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Great Vid, thank you DR for posting. This guy rocks and I hope he gets his message out due to the fact that he makes it simple to understand and the reasons why.




Lord Abaddon of Wormwood

I will admit that I haven't gone through all his videos...though I did look through several others after the initial link.

He articulates his principle argument fairly well, but the biggest problems I saw (and yes, I probably ought to watch the rest to see where, not if, he refutes them) are:

1) Two simplified columns do not properly capture the bredth of different degrees of results. At this point, it's nearly impossible to say that global warming is completely false (polar shrinkage, habitat change for polar bears and such, etc.) but it's still very difficult to say how much change will result.

He says to compare the worst-case scenarios...but those dwell on the outermost fringes of probability.

Finally (on this issue), I think he unfairly dismisses just how bad the "worst case" of economic upheval can be.

2) The global nature of the problem means that, at BEST, we can change the policy of the US...which still leaves many different nations, some of which are VERY busy catching up with us in terms of contributing to Global Warming.

India, for example, just announced the successful invention of the $250 car...an ultra-compact vehicle designed to be the Ford of their times...bringing motorized transport to the masses. It, ADMITTEDLY, falls short of emissions standards as part of the corners that were cut to make it possible.

What difference is raising gas milage standards here in the US going to make when a few million of these start hitting the roads of India?

Thus, the "Pascal's Argument" presented by the author needs to also consider the "Prisoner's Dilema" problem of the other nations' inaction.


President Bush is often criticized for his rejection of the Kyoto Proticol. What is often left out of the discussion was his primary REASON for the objection...which was that it was only intended to be binding and restrictive on the first-world nations, while leaving developing nations to do as they pleased. What he asked for was for the developing nations of the world to shoulder their share of the burden, and that's where talks fell apart.



Yes, WE need to take action now...but we also need to assure that other nations do likewise. If the US is going to take action on Global Warming, it needs to be done in a manner that assure that EVERYONE does something about it. A good start, imho, is to revisit Kyoto armed with the more recent science, and to commit to not only what it requires of the major powers, but for those powers in turn to put economic and political pressure on the developing nations in their own back yard to do likewise.