Climate skeptics claim a false alarm costs more than denial.

Evidence

According to Ross Garnaut at the Australian National University, the sorry dispute about climate change has become “less civilized, noisier and more ignorant” (Della-Ragione, 2011). One of the grave moral concerns that gets lost in this heated feud is the future state of the earth and humankind if the belief about global warming is a myth. Myron Ebell (2006), the director of the Center of Energy and the Environment at the Competitive Enterprise Institute, which is heavily funded by the petroleum industry, argues that global warming makes life more pleasant in northern regions with fewer and less severe winter storms. This northern scenario suggests that the cost to human well-being of a false positive (belief in global warming that does not exist) is greater than a false-negative belief (denial of global warming that exists). — Albert Bandura, Moral Disengagement, 2543

Categorization

• DEFINE: Introduces the false-positive vs. false-negative belief distinction applied to the climate debate.