists should not concern themselves with "column thinking". Their tasks is only to determine which row we will end up in. It is the public and the policy makers who determine the column.

Honestly, this video (though a compelling presentation) is a logical fallacy based on a false dichotomy. Many climatologists are unwilling to posit this as an either/or situation and frankly we should not be willing to do so either. It makes for compelling (and scary) conclusions but they are based on a false premise.

For an extended discussion I recommend this for those who are honestly struggling with what to think or do about Global Warming:
http://paulhelmsdeep.blogspot.com/2007/12/analysis-9-saving-planet-whats-best-bet.html

Just read it. It's thought provoking.

Chris.

Give me ticket B since the scenarios he states are based on computer models with inputs put into them to arrive at these scenarios.If we actually had a good understanding of the climate I might go for A.Weather and climate related catastrophes have been happening all through the past,just now every one is pointed out as being caused by AGW.

While he doesn't assume GW is caused by mankind, he's assuming we can take measures to reduce or eliminate any bad effects which is nonsense since we only contribute a very miniscule amount of CO2, which still after all these years can't be proven to be the cause of rising temperatures. Indeed, there are many other natural causes that are to blame but the fear-mongers conveniently ignore those.
And looking back through history, the worst casr scenario never materializes so it would not be worth the pain for little or no gain. We will adapt and prosper quite nicely in a warmer world.
About a foot of snow and cold right now here in my so-called warmer world.

A used car dealer will always try to hurry you into buying a car before you leave the lot. If you ask for more time to make up your mind, they will do everything possible to keep you from thinking further. Then you may wind up with a lemon, but the dealer winds up with a sale.

In this case the "lemon," which the video does not mention, is that we actually do face a time of Climactic Hardship, (such as the Dust Bowl of the 1930's,) which we could deal with if we had a government which allowed people the freedom to respond with ingenuity, but we instead foolishishly threw away that freedom and that government and chose an inefficient government run by petty dictators.

There is evidence that Dust Bowl conditions also occurred around the end of the Civil War, when the prairie was not settled. In other words such drought may reoccur every 60 to 70 years. There is nothing mere mortals can do to prevent such drought.

What sort of government do you want, if we are faced with Climatic Hardship? A government of the people and for the people? Or a socialistic government where non-farmers, who have no practical experience farming, sit indoors and tell you that they can change the weather by taking actions which seem likely to have no effect whatsoever?

It is one thing, when faced with Climatic Hardship, to be humbled and to pray. It is quite another to give all your money and power to a priest or medicine man who claims to hold the strings and to be able to change the weather.

It is easy to give up freedom, but difficult to get it back. Never forget Hitler was elected.

What concerns me most is that we haven't even faced true Climatic Hardship yet, and already there are signs of a witch-hunt mentality, and talk of arresting people who do not conform to the alarmist views. I have actually met people who feel I am evil for farming. It is like watching a growing social madness, similar to what must have occurred in Germany as Hitler rose to power.

What I would like to see is people stick to the facts. We need to deal with what is. This video, like so much model-based imagination, is based in a dream-world. People need to be pragmatic and to verify, verify, verify.

I dont play the lottery. Overwhelming odds you are going to lose. Could the winner of the lottery contribute ALL of their winnings to save the world? NO.

Fear mongering pessimists. Dec. 3rd, 45 miles north of Boston, 43 degrees north on the latitude scale, and we just received 4 inches of snow with more on the way and freezing COLD temperatures predicted for the rest of the week. November was chilly. Ski resorts in New England are open and loving it!

Whatever happened to our young, fearful South American friend Emilliano? Must have been a cold winter to cause him to stop blogging. Maybe hes waiting for the peak of summer?

I feel bad that you are living in such fear of AGW. The antarctic is gaining in mass. 1/2 a degree is nothing. You need to CHILL OUT on AGW. Its still dangerously COLD enough to do that.

I heard that the poles are supposed to reverse polarity. Does anyone know anything about this? How can WE stop it?

LOL! The "false-Yes" box results are minimized and the "true-No" results are magnified. Look at the results of the Great Depression, it actually would include everything in his uberdisaster box and if you actually start splitting out the possibilities like he suggests, it gets even more complicated. For example, even some of the hardest core AGWers have acknowledged that spending on things not related to pure carbon reduction games would yield better results (in lives saved and made safer) than Kyoto style silliness.

Cute bit of pravda.

I love this piece. It's concise, provoking, accurate, and leads to reasonable action.

I pick Column A, of course.

I particularly appreciate his distinction between "row thinking" and "column thinking". In my view, this is the most important point of this piece and, for that matter, of all the exchanges on this blog.

I'm an engineer. I'm trained to do "column thinking" -- because, as the presenter observes, "column thinking" is the only thing I and we can choose to do. I'm frustrated, to the point of anger, by those who insist on "row thinking" -- because we can't do anything about that.

The best we can do for the row information is learn all we can, through the best available science. The best that will do, in turn, is help us evaluate which column we choose and then, within that column, what specific actions we take.

The primary criticism that I have is that we can go further in this analysis. As in all game-theory approaches like this, we can put ranges on the probability of the row split, we can put ranges on the net costs/paybacks of the cell values, and we can derive an expected value for each column. Yes, it will be full of noise -- but we can do sensitivity analysis on our choices and get more insight into whether or not the noise matters or not.

If Column B is the correct choice, then that choice should be reasonably insensitive to the outcome of whether we see "row A" or "row B".

As I said, I think the answer is obvious and compelling: Column A. I therefore think any debate we have should be a debate about how we maximize our expected return from that choice -- how we minimize our cost if "GCC" turns out to be false, and how we maximize our benefit if it turns out to be true.

Finally, there are -- of course -- several different matrices that aren't shown in this video, and that are implied by this approach. These are matrices that shows collective wealth versus personal wealth for various segments in the various scenarios.

I suggest that these unexplored matrices are what drive certain segments of our population towards "column B", even in the face of its apparently irrationality. This is because these are the matrices that show how threatening all of these are to the enormous accumulated wealth of those who currently control that wealth.

I suggest that the real issue is the risk that the strategies that maximize the net gain for humanity as a whole imply a net loss for certain very small (but very wealthy and very powerful) segments of humanity. I suggest that THOSE are the people who would happily misdirect us into anyplace they can, even "column B", so long as they preserve the illusion that they can hold onto their wealth.

I call them "deniers" because those are the people who deny that the result of a shift to column B is the catastrophic loss of wealth for them, and the rest of us, that results from their self-interested and short-sighted perspective.

Sophomoric and silly. He assumes warming will be disastrous when common sense tells us it would be beneficial. Most people live in the warmer parts of the planet for a good reason. It is ludicrous to assume that warming on the whole would be detrimental.

Hi BT,

So you are convinced that worldwide depression is OK? Brilliant engineering deduction - enjoy the soup lines and WWIII.

This is stuff movies are made of. "Global Climate Change" as he calls it is obviously the subject for his 2 dimensional solution matrix.
Again much appears to be taken for granted. Climate change is neither global nor is it new.
What we have to interpret is the arrogance of of some to want to try to alter/change a natural cycle.
It must be blissful to offer solutions to a problem without knowing/admitting the causes. If this were true all the world problems could be viewed/resolved 2 dimensionally in no time.
Since cause appears to be irrelevant in his grid then so too are the results.

These people are well intentioned but appear to have lost their way with respect to the environment. Pollution and abuse of natural resources appear to have been ignored in order to support CO2 and AGW.
If we follow the money, CO2 wins everytime. Imagine making people invest in eliminating/reducing something you can't see but can't go without, and can be blamed for floods & droughts, increased heat & increased cold, good weather & bad weather, wind and calm, (and the list goes on).

Sounds like a real cash cow to me!

Why deal in reality! Pollute all you want but beware that the climate doesn't change ........because we want it to be the same all the time ........

Others have already commented on the statistical flaws in the "either-or" argument that the video presents. True, current research has demonstrated a statistically-valid human impact on global temperature trends for the last century or so, but simply proving that "cause A" has a statistically-demonstrable influence on "result B" does not mean that "A causes 100% of B". Appropriate social & economic policy responses to AWG depend entirely on whether "we" (= humanity) are 90% responsible for the present temperature signal - or more like 10%. _Anthropogenic inputs are piggy-backed on natural trends_ - (see recent abstracts from the American Geophysical Union, for instance). Anyone who doesn't understand this hasn't done their homework, and probably shouldn't be planning the future for the rest of us (no matter how "hip" they are w/ You-Tube). :-/
There is also the implicit (and very odd) notion that we will be dealing w/ future climate trends w/ precisely the same level of technology and mix of energy supply that we have at the present moment. I wonder if our video presenter has spent any time considering the effects if probable advances in LED lighting, superconducting tech, continued historical downward trends in C/H ratios of fuel stocks etc. and how these could ameliorate the impending "crisis", without the heavy-handed, top-down, command-and-control bureaucratic "solution" that I gather he favors?
Also, on a geologic note, it shouldn't be lost on any of us that all the scary worst-case scenarios (droughts, rising sea levels, changing disease vectors, etc) are all phenomena that human civilization has had to grapple with ever since agriculture was invented. :-/ (The late Roman Empire, for example, lost productive farmland to encroaching salt marshes on the Atlantic seaboard.) And, for a fact, during the peak of the last interglacial, there were old-growth boreal forests growing on what is now Alaskan permafrost, and sea level was easily 2 meters higher than at present. So, strictly in terms of temperatures, the global environment has been here before in the quite-recent geologic past. Somehow the biosphere managed to stumble on through.
The video presenter doesn't seem to understand that beggaring ourselves back to the level of Amish farmers will leave future generations *less* able to deal with inevitable climate changes, not better prepared ...

Patrick,

Communism arose due to the failures of unfettered laissez-faire which was prevalent throughout the world during the early 20th century. It didn't happen by accident.

There's a saying which goes: "The fastest way to Communism is pure unregulated capitalism." And it's true. It's amazing how the Libertarian loons want us to return to the economic system we had prior to the Great Depression.

The Paranoid Right needs to stop engaging in the politics of fear and bullying. The world is not moving towards Communism because we're requiring cars to have better gas mileage. Give me a break.

Mark,

Fifty years ago half of China and India were starving to death. The free market system cured those ills and brought new found wealth to both countries. Half of the population of the Soviet Union died under Stalin and Hitler, but the free market system has also brought prosperity to Russia. Moscow is now as expensive as London.

If you think that the UN managing the world economy is sane or acceptable - think again. Only intellectually lazy people (i.e. liberals) could even consider such a possibility.

Mark

Was Tsarist Russia noted for its laissez faire economic policy?

Er.. Mark... Communist Theory and practice occured well before the Great Depression. It thrived in Europe after the Treaty of Vienna in large part because of the continued system of Monarchies in Eastern and Central Europe. European capitalists were anything but capitalists - they were never averse to govermental or courtly interference as long as they benefited. On the other hand, Communism never really took hold over -despite the Red Scares of 1931-1935.

This European tradition of top-down "socialism" can explain why most Europeans haven't a problem with a one size fits all govermental solution to "climate change".

The presenter is actually making the implicit argument that wildly exaggerated claims are more deserving of preventive action based on the magnitude of consequences.

On the other hand, rational people make decisions based not on the worst yet impossible consequences, but rather consequences associated with the best available understanding. The reason for this is that we do not possess the unlimited resources to cover all bases, and we do not foresee unintended consequences.

Given that there is already proof that 20th century warming is NOT manmade -- there is no 21st century warming to speak of -- and that it is in the process of reversal, the question in this video is incorrectly cast, and so its answer is easily escapable. The proper question is how do we direct very limited resources at the coming cold (**) which will even more severely limit what resources we have.

However, the video presenter is correct on a single point. We all have a responsibility to spread the correct view -- politely.

Meanwhile, as an independent I/we maintain an open and polite mind. Just because there is no evidence for AGW doesn't mean we don't continue to look for it. Just because alarmists haven't made the case for AGW doesn't mean we don't continue to listen.

Which ticket do I buy? Neither one of these.

===============

(**) Caused by a combination of the delay of the end of solar cycle 23 and upcoming Dalton-like solar behavior correlated with the sun's current low velocity of the Great Conveyor Belts.

Hey RICH, your South American friend is back. I've been quite busy: I'm taking final exams at University.

Anyways, what I wanted to say is that the video is concise, and he's encouraging us to think of what we want to do. He's not -by no means- imposing a way of thinking. He does make a mistake in trying to be "neutral" in the debate, however, that has already been pointed out by Chris ("While he doesn't assume GW is caused by mankind, he's assuming we can take measures to reduce or eliminate any bad effects").
But the consequences he talks about are likely to happen, don't know when, don't know where either.

Bob Horlacher said: "If we choose column one we have a 100% chance of starvation in third world countries"... LOL and choosing column B will not make much difference, don't you think?. In fact, in today's world, most governments have chosen column B, and 3rd World Countries are STARVING.

Patrick Henry said: "... The catastrophes he was hyperventilating over are simply not going to happen." Oh no? they are not? How do you know Patrick? Do you have a crystall ball? Let's play lottery based on what Patrick says, or better yet, let's choose column A or B according to what he says. We can't affirm this is GOING TO HAPPEN or this is NOT GOING TO HAPPEN; we can predict, forecast, forsee or whatever; we can say it's likely to happen, or it's not... but why are you so sure these catastrophes are not going to happen? How can we rule out that possibility?

Hi Mark,

Is it a mere coincidence that we wind up talking politics, when the subject is actually the weather?

It seems fairly obvious political agendas are entering the realm of pure science, as we discuss what the weather is doing.

I beg to differ with you, concerning the roots of communism, but perhaps that is a subject for another day. I'm curious, however. What book or what college taught you your version of communism's roots?

I actually do dislike all forms of regulation, even those that m