Hard to take seriously a paper that begins with a statement that the “uncritical adoption” of combustion engines was a “blunder” by scientists.
Hard to take seriously a paper that begins with a statement that the “uncritical adoption” of combustion engines was a “blunder” by scientists.
The uncritical adoption - and continued dependence on - combustion engines could end up resulting in the collapse of civilization as we know it, and that’s not even the worst case.
If we had been capable of less uncritical adoption - including taking stronger measures to limit CO2 output - we would be in a better position today. So that was a blunder by society as a whole, with scientists playing an important role in that.
The first paper describing anthropogenic CO2-driven global warming was published in 1896. But as a whole, most scientists completely ignored that for nearly a century - plenty of time to have taken corrective action of all kinds. That was a blunder.
Someone replied to the above comment and then deleted their comment. Since I went to the trouble of writing a reply, I’m posting it for other people who may not realize this. Starting with a partial quote of the deleted comment:
> “No one has a crystal ball. […] it wasn't clear in 1896 or even 1996.”
It was clear long before 1996. I personally was aware of it as being essentially settled science by 1992, but I was far from on the leading edge of that, and my knowledge came from mainstream media. But the problem was that there was huge and even funded resistance to accepting it.
Just for example, Time Magazine published articles about anthropogenic global warming as early as 1939, the year after Guy Callendar published a paper titled “The artificial production of carbon dioxide and its influence on temperature.”
Time covered the subject several times after that, in the 1950s, 1970s, and 1980s, eventually publishing an issue entitled “Planet of the Year: Endangered Earth” in 1989. Here’s a quote from that issue (https://content.time.com/time/subscriber/article/0,33009,956...):
> “According to computer projections, the accumulation of CO2 in the atmosphere could drive up the planet's average temperature 3 degrees F to 9 degrees F by the middle of the next century. That could cause the oceans to rise by several feet, flooding coastal areas and ruining huge tracts of farmland through salinization. Changing weather patterns could make huge areas infertile or uninhabitable, touching off refugee movements unprecedented in history.”
The fact that we continued to essentially ignore the issue for decades after that was a blunder. It has nothing to do with “not knowing enough about complex dynamic environments.” Anyone who genuinely believes that has most likely been strongly influenced by the oil industry propaganda on the subject.