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Notes -
Convincing people to take a ill-defined, extreme response to a ill-measured, extreme risk is called a Pascal's Mugging, and everything that has been said on the axioms and implications of Pascal's Mugging is available with a quick google search... Except for one thing I want to elaborate on.
Pascal's Muggings arguments often fail to consider that muggings go both ways. In the case of climate change, environmentalists often overlook the equally existential, equally ill-defined risks of an over-enthusiastic reaction to climate change. Just as there are tipping points in the climate, there may be tipping points in human welfare beyond which pursuing environmentalism causes a catastrophe. For instance, European energy prices spiralling to infinity as European governments increasingly refuse to produce energy, so to deflect mounting public anger at declining living standards, they blame Putin, and then the populace decides to take these claims of it being Putin's fault way too seriously, leading to a chain of events culminating in a pointless nuclear exchange. Yes, this risk is very ill-defined, but it's not zero, so that puts it in the same category of risk as the climate change tipping points. It's another mugging. You're getting mugged by two people at once. Who do you hand your money to?
In public policy contexts, I believe Pascal's Mugging is similar to the Precautionary Principle, and it has the same flaws you point out.
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