[Climate Depot Editorial Note: Dr. Calvin should consider heeding the wisdom of Dr. Richard Lindzen. See: MIT Climate Scientist Lindzen: 'Ordinary people see through man-made climate fears -- but educated people are very vulnerable' - July 6, 2009 ]
By William Calvin, Neuroscientist at the University of Washington School of Medicine; Author of “A Brain for All Seasons: Human Evolution and Abrupt Climate Change.” Calvin's essay was posted online by The Edge as part of their “World Question Center 2009” series. Calvin also writes for the left-wing website DailyKos.com. Calivn's full bio here and here. Dr. Calvin's publicly available email address is : mail@WilliamCalvin.com
Dr. Calvin excerpts: (emphasis added) Climate will change our ways of doing science, making some areas more like medicine with its combination of science and interventional activism, where delay to resolve uncertainties is often not an option. Few scientists are trained to think this way — and certainly not climate scientists, who are having to improvise as the window of interventional opportunity shrinks. [...]
Climate will, at times, force a hiatus on doing science as usual, much like what happened during World War II when many academics laid aside their usual teaching and research interests to intensively focus on the war effort. The big working models of fluid dynamics used to simulate ocean and atmospheric circulation will themselves be game-changing for other fields of dynamics, such as brain processing and decision making. [...]
Long-term thinking can be dangerous if it causes us to neglect the short term hazards. A mid-century plan for emissions reduction will be worthless if the Amazon rain forest burns down during the next El Niño. [End excerpt of Dr. Calvin's essay.]
For Dr. Calvin's full essay see here.
[ Climate Depot Editorial Note: Kudos to Dr. Calvin for restraining himself and not following in the footsteps of Nobel-Prize Winning Economist Thomas Schelling who wished death and destruction on Americans in order to convince them man-made global warming was a threat.
See: 'Find ways to exaggerate': Nobel Prize-winning economist wishes for 'tornadoes' and 'a lot of horrid things' to convince Americans of global warming threat! - July 14, 2009 ]
Related Link:
Meteorologist Dan Satterfield Launches Assault on Skeptics! Declares claims are 'laughable to anyone who understands science' - August 3, 2009
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