Résumé
A social scientist may be overwhelmed by the sharp controversy among natural scientists about the basic problem of climate change in the globalisation process. Thus, global warming is contested as the true predicament of the environment is not known with certitude. Yet, the global dilemma of climate change may be analysed as a decision problem - classical game against Nature where mankind through its regional and international coordination mechanisms has to choose a decision rule to cope with the uncertainty about basic probabilities concerning potentially immense losses in certain scenarios. The article concludes that the minimax and the miniregret decision principles offer a prudent and cautious response to the coming energy-environment conundrum, of whatever its implications may be.
Voir le contenu complet de ce document
Extrait
The Global Dilemma: A Game Against Nature
1 Introduction
The war in Iraq and the chase of terrorists overshadow what is the biggest problem for mankind, namely the energy-environment conundrum. The events in Iraq will hardly prove as significant as many believe. It is hardly the start of the war between civilisations that HUNTINGTON so ominously predicted or warned against.1 The large majority of Arabs do not want Islamic fundamentalism. And the U.S. will have to withdraw from Iraq sooner or later. There is no built in drive in globalisation towards Western values, as FUKUYAMA argued.2 There will always be cultural heterogeneity on earth, as long as mankind exists. And that is exactly the main question: Can mankind survive the future energy-environment crisis?The global dilemma, or the coupling of energy and environment, has the following components. On the one hand, mankind uses more and fossil fuels in order to keep up economic and social development, modernise poor countries, and maintain economic growth in post-modern countries. On the other hand, this 'development' leads to immense ...Voir le contenu complet de ce document
Liens sponsorisés
