Managing catastrophic risks and climate change

Reuters
Ed: worth a read...
Comments -
"March 19th, 2010 13:57 GMT - Posted by Malcolm McClure

As a geologist who has followed the climate debate very closely, I consider that the increases in carbon dioxide and in global temperature are entirely within the scope of natural variability. CO2 has a residence time in the atmosphere of 5 to 15 years, not 100 years plus, as speculated in the 2007 IPCC report. Terrestrial vegetation and the colder oceans can easily absorb incremental carbon dioxide at rates far higher than those produced by industrial emissions. The current rise in CO2 is likely caused by gases absorbed during the Little Ice Age that are returning to the atmosphere from sojourn in the deep ocean, where CO2 residence time is 400 years.
Compared with those mega-scale processes, human efforts to reduce emissions are trivial. Rather than invent a plausible new rationale for Carbon Capture based on incalculable actuarial risks, it would be better to plan how the world can adapt to and manage what will be a very gradual process.
The climate has always been changing and the defining characteristic of humans is our adaptability. Don’t let the environmentalist’s scare scenarios panic us into making unwise economic investments."