I don’t know if the title is accurate or not, I’m not even sold on AGW (the ‘A’ part, that man is causing it). By hey that’s what they say is happening, so lets go with that. So now we get to the point is it ‘bad’ or is it perhaps ‘good’.
It is certainly change, and people have a natural resistance and fear of change, but change is offen good and necessary and offen fears are unfounded. Transitions are also seen as harsh, especially on a global scale, but perhaps on the other side there is a much greater world for humanity.
Just one aspect land that is frozen, too cold to produce much food may become a better place to grow food then the current locations, perhaps Siberia will become the world’s bread basket - maybe far outstripping the loss and desertification of the US breadbasket that we hear rumored about occasionally.
There are many more such possibilities that may turn out to be a greater good.
Another way to increase the availability of resources is to kill individual humans – then there’s more for the rest of us.
It appears you’re volunteering everyone else on earth to experience the benefits of global warming, but I don’t see you signing up to be killed to increase the availability of resources.
That’s not because you don’t care about the greater good. It’s because you don’t want something bad to happen to you personally, even if the result would be hypothetical improvement in the lives of others.
Well, global warming is going to suck for (either “lots of people” or “absolutely everyone,” depending on which estimates you believe), and none of those people particularly want to suffer for some hypothetical benefit to strangers, either.
It’s one thing to wring your hands and say how terrible it is, and another actually do something about it. If it is going to happen, then perhaps the best thing is to accept it and stop worrying about it, because the last time I checked worrying hasn’t solved anything.
See I don’t accept that. Killing people is killing solutions for humanity. Ways to get at resources are gone if you get rid of the person who will create them.
I don’t accept that necessarily either. We already know that ‘solutions’ to stop GW will hurt the poorest people, people who will not be able to afford fuel to better themselves.
If GW is actually ‘bad’ the question then is is it worse then trying to stop it?
This is what they say about that:
Negative impacts of global warming on agriculture, health & environment far outweigh any positives.
And they don’t use the word ignorant so please be careful when you cite something in this context, we don’t want to take it the wrong way
But the negative effects should be more commonly known then the positive, because what GW will take away are things we are used to having, the things GW will give are unknown because we don’t have them yet. So at least on a common sense level we should know more what GW will take away then what it will give, that does not equate to GW will take more then it gives.
You’ve got to be kidding, the dominant forcing is by humans? they claim is ‘what the science says’ Humans is at best a small but persistant nudging force, no way a dominate force. Seasonal climate variation far outweigh human induced variation, night and day variation far outweight human induced variation. Your cite is discredited as far as I’m concerned.
Here is some addition food for thought, if we are being serious here. The current agricultural infrastructure is not set up for the way things may be in a short amount of time. For example, grains grown in one location today may not be able to grow in that same location in the future due to temperature and rainfall patterns being altered. I could see wheat moving into new territory, as postulated, but it may not be able to grow where it is today, where the towns with the machinery, knowhow, and storage facilities currently exist. It’s not like the entire “wheat factory” can just up and move to another, more favorable location every few years. Nevermind crops that require extensive irrigation systems, as well as years to become productive, such as nuts and citrus.
We have a lot invested in producing food in a climate like it is today. I suppose it is possible to move into new territory gradually over a number of decades, but if climate change is occuring too rapidly, it will throw things for a loop as with the dust bowl, IMHO.
Does anyone have a table of the averge temperature changes in specific regions of the world over the last 1,000 years? If not that period, how far back can we reliably document these variances?
I agree. Take a look at how far much of Bangladesh is above sea level. Then consider how much sea level is expected to rise.
I hope you have room for about a million Bangladeshis in your basement, because they are going to need someplace else to live. And someplace else to grow food.
As for fuel, we can be far more efficient than we are, given the right financial incentives. Don’t count engineering out.
Tree rings and ice cores tell us quite a bit of information about the climate in the past, but at the rate we are going there is no going much ice to core:p
Since most studies I have read, discuss variations of 1/4 to 1/2 degree changes as being significant, can tree ring and ice core analysis really provide that level of granularity without accounting for other variables such as the planet’s orbital position in relation to the sun at a specific time in the past to match up precisely with that particular spot on the tree ring? Seems like there’s a LOT of assumptions being made in this historical analysis to have results as precise as they claim.
Actually, Global warming should be a little better than another Little Ice age.
BUT, the huge issue here is rate of change. The climate normally goes thru changes, but that takes hundreds if not thousands of years. It’s hard to tell exactly what’s going on, but if the worse models are true, then the climate is changing hwaaaay too fast for the good to outweigh the bad. So, it’s not 'warming" per se that’s so bad- it’s rapid climate change.
My point is that we don’t know with a lot of confidence that this sort of climate change that has occurred in the last 70 years, hasn’t regularly occurred over the last 2,000 years at different points. The ice core and tree ring studies can’t provide that level of accuracy. Again a LOT of assumptions. I’m not saying it isn’t happening, I’m just not convinced that it hasn’t happened in the past for whatever reasons.
And we definitely shouldn’t be making public policy decisions based upon this level of study. 70-100 years of accurate readings is miniscule sample of the current age of the earth to make such claims.
