That’s the explanation of the risk of extreme climate change (10%) and the world’s attitude to the risk from Stephen Schneider (wiki-bio), Professor of Environmental Biology and Global Change at Stanford.
Schneider and fellow Stanford colleague Thomas Heller discuss the politics and science of climate change and carbon trading in a very well done Google tech talk now available on Google Video.
Among the nuggets from the discussion:
- Why a probability density function is the best way to think about climate change (and the challenges of telling the Senate that)
- Why the real challenge is to answer the normative questions (how much is a polar bear worth).
- Why Kyoto is a political cul-de-sac.
- Why the wrong people are at the table for Kyoto (trivia: this year, China will add 70 GW of energy capacity, the same as the annual output of England).
- An alternative for establishing a carbon emissions market in the US in a politically saleable way.
So, this Wednesday, instead of getting suckered into another episode of Deal or no Deal (or debating the strategy), curl up with your laptop and a warm broadband connection and learn a little about what’s going on climate science and politics.
