Judith Curry has a very concise summary of the latest Nature Climate Change shot-in-the-dark, called “Climate change and moral judgement” (by Ezra M. Markowitz and Azim F. Shariff, NCC, vol.2, April 2012).
The study is based on the usual wholesale vapidity of bombastic statements made meaningless by the absence of any quantification
The climate science community has arrived at a consensus regarding both the reality of rapid, anthropogenic climate change and the necessity of urgent and sustained action to avoid its worst environmental, economic and social consequences
Having switched off their brains to accept the ‘consensus’, the authors forgot to turn them back on before writing gems like
Unlike financial fraud or terrorist attacks, climate change does not register, emotionally, as a wrong that demands to be righted. As a result, many individuals, even those who believe that climate change is a problem, may feel complacent in delaying immediate — and costly — ameliorative action, such as investing in alternative-energy technologies or reducing one’s own energy use
Markowitz and Shariff clearly don’t understand that “climate change” belongs to the future, whilst financial fraud and terrorist attacks belong also to the past and present. They don’t even understand that “ameliorative action” has nothing to do with “reducing one’s own energy use” (a wishy-washy commitment for anybody bothering to do the maths), and that “investing in alternative-energy technologies” is pointless unless the cost is linked to some benefit, with the benefit being larger than the cost that is.
These preaching “reducing one’s own energy use” are not doing it, they are among the world’s most profligate energy wasters.