Uncertainty is not an excuse for inaction. As Climate Progress reports, Sandia National Laboratory assessed the risk of precipitation patterns affected by climate change, and concluded: …compelling risk derives from uncertainty, not certainty. The greater the uncertainty, the greater the risk. It is the uncertainty associated with climate change that validates the need to act protectively and proactively. The same point is made in “Degrees of Risk”, a report issued last month by Third Generation Environmentalism: In managing conventional security risks both policy makers and the general public accept that uncertainty is no excuse for inaction. Indeed it is hard to imagine a politician trying to argue that counter-terrorism measures were unnecessary because the threat of attack was uncertain. In a working paper circulated through the environmental community this week, Andrew J. Hoffman of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business argues that the two poles in the climate debate – the “skeptics” and the “convinced” – already think about risk, but from entirely different perspectives. As a result, the two camps are talking past each other. Hoffman based these conclusions in part on an extensive review of articles on the different perspectives at play in the climate debate. [...]