I’ll bite—as a “not feeling alarmed” sort of person. First, though, I’ll clarify that I’m reading”climate change” as shorthand for “climate change that is net-negative for human welfare” (herein CCNNHW), since obviously the climate is in a state of constant change.
Confidence levels expressed as rough probabilities:
0.70 : we are observing CCNNHW
0.80 : current human behavior increases probability of CCNNHW
0.10 : future magnitude of CCNNHW will be massive
0.98 : future human behavior will change, given CCNNHW
0.90 : some current and proposed mitigations are themselves NNHW
0.60 : some proposed mitigations have negative effects rivaling that of CC
0.50 : it’s possible to design a net-positive mitigation [1]
0.10 : it’s possible to implement a net-positive mitigation [2]
Taken together, I assign higher risk to collective, politically directed efforts to mitigate CC than to CC itself.
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[1] non-linear feedback effects depress this value
I’ll bite—as a “not feeling alarmed” sort of person. First, though, I’ll clarify that I’m reading”climate change” as shorthand for “climate change that is net-negative for human welfare” (herein CCNNHW), since obviously the climate is in a state of constant change.
Confidence levels expressed as rough probabilities:
0.70 : we are observing CCNNHW
0.80 : current human behavior increases probability of CCNNHW
0.10 : future magnitude of CCNNHW will be massive
0.98 : future human behavior will change, given CCNNHW
0.90 : some current and proposed mitigations are themselves NNHW
0.60 : some proposed mitigations have negative effects rivaling that of CC
0.50 : it’s possible to design a net-positive mitigation [1]
0.10 : it’s possible to implement a net-positive mitigation [2]
Taken together, I assign higher risk to collective, politically directed efforts to mitigate CC than to CC itself.
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[1] non-linear feedback effects depress this value
[2] political processes depress this value