Curiosity: Risk Perception

[hmpf]

A poll! (Forgive the somewhat awkward phrasing of some of the options; it's pretty much off the cuff - I don't have a lot of time today; but I've been curious about this for a while, so today I've decided to finally ask.)

Feel free to reply anonymously.

Question: Which of these statements best describes your perception of the risks of climate change?

A. "I think nothing serious will happen at all."

B. "I don't think anything particularly serious will happen within the next seventy or so years; the processes of climate change are much slower than that."

C. "I think there will be slow but noticeable, yet overall moderate changes for the worse in many areas, over the next several decades, but society will adapt."

D. "I think there will be severe changes for the worse in many areas, but the changes will still be slow enough for society to adapt."

E. "I think there will be huge disasters (famines, natural catastrophes etc.) in the developing world, but the 'developed' world will probably be more or less all right, unfair though that may be."

F. "I think there will be huge impacts in *all* countries around the world, and societies - including ours - will have to change radically."

G. "I think there is an actual, real possibility that 'civilisation as we know it' will collapse within the next 150 years. (But humans will survive.)"

H. "I think there is an actual, real possibility that 'civilisation as we know it' will collapse within the next 70 years. (But humans will survive.)"

I. "I think there is an actual, real possibility that all complex life on Earth may go extinct within the next 200 years."

Comments

[beccatoria.livejournal.com]

I guess E, and possibly F. At the moment, I'd say the developed world would be in a better position due to both general geographical location (I think that Europe for instance isn't going to be one of the worst initially affected areas?) and having more money to throw at the problem (as you say, unfair though that might be).

But what timescale we're talking about I'm uncertain. I guess I'd expect series issues to manifest certainly within 70 years, though it wouldn't surprise me if it were sooner than that (we're already seeing some of it).

I suppose where we may differ is that I'm also open to the idea that my expectations may be entirely wrong and climate change will prove to manifest in ways that are completely unexpected, and/or our best and brightest scientists are wrong. Bluntly I get so many conflicting points of view on climate change and global warming I'm confused as hell as to the magnitude and timescale of the risk.

Though it also needs to be said that I don't think uncertainty is an excuse for inaction. The fact that we might be wrong doesn't account for the rather larger probability that we're in serious shit and not doing anything about it because you're able to also consider the possibility that it'll be okay, is...lazy and stupid and dangerous and irresponsible.

Um, does that answer your question?

[nick-101.livejournal.com]

I'm leaning towards D and E, depending.

[amonitrate.livejournal.com]

I'm probably somewhere around f-g.

[jam-wired.livejournal.com]

F. "I think there will be huge impacts in *all* countries around the world, and societies - including ours - will have to change radically."

I've watched too many documentaries about it. I think corporations, and people in general, are too greedy/incompetent to fix this in the amount of time it needs to be fixed in (i.e. seriously beginning to reverse greenhouse gas emissions in the next 10 years).

Uff...

[(Anonymous)]

Wünscheswert wäre, dass folgendes passiert:
F. "I think there will be huge impacts in *all* countries around the world, and societies - including ours - will have to change radically."
Ich denke aber, was passieren wird, ist:
H. "I think there is an actual, real possibility that 'civilisation as we know it' will collapse within the next 70 years. (But humans will survive.)"
Habe ich schon gesagt, dass ich Derrick Jensens "Endgame" lese? Unterüberschrift "Zivilisation als Problem". Mein Optimismus und meine Menschenliebe halten sich z.Zt. in Grenzen....
LG aus der Siedlung Forschner,
Kiki

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

Okay, first I think your survey isn't great because you're mixing several ideas in each answers. You'd have been better with asking several question, one about the time, one about how deeply it will affect us, one about how broadly (how many societies regardless of how developed or situated they are) it will affect us.

Anyway my answer is somewhere between F and E.

It was improvised. :-)

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

Everything I post at the moment is pretty much improvised on the spot, as I'm currently writing my thesis and that is eating up most of my time. But I wasn't really trying to do science here - just aiming for a vague impression of people's feelings of the degree of threat. I'm fine with people giving answers like 'between F and E' or 'between A and C' or whatever. Or improvising their own answers, for that matter. The answers I offered were just an invitation for the really lazy to just type one letter for a reply. *g*

Re: It was improvised. :-)

[etrangere.livejournal.com]

yeah sorry for being nitpicky and professional deformation-y :) it's just it was one of the reason I didn't answer the first time, so...

[veritykindle.livejournal.com]

Now I'm curious what country each person replying to this post is from. The impression I've had recently is that people in Europe tend to be more aware and worried about global warming than people here in the US, even among the more liberal people here. I'd be curious to see if that's true.

Anyway, for me it is probably more like somewhere between C and D. I think there *will* be a change for the worse, but I don't think it'll be sudden or immediate -- it'll be gradual enough that the naysayers will be able to pretend nothing is happening until it's too late. (*sigh*) And I think our society will have to change, but I think that would have to happen over a period of time, as well.

(The premise of the movie The Day After Tomorrow really bothered me, because it seemed to me that it gave naysayers an excuse to say that global warming isn't happening, because we aren't having that kind of an extreme change in weather everywhere at once, when it's *gradual* changes in weather that we have to be paying attention to. Just because it's slow and gradual doesn't mean we shouldn't be paying attention! But then again, I also think that the very fact that it's slow and gradual means that civilization *will* have time to adapt.)

[jinxed-wood.livejournal.com]

I veer between E and G, depending on how cynical I feel on any given day. Not that it matters. Logic says we should hope for the best and prepare for the worst. If nothing happens, then certain ecologists will feel a tad embarrassed and, if nothing else, we'll have cleaner air and maybe a replacement for oil when it runs out. On the other hand, if the ecologist's worst predictions are correct, and we do nothing to prevent it, the majority of our species will die (Actual extinction is unlikely, we survived the last ice age, after all. But food and famine would become a major issue, so our numbers would dwindle) No brainer, really...okay, now I've just made myself depressed.


And I'm Irish, by the way :-)

[starwatcher]

.
I think somewhere between E - F. Possibly G if we keep hiding our heads in the sand. I don't know as much about it as I should. But of the possibilities --

A. It's real, but we assume everyone's being alarmist, so do nothing = deep shit.

B. It's real, we try to do something, it doesn't help as much as we'd like = we give ourselves time to find better solutions.

C. It's not real, but we're worried so we try to do something = we have a cleaner, safer, healthier planet.

D. It's not real, and we assume everyone's being alarmist, so do nothing = not much change.

I don't think we dare gamble on D; if we're wrong, it will be to late to change things by the time we decide to try.

Between B & C -- it doesn't matter if we start doing something now; either way, we benefit.

If A -- pretty self-explanatory.

I'd rather try to improve things and find out they're not necessary than the other way around; it gives us the best chance of continuing quality of life.
.

[beccadg.livejournal.com]

H. "I think there is an actual, real possibility that 'civilisation as we know it' will collapse within the next 70 years. (But humans will survive.)"

The keywords to me are "real possibility" I'm not sure how great the probability is, or if 70 years is too large a timetable, but I'm sure there is a real possibility of sea levels rising high enough and fast enough to cause "civilization as we know it" to collapse. Too much of that civilization is centered around port cities still for it to adapt quickly to a sudden drastic rise in sea levels. Of course I also believe there is a "real possibility" life as we know it on this planet could be destroyed by an asteroid collision before climate change can do a damn thing.

The thing that bugs me about climate change discussions, and it's right there in the wording of your question, is that I see plenty of people argue about whether or not it's happening but very little discussion about whether or not if it is happening is it an entirely bad thing? Your question asks about "the risks" of climate change. Change is part of the natural process, and there may be benefits as well as costs. My dad, the geologist who thinks on a geological time scale, some times talks about hoping "global warming" will move us past the glacial cycle rather than put us in another Ice Age.

[space-oddity-75.livejournal.com]

I tend to think that 'F' could be a plausible scenario. The problem is that most people are more concerned with the 'here and now' rather than thinking forward in order to protect what's to be protected and prevent further damage in the future.

Changes should be made soon on a worldwide scale, but if those countries who are most responsible for reckless exploitment of the natural resources and pollution fail to understand that sustainable living cannot be left to the good heart of the private citizen, but should be made compulsory by every state with the help of specific laws and regulations (ex. less use of plastics and oil derivates, less emissions of greenhouse gases, more recycling and re-use of materials, etc), I doubt there'll be any change for the better.

[tgifa.livejournal.com]

A. I think nothing serious will happen at all. People will go on and on and the world will go boom. (But I'll be hopefully dead by then.)

"World going boom" = "not serious at all"?

[hmpf.livejournal.com]

*boggles*

Re: "World going boom" = "not serious at all"?

[tgifa.livejournal.com]

I was deliberately misinterpreting "A" and taking "nothing serious will happen" as "people won't take any serious measures". (...And even if, some things can't be stopped or reversed, especially not globally. Yes, the glass is half empty and I can't be convinced otherwise.)

[exorcizo-te.livejournal.com]

I. "I think there is an actual, real possibility that all complex life on Earth may go extinct within the next 200 years."

Given what I've seen of the lack of ecological accountability (at least in the U.S.) at the micro and macrocosmic level, I think there is a real possibility that certain atmospheric conditions will spiral out of control and make the earth unlivable. For instance, unchecked global warming, the hole in the ozone layer that I've seen increase in size notably in the last 15 years (the first pictures I saw of it in school covered only Antarctica, the more recent ones cover the ocean down to parts of Chile and Argentina), and mining practices like the ones practiced in parts of the U.S. (KY and WI for certain where they do this or are talking about doing this) where they take 6 guys and blow the entire top off a mountain - it's worse than strip mining, and they do it despite the known ecological ramifications. It's been awhile since I heard them explicitly (and meteorology/geology has never been my strongest science), but it involved run off streams being severely impacted/destroyed and leaving the mountains no longer capable of serving their purpose in the evaporation/rainfall chain... means forests dying and drought.

Alarmist? Maybe. I hope I'm wrong. However, it's hard to be optimistic when we have a VP candidate who doesn't even believe in global warming. But don't worry, she'll keep the fags from getting married, and that's what matters, amiright? I worry very much that our ecological situation will become a matter of the proverbial, "too little, too late."

[thoran-ziyal.livejournal.com]

I can't decide between E, F and G. It will affect us all, the question is when and how.
And especially we (a.k.a. the rich countries) have to do as much as we can to stop or at least slow down the process. And that starts with every one of us - like trying not to use the car, save energy and water etc. It's not only good for our finances, but also for the environment.

(sorry about typos, I am in a hurry)

[nager.livejournal.com]

I'm leaning towards F. while trying to be optimistic. F. implies the possibility that mankind might change. Though I only see that happen, if we are hit by one big scale climate change "event" that would cause clobal damage and serve as a wake up call to *everyone*.

Otherwise, if the situation continues to build up gradually, we will go down (to H.), like the Frog that never jumps out of the water if it is heated up slowly towards boiling point.