The Beginning of Infinity: Explanations That Transform the World

by David Deutsch

First, we have been lucky so far. Regardless of how accurate the prevailing climate models are, it is uncontroversial from the laws of physics, without any need for supercomputers or sophisticated modelling, that such emissions must, eventually, increase the temperature, which must, eventually, be harmful. Consider, therefore: what if the relevant parameters had been just slightly different and the moment of disaster had been in, say, 1902 – Veblen’s time – when carbon-dioxide emissions were already orders of magnitude above their pre-Enlightenment values. Then the disaster would have happened before anyone could have predicted it or known what was happening. Sea levels would have risen, agriculture would have been disrupted, millions would have begun to die, with worse to come. And the great issue of the day would have been not how to prevent it but what could be done about it.