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The political problem of course is our political strategies for adaptation should be based on that sensitivity number.

But in the case of severe negative consequences and some uncertainty about the number, should we not proceed on the basis of a somewhat worse case number? Else we are taking the position: "We can't know for sure until it is too late, so we shouldn't do anything because we might be doing the wrong thing."

"It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
by ARGeezer (ARGeezer a in a circle eurotrib daught com) on Mon Feb 7th, 2011 at 12:17:32 PM EST
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I try to be philosophically about it. Doing nothing is an ultimate position - though it is not a position I personally take. However, also doing something is politically and economically motivated, and doing something comes in gradations of how much we should do.

I was talking about adaptation in my previous post. Doing something also includes mitigation - adaptation is not the same. Even when we skip adaptation altogether, we can always do mitigation - although we're mostly choosing not to. Yet: even for mitigation the question ultimately spirals into a debate on how much mitigation over what period of time is wise. And also that is tied to climate sensitivity.

by Nomad on Mon Feb 7th, 2011 at 02:56:52 PM EST
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