[Foundation-l] Wikimedia and Environment

[Pharos]

Might I suggest that we're getting a bit off-track here with these
broad debates on climate change issues?

I think if we're considering spending $20k/yr on environmental
initiatives, then the most effective way for us and the path most in
line with Wikimedia's core mission would be to spend that money
directly on special efforts to increase high-quality free content
about environmental topics on Wikipedia and the other projects.

Thanks,
Pharos

On Tue, Dec 15, 2009 at 11:04 AM, Aryeh Gregor
<Simetrical+wikilist at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Dec 14, 2009 at 8:13 PM, Tim Starling <tstarling at wikimedia.org> wrote:
>> It's a big deal already, and by the time it becomes an even bigger
>> deal, it will be too late to act. The global climate takes decades to
>> respond to changes in forcing factors. Even if we stopped all
>> greenhouse gas emissions now, the earth would continue to warm for
>> decades because the heat capacity of the ocean slows down the lower
>> atmosphere's response to increased radiation.
>
> Then we agree that cutting greenhouse gases is not a very effective solution?
>
>> The World Health Organisation disagrees:
>>
>> http://www.who.int/mediacentre/factsheets/fs266/en/
>> <http://whqlibdoc.who.int/publications/2007/9789241595674_eng.pdf>
>
> I said "directly".  Militaries kill people directly.  Global warming
> kills people indirectly.
>
>> You just sound gullible when you recycle such claims without showing
>> any awareness the opposing viewpoint.
>
> I don't think I'm recycling claims.  I have a fairly unusual view on
> global warming, actually.
>
>> Like what? Nuclear fusion? Talk about pie in the sky.
>
> Or just more effective photovoltaic cells.  Or, well, anything other
> than fossil fuels.  Solar and wind power, for instance, are much more
> viable now than they were thirty years ago.  Wikipedia says global
> photovoltaic power production was 500 kW in 1977.  It's not a stretch
> to suppose that they or other energy sources will be much more viable
> thirty years from now.  In fact, it would be very surprising if we
> didn't have much better alternatives to fossil fuels by then than we
> have now.
>
>> And cause famine due to a reduction in tropical rainfall?
>>
>> http://edoc.mpg.de/376757
>
> Sure, maybe.  Maybe not.  Everything has costs and benefits.  Blocking
> sunlight is a scheme that can be deployed very quickly and cheaply,
> and could not just completely stop future warming, but reverse warming
> that's already occurred before deployment.  Cutting CO2 is immensely
> more expensive, slower, and less effective.  You were just telling me
> how cutting carbon will never stop warming, and many people will die
> to famine if warming doesn't stop.  Doesn't that imply people will die
> of famine either way?  The costs need to be weighed against the
> benefits.
>
> Of course, the experts at large-scale cost-benefit analysis are
> economists, not climatologists.  One panel of economists that set out
> to systematically examine the issue based on data provided by
> climatologists is the Copenhagen Consensus:
>
> http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Copenhagen_Consensus
> http://fixtheclimate.com/
>
> The Copenhagen Consensus' Climate Change Project asked a panel of five
> economists (three of them Nobel laureates) to consider the costs and
> benefits of various schemes to mitigate or prevent global warming.
> They took climatologists' predictions for granted, and all agreed that
> anthropogenic global warming is occurring.  The number one solution
> was to reflect more sunlight (by cloud whitening).  Seven of the
> fifteen schemes involved carbon-cutting; they placed at positions nine
> through fifteen.
>
> The Copenhagen Consensus was and is controversial, of course.  But the
> issue is far from open-and-shut.  Even if cutting GHG emission is part
> of the solution, it's not at all clear that it makes sense to spend
> money on it now, rather than invest in alternative energy so we can
> make larger-scale cuts later.
>
> Are you aware of any groups of experts that have done a systematic
> cost-benefit analysis on the various options, and reached opposite
> conclusions to the Copenhagen Consensus?  "Experts" here means, say,
> economists, not climatologists.  (And preferably not political
> appointees either.)  Climatologists are experts at predicting climate
> outcomes, not evaluating the quality-of-life effects of those
> outcomes.  They have no expertise in that.  Economics is the
> discipline concerned with welfare assessment.
>
>
> By the way, you didn't actually address the point of my last post.  If
> involuntarily releasing greenhouse gases creates a moral obligation to
> undo the harm caused by that, why doesn't involuntarily paying taxes
> create the same moral obligation?  This is independent of whether
> cutting GHGs is actually effective (which isn't something I meant to
> get into, but oh well).
>
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