So you’ve moved house and an insurance salesperson comes round to sell you flood insurance. Your house is at risk, he says, the waters could rise as high as 2 metres – enough to wreck the floor.
Next day another salespersonn comes round and tells you that the flood waters could actually reach 6 metres. That’s well over the roof, which would be pretty catastrophic. But who should you believe?
A third salesperson comes round. “I’ll be honest,” he says. “We don’t really know how high the waters will rise. It could be 2 metres or 6 metres.”
You believe the third salesperson. So you decide it’s not worth getting insurance after all.
Not following the logic? Do keep up.
This is pretty much the situation we’re in regarding climate change. It looks as though not only do the models not tell us exactly how much warming to expect, they might never be able to tell us.
Inevitably, the deniers are claiming this somehow justifies doing nothing. It’s an interesting example in cognitive dissonance – how do they maintain their beliefs?
A good guide to climate myths here.
