Climate Change

How harmful is the current, uncommon rate of increase of global temperature? I ask not to cast doubt on whether it can ever be harmful, for surely it can. But unless we know how harmful and when, how can we know the disease is worse than the cure?

I ask because global temperature has risen about two thirds of a degree Celsius since 1900, only about half of which is attributable to mankind's actions (previous to 1950 or so, solar irradiance best explained global temperature). I cannot think of a hypothetical situation wherein less than a degree of ambient temperature could make a significant difference to anything, even if the change had occurred instantly.

This thought occurred to me while rereading this rebuttal to the climate skepticism argument that a warmer world could be better, part of a larger (and very well-written and reasonable) series entitled How To Talk to a Climate Skeptic. In this particular rebuttal, he argues quite reasonably that it is the rate of change, not the resulting temperature, that puts the ecosystem at risk.

I am reminded of driving a car. You can go extremely fast in a car, but you don't suffer the consequences until you crash. The rapid acceleration of crashing is entirely out of proportion with anything a car can achieve otherwise. 0 to 60 in 3.5 seconds, then 60 to 0 in a few hundredths. By analogy, current global temperature change is a car crash.

However, with car accidents there have been extensive studies into what G-forces for what durations cause what harm. We know what safety features to advocate (seat belts, air bags, crumple zones, etc) because we have measured their effects and optimized their design. The prescriptions provided for global temperature control are not based on careful measure and experiment, but are based solely on preventing what is already happening. This "Anything but this!" mentality is just as destructive as the head-in-the-sand, "Global warming is a conspiracy!" mentality. There are always worse things than this, whatever "this" could possibly be, and we cannot currently be responsibly confident our prescribed solutions are not among those worse things. Not while the costs both of the disease and the cure remain widely unknown.

That same advocate of climate change danger, Coby, mentions that the Great Dying, the most complete mass extinction in geologic history, is thought to have been caused by rapid climate change 250 million years ago. The Great Dying took place over about a million years. Even if the modern global temperature increase has something in common with that ancient one, there's certainly no reason to believe the current temperature increase is many thousands of times times faster than back then; it's not even significantly faster than the 1900-1950 solar-forced warming, which presumably occurred rather similarly 250 million years ago. By that comparison, we have half a million years or so to correct the global temperature increase we're now seeing. Perhaps 10,000 years if we want to nip this in the bud right away.

I'm not comforted by that bad reasoning, but I'm certainly not frightened by the bogeyman of a modern mass extinction event. I believe that science is giving us increasing awareness of the changes we induce on our planet, but we seem superstitiously afraid of those changes. Not everything artificial is the end of the world, despite the Green Party's press releases.

Perhaps we do need to act dramatically and now to stop global warming, but despite my repeated perusal of various climate change action advocates' arguments and sources I have yet to see what and why and how much. Whatever governmental policy you prescribe, inaction included, there has to be a reason for it. That's the weak point in the debate, not the science.

Citizenship

"We believe that no government can exist in peace, except such laws are framed and held inviolate as will secure to each individual the free exercise of conscience, the right and control of property, and the protection of life."
- Joseph Smith, D&C 134:2

What is the proper relationship between a man and his country? What duties and entitlements does each properly attain from the other?

A nation cannot be properly governed unless it's government has the consent of it's citizens. Democratic elections allow a nation to demonstrate that consent, but an honorable Monarch, Emperor, or other Head of State can possess that same consent without a democratic demonstration of it so long as that Head of State acts in the interest of the citizenry and allows them a strong freedom of conscience and self-determination.

A nation's government has a duty to mediate disputes and enforce civil treatment of it's citizens, one to another. It's citizens are entitled to the amount of health they possess, free from violent attack; to the amount of property they possess, free from theft and vandalism; and to the consequences of their own actions rather than those of their tribesmen, clan, family, creed, neighbors or race.

A government that protects it's citizens' body, property, and freedom of conscience is, in turn, entitled to it's citizens' obedience; for how else can a nation ensure life, liberty, and property than by it's laws, institutions, and officials?

Each citizen has a duty to preserve the laws, institutions, and officials of the government that holds his consent. He demonstrates that consent by obeying it's laws generally; by studying it's operation and opining as to it's effectiveness and validity; by upholding it's officers and institutions and, if capable, offering his services as one of them. To be a juror, soldier, peace officer, voter, election officer, taxpayer, government official, or political advocate is an expression of that consent.

A government that makes it's citizens' safety or prosperity dependent on it's own continued power is ensuring for itself the ability to contradict it's citizens' consent. Whether or not the government intends to use that ability, it is an unacceptable power for it to hold.

A government that makes the freedom of it's citizens conditional on wealth, political connections, religious membership, or other demographic criteria is neither free nor safe. By breaking the trust of it's own people it loses their consent and it's own validity.

A citizen that attacks another in person, in property, or in freedom is entitled to trial and sentencing, including reductions in his own property and freedom. Such a citizen has breached the trust of his government, making it his government's duty to restrain him in reasonable proportion to that breach. Thus the government fulfills it's duty to establish order and protect the people who maintain entitlement to it's protection.

A citizen that seeks to destroy a just government is a traitor. A government that possesses the consent of it's citizenry generally is entitled to protect itself even to the destruction of it's traitorous attacker so long as, in doing so, it maintains the consent of the general citizenry. A government that does not possess the consent of it's citizenry generally loses this entitlement and deserves the institutional destruction intended by such attackers. In that case, the traitor to government is a champion of the citizenry, holding their consent better than the government he seeks to destroy.

May we all be good citizens of good governments.