Barack Obama allegedly stands at threshold of allegedly catastrophic climate change | Straight.com

Let us be clear about the stakes involved. Our children’s and grandchildren’s lives decades from now hang in the balance of actions taken early in this presidency. Absent swift carbon reduction now, they will find themselves trapped within a deadly atmospheric greenhouse of our own making. Failure to mount a national climate defense would be as absurd as government sitting idle during an attack on American soil. Citizens worldwide must make clear to President Obama that regulating carbon is not a matter of political discretion, as his predecessor conceived it, but a firm trust obligation. He can, and must exercise that obligation immediately, without waiting for Congress, using the fullest extent of regulatory tools he already has at hand.

Mary Christina Wood is the Philip H. Knight Professor of Law at University of Oregon School of Law. Tim Ream is a Fellow for the Wayne Morse Center for Law and Politics at the University of Oregon School of Law.

Pascal's Wager and Climate Change - O'Reilly Radar

...By contrast, let's assume that the climate skeptics are wrong. We face the displacement of millions of people, droughts, floods and other extreme weather, species loss, and economic harm that will make us long for the good old days of the current financial industry meltdown.

It really is like Pascal's wager. On one side, the worst outcome is that we've built a more robust economy. On the other side, the worst outcome really is hell. In short, we do better if we believe in climate change and act on that belief, even if we turned out to be wrong.