15th June - Monitoring

It never ceases to amaze me that there are those believe what they believe with no evidence whatsoever. The present “Climate Change” debate is an excellent example. Of course there is climate change. There has been climate change since the earth was created. In fact if you take into account the various cycles the earth goes through we have not had two days the same in the history of the earth.

However if you ask the question as to whether the earth is warming or cooling, the answer is not so clear. However let us accept the earth is warming. I guess there is a 50% chance anyway.

The next question is whether or not this warming is caused by increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Is there any scientific proof of this? I doubt it. There is, no doubt, scientific proof that there is increased carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. It would be hard to imagine that we could burn all our fossil fuels without increasing the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. However the relationship between the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and global temperature is based on modelling and models are built by believers.

Finally is the question as to whether this global warming, which we have assumed is occurring, is man made. That is: Is global warming happening and being caused by the emissions that we are putting into the atmosphere?

The problem is that if we wait long enough to carry out the monitoring to find out, for sure, what is going on and if it turns out that global warming is happening and we could have done something about it, it may well be too late.

So! we are going to attempt to reduce emissions, monitor what is going on and see what happens.

The problem here, of course, is that to be allowed to do this under the democratic system we need to tell a few fibs. The problem here is that suppose we are wrong. Suppose there is global warming. Suppose it is not caused by emissions but something else. Suppose we could have done something about it but didn't because we thought we were. It gets very complicated doesn't it.

This, however is at the heart of our dilemmas on decision making. We make decisions using two attributes. One is logic. We used this to put a man on the moon. The other is belief. We used this to invade Iraq.

It is important to understand how you are making your decisions. There is nothing wrong with belief. In fact it is a belief that begins every pursuit. However I recommend you temper this belief with logical decision making. To do this you must monitor your wirra to see whether your plan is working or failing. If it is failing then it would be a good idea to try something else.