- Answer Me This, Do We Pollute, and, If So, What Are The Odds It has an Impact, and, if So, Ought We Do Something About It, Now

Posted: 11:46 AM on November 28, 2010
Margaret Wente, Can environmentalism be saved from itself? Globe and Mail, 27 Nov.'10
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/margaret-wente/can-environmentalism-be-saved-from-itself/article1815408/

The climate change lobby put their claims in absolute terms and putting things in absolute terms will always be exposed to attacks such as what we see here.

On the otherhand, these attacks are in themselves futile since they do not address the real issue but only the manner in which it has been phrased.

The fact is that not only ought it not be put in absolute terms

but

It ought to be put in risk management terms:

If there is more than a mere possibility that our action now will cause serious environmental, economic, social harm to our children and our children's children in the future, whether 20 years - 30 years or 50 years. Then, we must act, and act decisively and to the extent required, now.

It would be a breakdown in rationality to suggest that human endeavours do not pollute.

It is also a serious flaw in the application of intellectualism to suggest that this pollution does not have an impact.

Perhaps it is nothing we can establish with absolute certainty today.

The problem is amplified by the fact that the results of our actions do not manifest in disaster now but in the future and it will be our children and our children's children that will be required to pay the price

This lack of ability to establish with absolute certainty goes both ways, we also are unable to establish with absolute certainty that it does not, something this article fails to consider - itself an intellectual breakdown.

(i.e., if this is because we are unable at this point in our development of science and technology to establish such with certainty, we are also unable to establish with certainty that out activities do not have such impact)

And this is exactly the type of situation risk management deals with.


Lloyd MacILquham cicblog.com/comments.html