Over the last several years, we’ve been bombarded with advice from climate scientists that in order to slow down global warming, we needed to abandon any hope of economic growth, as their models clearly showed that it was our growth that was causing increased temperatures around the world (except for the last ten years, somehow). In a case like this, we are assured that the models are (practically) infallible and that any delay in cutting our various emissions will invariably doom the planet to runaway temperature increases.
However, when we take the scientific community (or the more outspoken members thereof) at their word, and go with computer modelling, that’s dangerously irresponsible of us:
The current plan for Environment Canada is to monitor and measure less, and to rely more on modelling. Models are computer simulations based on scientific understanding that are applied to problems ranging from weather forecasting to economics. Models of complex systems can easily get it wrong, as the unanticipated economic collapse in 2008 revealed. This is not to say that models are not useful: in economics they give helpful guidance for investments and policy.
Models are, however, no substitute for measurements. No economist would suggest that we stop measuring economic performance, and neither should we abandon monitoring the environment in which we live. New data leads to better models and more accurate predictions.
H/T to Elizabeth for sending me the link and pointing out the models good/models bad case.
