[LINK] the weather makers

Alan L Tyree alan at austlii.edu.au
Mon Apr 9 09:48:48 AEST 2007


On Mon, 09 Apr 2007 08:51:49 +1000
Jan Whitaker <jwhit at melbpc.org.au> wrote:

> At 07:52 AM 9/04/2007, Alan L Tyree wrote:
> >When was the last time that you heard anything good about global
> >warming? Longer growing seasons? Higher CO2 levels promoting faster
> >plant growth?
> 
> I'm not going to swing one way or the other in terms of taking sides, 
> but isn't it as much an issue of the level of the error that gets 
> made and how easy/difficult it is to take risk avoidance actions?
> 
> (I was going to write an example, but don't have the time to get it 
> right right now - something about knowing there is going to be a 
> destruction of prime growing area and the need to move it somewhere 
> else so your population doesn't starve and the rest of the 
> infrastructure that is required to move the production to the new
> spot)

It's a good example, but I seriously doubt if we know anything like the
detail necessary to make such plans. This goes back to Stewart's point
that most of the projections are from computer models that may or may
not be valid predictors.

I'm a lawyer now, but I wasn't always so limited. I worked on computer
models for the Aerospace division of Boeing. I know how hard they can
be to verify and how dangerous it can be to base policy on their
predictions. At the **very least**, they must be able to predict the
past. 

To take the growing area example: if your predictions are accurate,
then obviously you want to move it elsewhere. But suppose your
predictions are out by, say, 20 years. You plan can induce the very
starvation that you are attempting to avoid. That is supposing that the
prediction is correct in essence, just wrong on time.



> 
> 
> Jan Whitaker
> JLWhitaker Associates, Melbourne Victoria
> jwhit at janwhitaker.com
> business: http://www.janwhitaker.com
> personal: http://www.janwhitaker.com/personal/
> commentary: http://janwhitaker.com/jansblog/
> 
> 'Seed planting is often the most important step. Without the seed, 
> there is no plant.' - JW, April 2005
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-- 
Alan L Tyree                    http://www2.austlii.edu.au/~alan
Tel: +61 2 4782 2670            Mobile: +61 427 486 206
Fax: +61 2 4782 7092            FWD: 615662



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