OddThinking

I got a new message from a cute and cuddly MOTAS. I opened it with curiousity. It contained a link to a YouTube video.

What was the video? I was curious.

What’s this? Some geek called John, in front of a whiteboard, introducing a new argument for taking action on climate change.

John explained that he had a novel way of looking at the problem of climate change, and that no-one he had showed it to had been able to find a flaw.

Let me have a go.

John divided up the worst case possibilities in the climate change debate along two axes.

His premise was that, no matter what probability you put against the risk of uncontrolled climate change, the potential downside of ending up in the bottom corner meant that we dare not take no action.

John’s “novel” argument was basically Pascal’s Wager, with Hell replaced with uncontrolled climate change.

His argument contained several fallacies.

Economic Cost of Success

The first mistake is fairly prosaic, but has a big effect on the result.

He suggests that the worst case of spending too much money and government control on stopping climate change is that the world will be plunged into a depression. What he doesn’t recognise is that this economic result would be identical whether the measures are required or not!

By analogy, if you spent all of your money on a burglar alarm, you will be completely broke independent of whether or not a burglar tries to break into your home.

The bottom left cell of the table should include include global economic depression as the worst case.

Now, the question becomes which column would you like to take? The one leading to economic ruin, or the one that has at least a chance of happiness!

Comparing Only Worst Cases

Each of the cells contains a wide range of scenarios, and yet John compares only the worst case in each scenario. This doesn’t lead to the optimal choice.

Consider an analogy of sky-diving from a plane. Should you buy a parachute?

Well, if you don’t, the worst case is that you are splattered on the ground, dead. If you do, the worst case is the chute fails, you are splattered on the ground, dead, and you also lost the cost of a parachute. By John’s logic of comparing worst cases, you are better off saving your money and jumping without.

You need to consider the whole range of scenarios in order to make the optimum decision.

Infinite versus finite

The third problem is that he implicitly assumes that uncontrolled climate change is infinitely worse than mere global economic depression.

If it is “merely”, say, a million times worse (by whatever metric you prefer) then it is necessary to consider the probabilities to choose the column with the best expected outcome.

However, he also states that uncontrolled climate change is unlikely to wipe out the human race, so by at least one metric (human deaths), we can imagine a case where uncontrolled climate change is not infinitely worse than global economic depression, which is also going to lead to significant loss of life.

We cannot proceed without considering the probabilities of the climate change theories be right, and an estimate of how much worse the expected situation (as opposed to worst case) is going to be.

(John does suggest trying this with probabilities and milder results, but he says it doesn’t change the conclusion. That is wrong. His over-simplified view hides important complexities.)

“Yes, Minister” Motiviation

In the TV show Yes, Minister, the following syllogism was used:

We must do something.
This is something.
Therefore, we must do it.

By falling for the fallacy of the excluded middle, John is effectively following this logic. His only choice available to us is to “take action”, but in reality there are many different ways to take action.

Some of those actions are expensive and have no effect (e.g. Some would argue that Hydrogen-powered cars have no effect but to move the location of the pollution.)

Some of those actions are risky, and may back-fire (e.g. some would argue that artificial geological sequestration of carbon dioxide merely delays the inevitable release back into the atmosphere.)

It could be that we choose an expensive and incorrect direction, and result in both economic ruin and uncontrolled climate change.

(John does suggest trying this with intermediate actions, but he says it doesn’t change the conclusion. That is wrong. Again, his over-simplified view hides important complexities.)

It is important (if we choose to take action at all) that we choose to take the right action (or, at the very least, one of the choices of action that is better than inaction.)

Viral Marketing

John finishes he speech by begging people to copy it to as many people as he can. This isn’t a fallacy. I can see that that makes sense to him trying to persuade others.

Ultimately, it reeks to me of a chain letter. Its goal appears to be, like a chain-letter, not to avert tragedy and bring happiness, but merely to be copied.

Am I being too harsh? If I am, it is because I fear a future with a different sort of pollution. One where all of my contacts with cute and cuddly MOTAS are polluted with viral marketing of poorly constructed ideas. That’s a future I don’t want to live in.

For people who still have an old-fashioned insistence on going back to check the sources: John’s original video.