The only way to prevent the unexpected is cutting emissions, said U.N. climate panel member Gary Yohe, an economist at Wesleyan University.
Although most scientists agree that adaptation should play a major role in absorbing the effects of climate change, they say that buying into the heretics' arguments will dig the world into a deeper hole by putting off greenhouse gas reductions until it is too late.
The heretics believe that time works to their benefit, arguing that technological advances over the next 50 years will ultimately make reducing carbon dioxide in the atmosphere affordable.
Pielke says that even if his critics are right, it is becoming clear that the world lacks the political will to enact global emissions cuts.
China's growing emissions are on pace to double those of the United States in a decade, and the country shows little interest in slowing down. The United States has refused to cap its emissions, and much of Europe is failing to satisfy even the modest terms of the Kyoto Protocol, the 1997 landmark treaty on greenhouse gases.
"I would characterize us as realists," Pielke said. "Realists on what is politically possible."
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alan.zarembo@latimes.com
