However, my understanding of the science is that there are certain “tipping points” that, if the global temperature rises above these points, positive feedback mechanisms will come into play. This would dramatically reduce the control we have over the situation, because it would be much harder to bring temperatures back down to what human civilisation has been used to for the past few thousand years.

It would be extremely bad news if the Earth passed these tipping points. So efforts at mitigation must be primarily focussed at keeping atmospheric greenhouse gas concentrations below dangerous levels (350ppm is the latest estimate of what would be “safe”, according to NASA’s Jim Hansen and others). This doesn’t seem to be an issue that can be treated by cost-benefit analysis; it’s a question of whether we avoid reaching the tipping points – or not. Having listened to what the science implies we need to do in order to keep our world in a state we understand and have evolved to live in, only then do we look at the economic mechanisms that can provide flexibility to countries/industries trying to reach emissions targets.

Our actions on climate change must have science, and what we see as an acceptable or manageable amount of change, as the bottom line.

Might I suggest that you add some readings from economists to your list? Richard Tol and William Nordhaus come to mind (Tol is part opf the IPCC).

It’s true that wealth generation could be harmed by climate change….but it’s also true that attempts to reduce emissions to as to reduce climate change will reduce wealth generation. The quetion is, which will casue the greater wealth reduction? And that’s an economic question on which I suggest you read economists.

(Disclosure, I work for UKIP but that isn’t why I’m here nor the reason for the comment. I write a great deal about this climate change/economy interface as a freelancer and you popped up in a Google Alert).

Here’s another of the replies I got from a UKIP MEP:

Dear Amy
I must advise you that no, I will not be going to Poznan next week, or indeed, likely ever.
When the vote comes in the Parliament, I will vote as I have always done, to deny the unelected EU Commission any unanimity. I was not elected to make this failing artificial construct bigger or more powerful. Indeed, quite the opposite.

What may seem like a fun idea now is quite likely to be less so in the longer run. That our planet has been changing ever since it coalesced out of a cloud of gas billions of years ago is quite likely be lost on the delgates in Poznan; but then, there will be plenty of hot air to make up for it.

Have fun
Tom Wise MEP

Good to see people are taking notice.

Hope all’s well.