Environment & Energy
Related: About this forumWhat Is Epsilon?
EDIT
One of the members of the commission which investigated the disaster was physicist Richard Feynman. In one of his biographies (sic) he tells an interesting story. My memory is imperfect, but it goes something like this. At one point he was meeting with a NASA manager and some engineers. He asked them point-blank, whats the probability of mission success for a launch? The manager replied something like certainty. Feynman protested that no it wasnt. The probability of success is 1 minus epsilon. Whats epsilon?
He even let them submit their estimates by secret ballot, writing them on a slip of paper, but it was immediately obvious whose guess was whose. The engineers gave failure probabilities around 1 out of 100, or even as optimistic as 1 out of 400, but the managers estimated failure probability was 1 out of 100,000. 1 out of 100,000! At those odds, you could launch a shuttle every day for 300 years and expect only one mission failure. Feynmans wasnt the only bullshit meter flashing red.
He also tells of an interesting discussion with the range safety officer, who had to decide whether or not to include a self-destruct mechanism. About 1 out of 25 solid-rocket launches had failed, but the shuttle was better-than-average rocket technology so he estimated the chance of catastrophic failure at about 1 out of 100, optimistically, which would indeed require the inclusion of a self-destruct mechanism. Management balked at this figure so the range safety officer altered his estimate to conform with management wishes, then attached a self-destruct mechanism anyway.
Were seeing the same exact thing happen with the global warming debate. Fossil-fuel shills, conservative politicians and pundits, and misguided and ill-informed bloggers are telling us No problem, dont do anything. Keep burning fossil fuels, impose no restrictions, no costs. Drill baby drill! My bullshit meter is flashing red. So heres your chance to answer the question: Whats epsilon? I moderate this blog with a heavy hand, but for this post Ill allow anyone to submit an estimate. That does not mean you get to proselytize. Dont give us your reasons for thinking climate sensitivity estimates are too high, or its all the sun, or its galactic cosmic rays or sheep albedo, or launch into a diatribe about emails from the climate research unit attempts to argue why are not the point of this post, and indulging in same will get you sent to the trash-bin. The prohibition against proselytizing goes both ways dont give us your reasons for insisting climate sensitivity is high, or its not the sun or cosmic rays, or a diatribe about the character assassination of honest climate scientists.
EDIT
http://tamino.wordpress.com/2012/01/04/what-is-epsilon/
kristopher
(29,798 posts)With a business as usual scenario stipulated I put the chance of disaster (with disaster defined as a major global extinction event) at 95%.
I do not think we will continue with BAU.
Saving Hawaii
(441 posts)Every time we break ground on a new coal power plant, we're locking ourselves into business as usual for the next few decades. Every time we approve another big oil pipeline, we're locking ourselves into business as usual for the next few decades. Oh sure we can start to make the transition today, but all these expensive investments in infrastructure are going to be used until they're obsolete.