# So just how warm or cool SHOULD the planet be? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 16, 2013, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-just-how-warm-or-cool-should-the-planet-be/674032 "2013-11-16T02:25:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Gagundathar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/a183cd/32.png) [@Gagundathar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gagundathar)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-just-how-warm-or-cool-should-the-planet-be/674032/21 "2013-11-20T16:51:54Z")
Like many topics here with ambiguous questions as stated in the OP, there is much to be learned from everyone’s opinions and data. So much more than merely asking “What is the height of Mt. Denali?” As we old people say, “SDMB rocks!” Anyway, according to the wiki article, the following is true: > [@](#): > > ## A curious discovery from the marine sediments is that the transitions into and out of this wet period occurred within decades, not millennia as previously thought. > > Ref: ^ “Abrupt Climate Changes Revisited: How Serious and How Likely?”. USGCRP Seminar, 23 February 1998. Retrieved May 18, 2005. If so, then we may be in the middle of another rapid change in wet periods which could seriously impact the Ogallala Aquifer if the change is towards drought. That seems to be the higher probability, but I do not know. If another megadrought occurs in the High Plains of North America, then the dust-bowl days will look like heaven on earth in comparison. Or, alternatively, the mean increase in atmospheric energy will result in huge storms and a general increase in precipitation. It may even be enough to reverse the overusage of the Ogallala. But, heck, I’m just an humble computer scientist living in the woods of East Tennessee and not competent to do more than speculate. My fear is that no matter what we do, floods and droughts, one or the other or both, are very likely going to become the new norm and refugees from the affected areas will become a very important topic. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 5:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-just-how-warm-or-cool-should-the-planet-be/674032/22 "2013-11-20T17:31:33Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > If you can think of a solution that doesn’t involve dismantling industrial civilization, or passing global sumptuary laws, I’d like to hear it. I have let Professor Richard Alley, a Republican, that worked for the oil industry to explain it before. (I actually pointed at him many times before so you really need to stop ignoring the good information and take to task the sources that continue to misled you.) [![](https://img.youtube.com/vi/V7bmg65SS20/maxresdefault.jpg "How to Talk to an Ostrich: "We can't Afford Clean Energy"") ](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V7bmg65SS20) > [@](#): > > Some people say transitioning to clean energy will simply cost too much - “leave it to future generations.” In Edinburgh, Scotland, Richard Alley explains that if we start soon the cost of the transformation could be similar to that which was paid for something none of us would want to do without - clean water and the modern sanitation system. The point stands, as economist Nordhaus reported too, the “solution” from the ones telling us that nothing should be done because it is too late ignores that **even more costly** scenarios are possible then, a penny wise and pound foolish ideology from the ‘do nothings’. > **[William Nordhaus: Smoking can teach us about climate change](https://www.salon.com/2013/10/30/william_nordhaus_smoking_can_teach_us_about_climate_change/)** > > A Yale economist explains why we need to put a price on carbon > [@](#): > > _You wrote a takedown of climate deniers in the New York Review of Books, in which you said, “Yes, there are many uncertainties, but that does not imply that action should be delayed.” How do you get people to overcome that uncertainty?_ > > We face lots of uncertainties, and it’s hard to think about what to do when life is uncertain. If I can come back to the case of smoking and cancer, it’s uncertain if a particular person will get cancer when they smoke. Some people do and some people don’t. But you know that the odds are against you, the odds are heavily in favor of the fact that you’re going to get sicker earlier and in a more serious way. > > I think that’s the way I think about climate change. Of course we don’t know exactly what’s going to happen or when it’s going to happen. We can’t see all the ramifications, but they don’t look favorable on the whole. I mean, there are some pretty frightening ones. So I think the uncertainties would make us say, “Well, let’s pay a little insurance premium to slow things down.” ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 5:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-just-how-warm-or-cool-should-the-planet-be/674032/23 "2013-11-20T17:58:31Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > This isn’t likely to be a problem for a while, because of the carbon dioxide we’ve already dumped into the atmosphere and how much more we’ll continue to for the time being. But if civilization continues I’m sure that by a century from now we will no longer be dependent on fossil fuels. At that point we’ll presumably have the ability to regulate the total concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, and thus the average global temperature. But what _should_ it be? By the year 2113 the people of Russia and Canada may be quite happy with how long their wheat growing season is, and being able to navigate freely through the Arctic Ocean. Would they actually protest restoring the Earth to its “natural” temperature? What is its natural temperature- how much CO2 was in the atmosphere before 1700? Before then Europe and North America were in what climatologists call the Little Ice Age. IS there a “right” temperature for the planet to be? Well, the right temperature is whatever it would be if there were no humans messing things up. Since the the Earth has been both much colder in the past (before there were any humans) and much hotter (again, before there were any of us to mess things up), the “right” temperature is either much hotter, much colder, or somewhere in between. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 6:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-just-how-warm-or-cool-should-the-planet-be/674032/24 "2013-11-20T18:38:16Z")
> [@LinusK](#): > > Well, the right temperature is whatever it would be if there were no humans messing things up. Since the the Earth has been both much colder in the past (before there were any humans) and much hotter (again, before there were any of us to mess things up), the “right” temperature is either much hotter, much colder, or somewhere in between. If only humans hadn’t invaded the from another planet and upset the natural order! It was a grim day when we came here from the sky and changed everything. ---
**Author:** ![Learjeff](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/94ad74/32.png) [@Learjeff](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Learjeff)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 10:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-just-how-warm-or-cool-should-the-planet-be/674032/25 "2013-11-20T22:03:59Z")
> [@Lumpy](#): > > If you can think of a solution that doesn’t involve dismantling industrial civilization, or passing global sumptuary laws, I’d like to hear it. stratospheric sulfate injection. It’s not pretty. Acidification of oceans would increase (significantly? I don’t know.) It damages the ozone layer. No doubt there would be other undesirable side effects. My guess, though, is that the side effects wouldn’t be worse than losing Bangladesh, New Orleans, and other low areas. There are improvements on sulfate injection, using photophoretic particles: ones that bounce higher when they bump into the heated, sun-facing side, of other particles, so they can stay in the upper atmosphere longer and rise higher, ideally above the ozone layer. Climate engineering is going to happen, once the foot-draggers who oppose fossil fuel use reduction start to get slammed by the economic disruptions caused by AGW. ---
**Author:** ![LinusK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/258eb7/32.png) [@LinusK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LinusK)\ **Post date:** [November 20, 2013, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-just-how-warm-or-cool-should-the-planet-be/674032/26 "2013-11-20T22:09:16Z")
> [@XT](#): > > If only humans hadn’t invaded the from another planet and upset the natural order! It was a grim day when we came here from the sky and changed everything. We’re at, or near, the end of the current interglacial period. Last time, glaciers covered Canada, and got as far south as NYC. Their remnants formed the Great Lakes. “Natural” doesn’t mean “nothing changes”. It means constant change. If it weren’t for climate change, we wouldn’t have the complex, adaptive, interesting array of species we have today. ---
**Author:** ![Damuri\_Ajashi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/898d66/32.png) [@Damuri\_Ajashi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Damuri_Ajashi)\ **Post date:** [November 21, 2013, 3:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-just-how-warm-or-cool-should-the-planet-be/674032/27 "2013-11-21T03:45:54Z")
On the other hand, my heating bills have been going down much faster than my summer electric bills have been going up so I guess global warming is a mixed bag /hide ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-just-how-warm-or-cool-should-the-planet-be/674032/28 "2013-12-19T20:53:09Z")
[Looks like it might be even worse than we thought.](http://www.thenation.com/article/177614/coming-instant-planetary-emergency) ---
**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-just-how-warm-or-cool-should-the-planet-be/674032/29 "2013-12-19T21:33:17Z")
> [@Der\_Trihs](#): > > There’s no one real “right” temperature. The immediate problem though isn’t the temperature so much as the effects of its changing; whatever the endpoint is, the change is going to cau Thread answered in the first sentence of the first reply. Let’s suppose Magiver’s correct in both his positive and negative guesses; first, that northern Canada becomes much warmer and permafrost goes away and you can plant crops there and actually want to live there, but second, that you lose coastal land in some places to rising sea levels. Let’s make an additional positive assumption, though; that the amount of land made productive in northern Canada, and I’d assume Russia too, greatly exceeds the amount of coastal land you lose in places like, say, Bangladesh or Europe or whatever. Even though you’re ahead, \*you can’t just move a few hundred million people. \* There’s no way in hell this happens. Million and millions of people can’t just hop on a boat, step off on a newly warmish Banks Island, and start anew. There’s a lot of war in between those two states. The problem is not change - as LinusK alludes to, the gigantic, seemingly permanent Great Lakes are in fact a relatively recent invention, taking their current shape around 7000-8000 years ago. People were domesticating animals and creating art millennia before the Great Lakes existed. Change happens. The risk is RAPID change. If the world’s temperature goes up 4 degrees in 4000 years, societies and populations will move and shift naturally, just as they always have; in the year 6013 it won’t seem like a big deal to people living in the Yukon that it’s warm there because they will have gradually moved there over the course of many generations. But if it happens in a hundred years - watch out. ---
**Author:** ![XT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xt/32/456_2.png) [@XT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/XT)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 10:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-just-how-warm-or-cool-should-the-planet-be/674032/30 "2013-12-19T22:09:16Z")
> [@RickJay](#): > > Thread answered in the first sentence of the first reply. > > Let’s suppose Magiver’s correct in both his positive and negative guesses; first, that northern Canada becomes much warmer and permafrost goes away and you can plant crops there and actually want to live there, but second, that you lose coastal land in some places to rising sea levels. Let’s make an additional positive assumption, though; that the amount of land made productive in northern Canada, and I’d assume Russia too, greatly exceeds the amount of coastal land you lose in places like, say, Bangladesh or Europe or whatever. > > Even though you’re ahead, \*you can’t just move a few hundred million people. \* There’s no way in hell this happens. Million and millions of people can’t just hop on a boat, step off on a newly warmish Banks Island, and start anew. There’s a lot of war in between those two states. > > The problem is not change - as LinusK alludes to, the gigantic, seemingly permanent Great Lakes are in fact a relatively recent invention, taking their current shape around 7000-8000 years ago. People were domesticating animals and creating art millennia before the Great Lakes existed. Change happens. The risk is RAPID change. If the world’s temperature goes up 4 degrees in 4000 years, societies and populations will move and shift naturally, just as they always have; in the year 6013 it won’t seem like a big deal to people living in the Yukon that it’s warm there because they will have gradually moved there over the course of many generations. But if it happens in a hundred years - watch out. Agreed. Look at the Sahara. There are rock art from folks who lived there showing plants and animals that they saw and hunted, and lots of evidence of large lakes and extensive river systems. Today? It’s a desert wasteland. Some speculate that the Nile delta civilizations came about from the shift, driving the folks who used to live in the Sahara when it wasn’t a total desert to those locations and forcing them to band together and form early civilization. Even if that’s not the case, it still shows what dramatic climate change can do. And we are talking about something on a global scale, with climates shifting from the accustomed norm in fairly dramatic ways in a very short time frame. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 19, 2013, 10:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-just-how-warm-or-cool-should-the-planet-be/674032/31 "2013-12-19T22:30:39Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > [Looks like it might be even worse than we thought.](http://www.thenation.com/article/177614/coming-instant-planetary-emergency) Well, as even the article mentions those worries come from scientists that are going outside of the mainstream. The point is however that they are telling us that we can not ignore the high end of what we could be getting in a world with no control of our emissions. What is scary to me is that most of the mainstream media is only allowing the discussion of the possible low and very likely middle of the road of the predicted outcomes. Here is why many repeat the saying that “uncertainty is not your friend”. There is as much of a chance that the worst increases to happen as it is for the low ends of the increase. I want to be more of an optimist and stick to the middle road, we can still still expect bad effects but we can overcome it if we prepare. But, if we continue to elect people that do not see any problem we will get a disaster in the future when we could had done better today. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/so-just-how-warm-or-cool-should-the-planet-be/674032.md?page=1)