Nope, the reality is that it is the credibility of Greg Easterbrook that is diminished.
I have seen many like him that do distort the evidence, and clearly his angle is to talk about the good that we can expect, but it is people like him (not a climate scientist, he is a political one) that are miscalculating with the idea to make AGW to be less of a problem.
Let’s keep political commentary out of this thread (and this is political commentary, not scientific). If you feel you must, you may start yet another thread in Great Debates.
Let’s stick to the positive and negative effects of predicted global climate changes, not whether AGW is real or not.
One important thing to note am77494: the item you posted in your second post from Easterbrook is from 2007 and the one here is from 2012, one can blame it on the typical errors of people in the media makes about any science, it seems that he is getting it better now but still not a very reliable guy yet. (When one looks at the desmogblog it is clear that he was an skeptic that is getting convinced now by the overwhelming evidence, if he is important in this thread it is as an example to follow IMHO. As he also shows how it is possible for someone to change their mind if one is an skeptic still on this issue).
But it is clear that there are important items that he is missing so as to get optimistic notes about what that can indeed be seen in the future.
The uncertainty that is actually reported in the published science makes one wonder why indeed he is sounding so sure. But it is not hard for me to see why, he would be out of a job if he would report strongly about what the contamination of our atmosphere is more likely to get us.
It seems like the Western US is getting drier and hotter and the eastern US is getting colder and wetter. Which one of those is a “winner” is up for debate of course.
One thing to keep in mind is that Climate Scientists are constantly being surprised by how fast things are changing and entirely new phenomena that are popping up they hadn’t really seen coming.
E.g., their predictions on how soon the Arctic will be ice-free in the summer gets lowered every few years. Ditto how long until certain Antarctic ice shelves will break.
The rapid release of Methane from the Russian tundra is far more than had predicted a few decades ago. And there have been some real oddities in the polar jet streams that have surprised people.
So trying to predict if Sub-Saharan Africa is going to be wetter or drier at this point is nearly a crap shoot.
The best general, overall, prediction is: Expect more extreme wetter. Stronger storms, nastier hot/cold spells, etc. A lot of deviation from average. I don’t imagine there are many places where this would be considered a win.
As noted upthread, rapid changes can be quite challenging for ecosystems (and agricultural sytems.
Along the same lines, there are some species that ‘handle change’ (are more adaptable) than others. We are one of those species. Most of the other species like that are not prized by us. I’m quoting (actually, paraphrasing) someone (British, I think) who I heard on the radio, years ago, so I have no cite, but basically he said of these kind of species “when they are plants, we call them weeds, and when they are animals, we call them pests”.
Basically, in terms of humanity, I think any short term gains will be modest and local, and while one might guess that tundra regions might become more habitable in the long run, there won’t be any sure bets (except that Russia will get warm ports).
In the USA, the areas that will be flooded by rising sea levels mostly vote Democratic.
So in vote counts, Republicans will be Winners.
I could speculate about the connection between that fact, and Republican denial of climate change, but I think the moderator wants us to keep such political discussion in another Forum.
The thing is, we’re going into a new ice age unless history is to be disbelieved. However, that may be tomorrow, in 1,000 years, or in 5,000 years. So relying on that fact to save our sizzling bacon is a waste of perfectly good hope.
Just a note - Central Canada is above New York and Ohio. Western Canada starts about even with Minnesota and goes into the Rockies or Pacific. Western Canada may benefit from warmer weather, particularly in heating costs - but drought is as much an issue as Montana or Nebraska. It’s in the rain shadow of the Rockies and a bit too far north to get much from the gulf unless patterns change. Roads (if any) in northern Canada, just like the Alaska highway, are subject to major damage as permafrost melts and turns to mush, so there are minuses along with the benefits. Anyone who watches Ice Road Truckers knows that much of the north relies on frozen surfaces to truck goods, so warming means a much reduced trucking season - already a concern apparently in some western provinces.
Hurricanes have demonstrated that the big danger is that elevated sea surface temperatures mean stronger hurricanes, packing more humidity weight and therefore more momentum plus much higher rainfalls.
There’s evidence there are large oil fields (like Saudi Arabia size) in the Arctic. They’ve been inaccessible under the ice but they might now be open to seasonal drilling as the ice cap melts. So we could end up seeing a long extension of the era of cheap oil.
That said, it might not be an unmixed blessing. The extra oil production and use could add to global warming and make it worse. And there’s international tension rising as several countries are making disputing claims to arctic territory.
The real answer though is that it depends on how much global warming occurs. If it’s just a few degrees, some people will benefit and many people will suffer. But it’s possible temperatures might hit a tipping point and really go up. If Alaska turns into another Florida, there’ll be winners and losers. If Earth turns into another Venus, then everyone loses.