Truth be told, I should have given Mr. Kuznicki more credit for his thoughtful treatment of the subject (I really did read the whole thing).  The post was referred to me by a friend who wrote “this may be the best thing I’ve read about global warming in a long time.”  So it came highly recommended.  That’s probably why I was so disappointed after reading it.  Do nothing?  That’s all we get from someone who wrote yesterday that he admits that “the science behind anthropogenic global warming [is] almost certainly correct?”  Just in the past few months alone, we’ve witnessed a flurry of proposals, both old and new, for reducing carbon emissions.  My assumption is that Mr. Kuznicki wouldn’t have engaged in such in-depth analysis if he was already predisposed to doing nothing, so why no exploration of carbon taxes or cap and credit schemes (I’m assuming he isn’t a big fan of fuel economy standards and subsidies for ethanol)?  We all seem to be reasonably intelligent here.  Can’t we discuss swapping out many of our woefully inefficient taxes, like the payroll tax, with fees on carbon outputs so that the outcome is revenue neutral with a potential for a long term, stimulative effect on the economy?  Maybe the numbers will even work to reduce the tax burden on the public.  You don’t have to be a strident environmentalist like me to want to straighten out the tax code.

Like Mr. Kuznicki, I prefer to not spend my time playing scientist (methinks he was just playing possum, though; his demonstrated understanding of the science and issues puts him in the 99% percentile of most commentators on the subject).  I read what is generally available to the public with regard to the issue of global warming.  I also consider myself a skeptic and am late to the game with respect to concern about this issue.  But what more does the scientific community need to present to me, a layman, to convince me not that dire consequences from global warming are a certainty, but that a reasonable risk exists that the consequences could be dire?  And I do hope that’s the standard here – a probability of 20 – 30% that this could be really bad should be plenty to get real action.   The governments of the world are already in a tizzy over risks like avian flu with a lot less potential for harm.  I, along with a lot of other people, am convinced the case for global warming has reached that threshold.

So given all this, forgive me if I ascribe ulterior motives to the “do nothing” argument.  Very few people, including business and political leaders, go through the time and effort to become as “rationally ignorant” as Mr. Kuznicki.  While Mr. Kuznicki may have weighed the costs and benefits for various alternative responses and have a strong rationale for doing nothing, for many, the “do nothing” argument is appealing precisely because it allows them to... do nothing.  As long as doubts exist about the severity of the impact of global warming, people will work hard to preserve the status quo.  We may disagree about the nature and scale of the response to the threat of global warming, but blind attachment to the status quo should not be the stumbling block to action, especially when the status quo depends on an increasingly obsolescent fossil fuel global economy.  Whether or not global warming ends up being a serious threat to mankind, we should continually strive to make the world a healthier, more prosperous place for ourselves and future generations through the "significant economic breakthroughs" of which Mr. Kuznicki speaks.  In light of that objective, it seems there is much that we can do.