For many scientists working in the field of climate research, one of the most alarming trends has nothing to do with the climate itself: It’s the poll numbers showing that even as scientific projections of global climate change get ever more certain, public perceptions about climate change are getting ever more skeptical.
Why is there such a huge—and growing—disconnect? John Sterman, the Jay W. Forrester Professor of Management at MIT’s Sloan School of Management, says there are specific characteristics of climate change that make it unusually difficult for people to grasp. But the good news, he says, is that there are approaches that can help bridge that gap in understanding.
For example, Sterman’s group has developed climate simulators to help policymakers, business leaders, the media, and the public learn about the dynamics of climate change and the consequences of the choices we must make.
“When experimentation is impossible, when the consequences of our decisions unfold over decades and centuries,” Sterman says, “simulation becomes the main—perhaps the only—way we can discover for ourselves how complex systems work, what the impact of different policies might be, and thus integrate science into decision making.”
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Why ? Because its a scam !
"Why is there such a huge—and growing—disconnect?"
The answer is obvious ... because man caused global warming is a blatant billion dollar scam !
Models are meaningless. They can give any answer the programmer wants. There is not a single piece of actual evidence to support the claims of the IPCC. If you think there is, I'm sure the IPCC would love to hear about it.
There has been no warming for the past 15 years (according to Dr Phil Jones, the man responsible for IPCC data) and the IPCC now claims there will be no warming for the next 20-30 years, just when man's CO2 emissions are highest.
Conspiracy
So the global consensus of climate scientists is a vast conspiracy? Or are you not a climate scientist, ADB, but an ideologue who denies scientific data and analysis in defense of a political agenda?
Climate change is not a scam but cap and trade is.
The scam is not the proposition that climate change happens (geologic evidence proves unequivocally that it does) or even that carbon dioxide emissions may contribute to it. The scam is the proposition that the displacement of hundreds of billions of dollars in economic resources, with a large share falling into the pockets of General Electric, Goldman Sachs, and J.P. Morgan Chase--Senator Kirsten Gillibrand named the latter two as explicit beneficiaries of cap and trade mandates--will prevent or even mitigate the climate change. The scam is the proposition that the benefits of cap and trade will exceed or even equal the costs. King Canute's futile command that the tide not come in is highly instructive.
Cap and trade advocates say we have to pay now or pay later. Discounted cash flow analysis says that "pay later" is generally best. Suppose for example that rising sea levels will submerge the Maldives a hundred years ago. If every person in the industrialized world were to put aside a few coins--less than a dollar--today in some kind of international aid fund, more then enough money would be available to evacuate the Maldives and buy new homes for its inhabitants should this become necessary 100 years from now. However, the likes of Goldman Sachs, J.P. Morgan Chase, the Climate Action Partnership, and the late but unlamented Enron and Lehman Brothers can't make any money off of this.
The bottom line is that adaptation to climate change (as humans have done ever since there have been humans) will almost certainly be cheaper and more effective than costly and quite likely futile efforts to prevent it. We therefore need to separate climate science from public policy decisions that seek to use climate science for self-enrichment.
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