Global Warming: Is the Science Settled Enough for Policy?

This is the title of a presentation given by Steven Schneider, a professor of environmental biology and global change at Stanford University I just watched online today. It is about one and half hour long but worths the time. Nothing is entirely new but he managed to put all the pieces together.

In conclusion, the answer to his question: that is a dumb question to start with. "Enough" is a value statement and different people have their own answers. There would never be enough science for us to be sure but the preponderance of the issue deserves immediate action. How to act is a matter of collective choice. In the face of complexity, to combat global warming requires both leadership and coordination ("Can democracy survives complexity?")

Other key points:

1. Importance of environmental literacy
2. To use metaphors is inevitable when communicating complex system dynamics to the public.
   
3. We only have one Earth to experiment with so there would be never enough data points for scientists to make a confident conclusion. "It is preponderance, stupid!"
4. Polar bears will not go distinct; what will go extinct or have extincted is the polar bear ecosystems. You will not see polar bears in its own habitat, but still in parks and zoos.
   
5. It's the impacts of incremental temperature change that matters! If the temperature increases more than 3 C, no adaption works. Adaptation or mitigation? It is a false question.
6. Focus on win-win solutions.