Global warming: A Russian Roulette analogy
While talking on social networks with climate sceptics and climate “half-sceptics” (i.e. those who either do not really believe in global warming, or doubt about it), I discovered a way of thinking which puzzled me, and I made a methaphor to represent what the scientific consensus means in reality, and why not radically acting against climate change and global warming is terribly absurd, whatever you personally think.
Imagine a gun. The gun is a revolver with a huge unusual cylinder, containing 30 chambers. In these 30 chambers, 29 are filled with bullets. Now somebody talks to you and suggests you to play the Russian Roulette. The Russian Roulette, for those who don’t know, is a very simple and very dangerous game: you spin the cylinder, place the muzzle against your head, and pulls the trigger. Usually, if you are alive after playing, you will earn a reward in money somehow.
Usually, there are only one bullet over six, but in this case, the cylinder, as I recall, has 29 bullets over 30. Would you play the game? I assume no sane person would play it. Even if you are not afraid of dying, even if you were crazy enough to play the regular version of the Russian Roulette with one bullet over six, the probability of dying is here so ridiculously high (29/30, around 97%) that playing would be insane and simply a mark of suicide. Even for a one million dollars reward, I personally would not like to try, like, ever.
This is a accurate representation of the choice we have as citizens of the world today. Currently around 97% of experts in the domain — climate scientists are convinced that global warming exists and is human-caused. This percentage, while challenged by climate sceptics (we’ll talk about it later), is probably even under estimated (it has grown to almost 100%). Let’s we play the devil’s advocate and consider the lower percentage (97%), and assume that each of those climate scientists have an equal probability of being wrong, we then have 97% of chances the anthropic global warming being true, which is the probability of dying if we play my Russian Roulette game.
Let’s enumerate all the possible cases, and their meanings:
A) We do not fight against global warming: this is like playing the Russian Roulette. Two possibilities arise:
A.1) Anthropic global warming is true (i.e. there was a bullet in the fired chamber), and we’ll die. Well okay, not strictly die but when you read between the lines of the IPCC reports (which are stark for the purpose of objectivity) the consequences are numerous and dire nevertheless.
A.2) Anthropic global warming is false (i.e. there was no bullet in the fired chamber), and okay, we are likely to earn money (not invested in a massive climate mitigation budget). The worst is, the metaphor is not even entirely true: first, there is still independantly of global warming a significatively excessive pollution, for example air pollution in cities; second, the biosphere is still threathed independantly of global warming and we depend of it; third, capitalism shows its limits, inequality is rising indefinitely, and the amoral aspects of capitalism are more and more obvious. In the end, the reality of choosing not to invest in a radical change is even less interesting that playing my russian roulette game: you are likely to lose even if there is no bullet in the chamber.
B) We fight against global warming: this is like refusing to play the Russian Roulette after the roll of the cylinder. Two possibilities arise:
B.1) Anthropic global warming is true (i.e. there was a bullet in the fired chamber). We won’t earn money, but we are alive and well.
B.2) Anthropic global warming is false (i.e. there was no bullet in the fired chamber). We invested a lot of money and radically changed our societies, for nothing. But is it really for nothing? Like said in A.2, this is not true anyway.
So in short, if we don’t act, we have 97% chances of being terribly wrong, and even in the very unlikely case where we are right, we are not really right anyway.
Now I know, climate sceptics will be like “97% is a fabricated number, actually most scientists are against it”. That’s blatantly false. NASA is clear about this, and links to multiple american scientific societies. Most importantly, national science academies, which represent the national science viewpoint, are all very clear. The American Association for the Advancement of Science, the world largest general scientific society, is clear too. All of this verifiable: if you have a doubt, if you don’t believe in Wikipedia, just call them, go to their website. The press do not reflect accurately this 97% agreement, and people reflect it even less: only around 75% of people worldwide believe in anthropogenic global warming.
Some people say on the Internet: “yes, but, in the middle ages, almost all people though the Earth was flat, and they were wrong”. Well yes, but these were different times: the religion was overwhelming, and no measure was possible. Now that we send people on the Moon, thinking that scientists are not able to measure CO², analyse temperatures, and do the maths, is preposterous.
But even if you still doubt it, and fear a dictatorship of the ecology, you have to understand something about the very notion of “consensus”.
The global warming consensus is not about disallowing some scientist to stand up and say that global warming does not exist. If it happens, he/she is right to do so, provided that its arguments are interesting and valid — which at this point, is very unlikely, but still: science is about questioning our reality.
The global warming consensus is, however, about acting to the best of our current knowledge. It is saying “We, as scientists, are currently certain that global warming exists, and require the society to take actions. We might be wrong but it’s so unlikely and it’s a take so dangerous that it should not be considered.” There is no 100% probability because there is never a 100% agreement with people. In this case, all political decisions should take it in consideration as if global warming is a fact, and take actions accordingly. This includes radical changes, including those you don’t like at all because they bother you.
