If the statistics community wishes to influence public policy vis a vis global warming, we should present Congress with a simple application of decision theory. Either global warming caused by human activity will eventually reach a "tipping point", where a runaway greenhouse effect destroys all life on Earth as we know it, leaving the planet more like Venus, or it will not happen. Using decision theory we can multiply the cost of each outcome by the probability of that outcome. If we can use drastic actions like a carbon tax to stop the generation of greenhouses gases, we can estimate the cost of such action. The cost of doing nothing is the destruction of life on earth as we know it. If there is a positive probability of reaching a runaway greenhouse effect, then that infinite cost times that probability--no matter how small--is greater than the cost of ending our dependence on fossil fuels, times the probability that such a runaway effect will not occur.
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David Salsburg
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