#3038
> Interesting ink pen pattern drawn on his hand in this pic
It represents Pascal's Wager applied to climate change policies.
eg like posted on this blog.
https://thenextwavefutures.wordpress.com/2009/12/08/climate-change-as-pascals-wager/
There are 4 possible outcomes:
-
man made climate change real / spend money fighting it
-
man made climate change not real / do nothing
-
man made climate change real / do nothing
-
man made climate change not real / spend money fighting it
Outcome 1 & 2 are clearly positive. If man made climate change exists there is a benefit to spending money limiting its effects. If man made climate change is not real and you do nothing, you've not wasted any money and there are no negative consequences. Outcome 3 is negative. If man made climate change is real and we do nothing we will suffer as the world warms up.
Outcome 4 is the contentious one. Proponents of this believe outcome 4 is positive - that there are still benefits to costly renewable energy and authoritarian efforts to reduce energy use even if man made climate change is not real. This is to ignore that money spent on windmills and solar panels cannot also be spent on healthcare, education, etc or left in our own pockets & also to ignore that the reduced energy use needed to quickly meet their goals also results in lower standards of living. Outcome 4 is actually negative.