First, the climate change models are imperfect. In the worst case we're already out of time, in the best case we have a lot. A lot of people stopped believing in Climage Change when Al Gore's chosen predictions did not come true on the timeline he suggested in "An Inconvenient Truth". Being overly alarmist can cost credibility, which leads to my next point: there is only so far people are willing to go voluntarily to fight climate change. At some point they will say the expenses are not justified, especially when aggressive predictions do not come true. "Prediction is hard, especially about the future" as Robert Oppenheimer said.
How much is the average American, let alone the average global citizen willing to spend, willing to lower their quality of life to protect the climate? This isn't a theoretical matter of eating a few less hamburgers, it's about spending weeks in a cold house in Winter instead of a toasty, comfy one. "I'll just put on a sweater", doesn't work for everyone. In fact there is a huge racial equity issue involved with telling people to turn down their thermostat: darker skinned people are genetically tuned for warmer climates. It's a lot more painful for a Somalian immigrant in Minneapolis to be forced to run their thermostat at 58 degrees Fahrenheit in the midst of a sub-zero Winter than, say, someone of Swedish heritage.
Once people reach their voluntary limits of sacrifice for the climate change cause, things get a lot more difficult. Do you simply force them to comply? How? What kind of force do you use? What sort of dystopian methods must be employed to force people to make sacrifices they don't want to make?
My point is this: a measured, careful, response to Climate Change will likely yield better long term results than a panic driven response based on the most aggressive climate models. Just as in a fire drill people are encouraged to act in an orderly manner to avoid the suboptimal outcome of mayhem, a measured, thoughtful response, that balances costs will lead to a better outcome. We only have one chance to do this, let's do it right.
