Asteroid impact model the best approach to climate change policy

If, someday, scientists had the data to properly fulfil the requirements of level 1, surveillance and tracking, we would still have to complete level 2, characterization, and demonstrate that the data we had collected revealed dangerous man-made climate change, before moving on to level 3, mitigation. While we are a very long way from being able to properly characterize the threat of man-made climate change, Ball explained that there is essentially nothing in the data collected so far that indicates a problem. He said:

The climate change we have seen in the past century is no different from what we would expect to see due to a period of natural warming out of the Little Ice Age from 1350 to the late 1800s. Whatever human contribution there may be is lost in the noise of natural variability.

Dr. Ball was a brave and intelligent man, afraid of no one. But even less courageous citizens can insist that a rational approach to climate change be taken, one which takes into account both the possible outcomes as well as the probability of those outcomes actually coming about. Sommer's three-step hierarchal strategy to handling uncertain but potentially catastrophic outcomes is clearly a sensible approach we should insist be taken with climate change policy.

Until enough basic climate data has been collected and dangerous human-caused climate change has actually been demonstrated, all funding for mitigation should be cancelled. The world has real issues to focus on.