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Comment by scorpion032 | Hacker News Reader

Relevant: http://www.ted.com/talks/david_deutsch_on_our_place_in_the_c...

As David makes the point (at the near end of the video), the best available science in the 1970's predicted that the climate was cooling down. The best available science of today (not the least, with the help of best marketing) would predict Global Warming.

The same best scientific estimates of the day also predict that our best projections to bring down the emissions (which we will not achieve) themselves suffice only to move the disaster point a little further, but not prevent the inevitable.

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Nah, a few scientists in the 70s believed that the Earth might cool, nothing like today. To compare both predictions and their supporting evidence is laughable.

The evidences are not being compared by themselves but rather used to lead to the fact that "We can only do something based on what the current scientific prediction is."

Based on the current scientific prediction the best measures that we even intend to implement, The Kyoto Protocol (for all it's economic constraints), is by far pushing the effects at most by a decade. Would it not be a good idea rather to start looking at living at higher temperatures?

Our capacity to study the Earth's climate has improved dramatically since the '70s. We barely had an idea of what the weather on other planets looked like.

And I was under the impression that the global cooling folks were a fringe minority of the scientific community (like the AGW people today).

David doesn't say global cooling fyi.

He just points out that, if our best measures to prevent Global Warming, Kyoto Protocol (which itself will not be implemented) themselves intend not to solve the problem, but just to postpone by a decade, we should probably start looking for solutions to live at higher temperature.

Too bad that it is not informing a public debate.

it is important to note that half of the CO2 in our atmosphere is produced by our exhalations and those of our animals [source:gaia's final warning]...so indeed not only would ceasing all industrial activity be required to stop increasing CO2...we would also have to drastically reduce population. even then, there is enough CO2 already in the atmosphere to move the temperature to a new steady state which could take thousands of years to change

we are increasing population when we should be enforcing a global one-child policy

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