Pascal’s Wager and Climate Change

I know I said that the argument over whether climate change was happening is now over and we should all move on and leave the laggards to catch up with us. This is still true. But this caught my eye, and its only partly a violation of that intent, so…
Over on Facebook, Derek linked to a video on Youtube wherein a highschool teacher (under the name wonderingmind42) outlined his “silver bullet argument” that we should act to stop global warming, and invited comment and criticism.

It’s become something of a phenomenon, with over a 100,000 views as I write this. Essentially he’s making an argument akin to Pascal’s Wager, namely that the cost of inaction is so great that the only sensible thing to do is take action. Better safe than sorry, in other words. Pascal’s wager is not sound in its original context, dealing with ultimately unknowable subjects, but the range of probabilities we can attach to global warming are enough to rescue this version.
I find this argument utterly compelling. Have done for years, because for a long time we’ve known enough about the dangers of inaction and the costs of action and their relative likelihood, as to make the practical approach obvious. I was excited to see this because it’s the first time I’ve seen it anywhere. (That said, I just googled and found other mentions, notably this column from the Times of London.)
Anyway, wonderingmind42 communicates this quite nicely and I recommend you take a look. Also check out subsequent videos going into more detail than the simple first video, if that takes your fancy. You can see all of them here.
(I also had a bit of back-and-forth with a mate of Derek’s named Gavin, who agrees that action must be taken but wasn’t impressed by the video. We agreed to perhaps continue the conversation here, so I’m now off to message him…)
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I note from sitemeter that I have someone reading this blog in a city called King of Prussia, in Pennsylvania, USA. That is some serious city name right there. That is a city name that would start its evening with many shots of Fighting Cock then follow up with an ultimate fighting spree through numerous back alleys and in conclusion sit watching The Sopranos while towelling the residue from the tonsils of numerous punks off the soles of its shoes. And they would be natty shoes.