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Climate crunch warning

ONE of the factors behind the credit crunch was a failure to see the big picture: a riskier deal is a lot riskier when everyone is making similar gambles. Once things start going wrong, there can be a domino effect.

Our planet's climate is also precariously balanced. Push it too far and we could trigger a series of positive feedbacks that cause catastrophic change. For example, if rapid warming in the Arctic releases yet more greenhouse gases, runaway warming could result. There are hints that this is starting to happen (see "Meltdown: the Arctic armageddon"). It is impossible to say how likely such scary scenarios are, which is why official reports barely mention them. But an unquantifiable risk is not the same as no risk. As the financial collapse shows, sometimes the doomsayers get it right.

Issue 2701 of New Scientist magazine
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Have your say

Financial And Scientific Collapse

Fri Mar 27 19:59:37 GMT 2009 by Greed and Fraud

The current state of the financial system was produced by two types of individuals/groups: the greedy who went fraudulent (B. Madoff types), and the economic theories/policies that were fundamentally flawed (Neoclassical Economics at the micro-scale, and at the macro-scale risk and derivative instrument pricing schemes which were plainly wrong, and Monetary/Fiscal actions - by either banks or governments - which were plainly irresponsible.

One finds similar traits in the science behind AGW, and this is why only the radical left-wing ideologues subscribe to them.

Even If We Assume The Earth Isn't Warming. . .

Sat Mar 28 04:13:06 GMT 2009 by Charles

Even if we ignore all the evidence that the climate is changing (in a similar way to the manner in which economic warnings were ignored), there is still a looming threat to Civilisation As We Know It - namely resource depletion.

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