Here is a strange anomaly.

I had coffee with someone the other day. We were talking about GM crops – a subject about which I have no opinion. My friend was vehemently against GM crops, and her argument was along the lines of – “well you just can't trust scientists to get it right”.

Exactly, I said, just like the AGW debate. You just cant trust those Global warming scientists.

End of a brief friendship.

But why is it that people implicitly trust AGW scientists, but don’t trust scientists who say:

• GM crops are safe.
• Imunisation is safe
• Mobile phone towers are safe
• Nuclear reactors are safe

Etc Etc Etc


Seems to me you can’t have it both ways.

Nuclear reactors are safe, it's the radiation that kills people.

Global warming is safe, it's the burdensome taxes that'll kill people.

And even then, only in large doses.



S

It's all about risk analysis - Low risk of another Chernobyl happening v Extreme consequences when it does.

Some people are happy with that risk, others aren't. The ethical dilemma here is - do you get to take those risks on behalf of other people?

Also, uranium sources are finite and will eventually run out (currently estimated at around 75 years). Nuclear has not previously demonstrated itself to be a cheap or viable alternative.

But risk is a function of frequency and impact.

What you're calling low risk is actually low frequency (or low chance). The risk is still medium to high as the impact is very high.

Agreed. People seem to forget this. UK has been generating electricity for decades from Nukes (up to 25% at times). The carbon reduction per capita in the UK started happening from the late 80s early 90s. Was this because they started using more nukes? No, it was because industrial output was falling and a lot of electricity generation switched from coal to gas.

sorry, your right. I meant likelihood of risk occurring (its a first thing on a saturday morning post - my only excuse!)

Another (unofficial) measure I came across recently is reaction = frequency * outrage.

It was a US book so it was pointing out that the frequency of a child getting accidentally shot at a friend's place (parent's gun) is a lot lower than a child drowning in a friend's pool. However the outrage of a child getting shot is higher than a child drowning so people are more likely to stop their child going to a house with a gun than to a house with a pool.

The proponent of the argument is Steve Levitt, who statistically proved that if you own a gun and have a swimming pool, the pool is almost 100 times more likely to kill a child than the gun is.

The issue is covered in an excellent book called “Super Crunchers, by Prof Ian Ayres.

Great piece in the Telegraph today…..

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/finance...arbon-trading/

carbon trading is now the fastest growing commodities market on earth. Since Kyoto signatories bought in to the cap and trade concept in 2005, there have been more than $300bn carbon transactions.

Unlike traditional commodities markets, which will eventually involve delivery to someone in physical form, the carbon market is based on lack of delivery of an invisible substance to no-one. Since the market revolves around creating carbon credits, or finding carbon reduction projects whose benefits can then be sold to those with a surplus of emissions, it is entirely intangible.

And you wonder why big business funds the AGW lobby….

Yes, it's an interesting theory. All about politics rather than realities.

Logically, it's all to do with the point where risk assessment becomes gambling.

I remember talking to a guy on a flight from South Africa: he was in the insurance assessment business and had been working on premia for insurance of satellite launches. Say the insured value of a launch is £500m, how can you set a premium? If you insured a million launches it would be easy: you can work out the percentage of failures and how much per year you pay out and it is trivial to calculate a suitable premium to make a profit. But if you insure a single launch you are basically betting it will be OK and you will just pocket the premium. If it doesn't you are b***erd. The insurance people will reply that reinsurance protects the principle of risk v betting but IMO it's still an open question.

The proportion of British adults who believe climate change is ''definitely'' a reality has dropped from 44 per cent to 31 per cent in the past year, according to the latest survey by Ipsos Mori.

http://www.smh.com.au/environment/ne...0224-p3mr.html

this year just one in five people believed global warming to be caused by people, according to Edward Langley, Ipsos Mori's head of environment research....