I’ll see what I can do. Thank you for your sincere reply. I can almost certainly find material on crop yield issues since that’s tangentially my area of research. 
What would you like me to take from those papers? Both seem to be saying, “Things will be different in 2100 and we need to prepare for that.” If there is something in those papers which demonstrates the PNW really is wetter now I didn’t see it.
If you can help educate me I’d really appreciate it.
Just to reiterate, my stance is not that the world isn’t getting warmer and that we aren’t dumping way more CO2 into the atmosphere or even that the warming isn’t human caused. My hesitation comes from trying to have the same belief the models are right about what will happen 20 to 50 years from now and what impacts can’t be solved with new technology (crop failures is an example. Nor’easter is another). To me, climate happens. Weather patterns will change. We are better now at dealing with extreme weather so the danger from an extra Cat 5 hurricane every other year isn’t as catastrophic as it was 20 years ago. I’m not saying we shouldn’t try to reduce them, but I don’t see that as a crisis. Sea levels rising means people having to move or sea walls being put up (see Netherlands). Again, something we would want to work toward improving, but it isn’t catastrophic. Does that make any sense?
Well, that is one basic problem, it is a bit of ignorance peddled also by many contrarian sources, what I have seen in previous discussions is that many times before the experts reports that the number of hurricanes is not something that they can get with confidence into right now.
However, as scientist Richard Alley (A Republican BTW) explains it, that is not a reason though why not to act on what is now to be more certain, the big trouble with your position here is that to the dire results of ocean rise, ocean acidification and more intensity of extreme weather events, that position of the skeptics is one that assumes and hopes that the number of hurricanes will not increase.
So, this is a very reckless gamble added to more certain things. It could turn that there are fewer hurricanes due to wind shear effects and other factors, but unless the laws of physics change, when the (maybe) few hurricanes come they will be more destructive as more water will be dumped in a warmer world, but what if a warming world on top of that also increases the number of those more intense hurricanes?
Yes, it is that reckless.
Thanks for clearing that up, then, about the hurricanes.
Can you elaborate on what the dire effects of ocean rise, ocean acidification and extreme weather events will be? As I mentioned in my other messages, I’m having a hard time getting worked up that a rising ocean is dire. What is the dire part?
In my mind dire = significant loss or risk to human life. Is that the wrong way to view it?
I’m trying to tread lightly here, so please take this in the ignorance it is being asked. Ocean acidification will likely lead to species die off. But 99% of all species that have ever existed are now extinct. Climate and patterns change, and species adapt or die. New species take over. What am I missing? I’m all for reducing CO2, but I don’t know if I’d call the situation dire (see above).
People like me see most of these changes that happen as a result of climate change as rapid, but not instant. Ocean rise isn’t like a tsunami. Because of that, people will adjust, not die. It is my understanding the Sahara was once a plush grassland. Now it is desert and people farm and graze animals elsewhere. The change that happened in the Sahara is thought to be fairly rapid, yet humans survived.
I get that what I’m saying can come across as shrill climate change denier babble. I hope you can understand my sincerity in what I’m asking. I’m tying to explain my thoughts and observations and hoping you and others can then help me get to the facts that will tell me how to view this differently. What won’t work is saying, “The models say it will be really bad in 30 years.”
Thanks for your patience.
Already cited in post #46
https://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showpost.php?p=21991572&postcount=46
As I pointed out before (in a different tread) the problem I have seen is that the denialosphere is reporting furiously about how there are less people dying from extreme weather events; duh, the reason is thanks to satellites and other communication tools allow that to take place, but then they do want to ignore that the people moving do not go into empty land, unrest is more likely; and as one that has a background in social studies and technology I will say that it is really reckless to ignore what we are also seeing currently as a result of leaders in many countries (even the USA) that count on xenophobia and nativism to get a result that is not really too far from what those xenophobes or nativists want to see.
Well that is yet another denier talking point, unfortunately it also shows an extreme ignorance of how evolution works, the adaptation of species usually takes hundreds if not millions of years. The paleological record shows that it takes a lot of time too for new species to repopulate a changed environment.
That humans survive is likely, what is less likely is to expect that this will be painless, as it is going one should remember that there will be more pain the longer we wait to do the changes that we need.
Unfortunately after 60 or so years of science explaining the issue there are already more than a few denier talking points that you posted there, so besides checking cites like the next one your need to change information sources is a dire one.
Thanks for the feedback! I read the link and I also read your response in post 46.
I understand your point about ocean acidification might lead to extinctions and that isn’t quickly replaced like would happen with normal evolutionary processes.
So the “dire” part to all this is the prediction of crop failures, possible need for migrations and subsequent unrest caused by that. Additionally, salt water mixing with ground water might become an issue we’ll need to deal with.
I never wondered if it would be painless. I wondered when it crossed into “dire.” You made good points that any migrations this instigated might become very painful.
Well that is a nice change of pace from others that came with contrarian points, so thanks for that, sincerely.
However, my background on history and social studies is telling me to ask you for a favor: who were the sources that told you about using the flawed extinction and hurricane talking points? This is because me and many others that investigate media issues besides the science of items like this need to take flawed sources to task as they deserve for not updating their information if they are sincere, or to condemn them for repeating misinformation on purpose.
Please also remember that “significant,” “painful,” “very painful,” and “dire” are all subjective terms. Each of us will likely have widely varying conditions in our heads as part of their definitions.
In addition, the timelines involved will also vary. I think that conditions will become “dire” in the future even if we stop additional carbon production, let alone let it increase. When exactly the world will pass from “painful” to “dire” is irrelevant as long as that future is within the lifetimes of people alive today. Others may have different timelines in mind.
The important factor is that global change will affect everyone in our connected world. There are no safe niches in which to hide, although some areas will be hit worse than others. If conditions hit “dire” anywhere, the effects will ripple out to everywhere. You’re just kidding yourself if you believe otherwise.
I do know that in areas of the midwest we havent had anywhere near the blizzards and horrible winters they used to have. For example in South Dakota my grandmother had seen it snow every month of the year except August.
I do not recall when I first heard Katrina sized hurricanes are likely to increase. I probably read it here posted by someone as an argument why climate change was so dangerous. I just googled it, and this was near the top:
It says hurricanes aren’t getting more frequent, but more intense. To many that is a distinction without a difference as to whether or not hurricanes are getting worse. I’m not arguing against you, just pointing out that saying “hurricanes are getting worse” or “Cat 5 hurricanes more frequent” isn’t so outlandish given that data. Or am I missing something? Is it still wrong to think that?
The extinction “talking point” (please don’t assign me to that category, I’m really not a denier. Call me ignorant, but I’m not hanging out in denier websites trying to find all the flaws in the models) came from me. Me alone. I’ve heard about ocean acidification and the effects of softening of shells, dying coral reefs and extinctions. I’ve also known for a long time 99% of all species went extinct long before humans showed up. There are warnings about invasive species that can take over local ecosystems if allowed to get a foothold and spread rapidly. There are warnings about mosquitoes and other insects migrating further north due to warming climates and doing untold damage. In other words, as new locations become more hospitable to existing species, it does not seem so totally outlandish a concept that species will move in and take over. That isn’t evolution, per se, but migration, which seems like it could happen rapidly. Life, generally speaking, spreads quickly to wherever it can get a foothold.
So, thanks again for your patience. I’m hoping to get myself straightened on the facts and whatever help you provide is great.
Ocean acidification has the greatest effects on animals with calcium hard parts - e.g. krill, crabs, and other crunchy critters. The calcium lets them grow relatively large and store lots of fat. These form the bottom of the food chain for most of the fish we currently catch and eat.
When they fail, what would tend to move in first are the “weed” species, which are smaller plankton (microscopic) with higher growth rates and no calcified structure - but the fish can’t eat them profitably because they aren’t such convenient packets of nutrients. This is especially true if it’s coupled with warming temperatures, that increases fish respiration rates. Instead of entering the food chain, the “weed” micro-plankton suck up oxygen (possibly leading to more fish die-offs) and sink to the bottom (which is actually a positive for carbon sequestration), or are eaten by filter feeders, in particular jellyfish, which then may explode in population. This leads to less fish for people to catch and eat, at least of the type for which markets are developed.
On the evolutionary scale, it’s no big deal if jellyfish move in (or if they do so temporarily, until new fish are selected for that eat jellyfish). But it definitely leads to collapses/shut downs in present-day fisheries harming food security - and if you remember fallouts from collapses of New England and Canadian cod 30 years ago, leads to political disturbance/unrest etc.
Now, markets can be developed for jellyfish, and the good news is there’s lots of room for mitigation (allowing fishing boats to pursue developing markets and so forth) and the management of fisheries is evolving to be more resilient to projected changes in climate. But they’re still shocks to the socio-economic system when the changes happen, and overall, on the medium time scale, it means fewer fish of the type we prefer to catch and eat.
Oh - and whales pretty much take it in the shorts.
I defined “dire” in my post above because I knew there would be differences in how it is used. I assume this is the root of some of the disagreement between myself and experts on this topic. GIGObuster has explained to me how he is defining the word, which I now understand and can see why the topic looks dire from that perspective.
I don’t know, is it?
I’m not a scientist or an expert, I’m not that much different from yourself, but I’ve come to an opposite stance from yours. I do believe climate change is approaching emergency levels of serious.
Sure, millions might be displaced by crop failure - but that’s NOT a trivial thing. Look at what happened with millions of refugees walking/rafting from the Middle East and North Africa recently. Those people have to go somewhere, and that somewhere already has people in it, people who might well put up walls and fences. You wind up with people trying to cross large stretches of water on improvise/crappy boats, overloading them, with all too often deadly result and bodies, including those of children, toddlers, and babies washing up on the beach somewhere else.
Rising food prices were a factor in the “Arab Spring” and the current unrest/war in the Middle East and North Africa. You see, the food doesn’t disappear all at once, there’s just less of it, and still less of it, and the price goes up until the bottom ranks of society wake up one day and they just can’t afford to get enough to eat anymore… and the hungry are also the desperate.
Closer to (my) home - I work in a grocery store. I often hear people bitch about the cost of certain items. Let’s consider one of them: oranges. We used to sell oranges by the pound. We now sell them by the individual orange in most cases. Where we don’t, the 5 pound bags are now 3 pound bags AND also more expensive than in the past. People bitch about this - why do they cost more? Hurricanes Irma and Maria (Irma the most powerful ever to his Puerto Rico, Maria “only” a Cat 4), which didn’t just destroy some of the 2017 crop (and, oh yes, killed thousands of people), they knocked over a lot of trees. Trees which will take years to replace…except no one seems to want to spend the money to rebuild so maybe never. So… we still have oranges, just fewer of them, and they cost more.
At least in the short term we aren’t going to see complete crop failures, “just” diminishing availability and more cost. This is moderated in a nation like the US, which has things like food stamps to help those on the lower socio-economic rungs afford food. Except the current administration wants to cut that benefit… (an example of how human action can make a situation worse when human action could instead make it better). If you live in the “first world” this sort of thing is very survivable, especially if you also have a decent social safety net. It’s people in the third world who are really going to suffer, and people around the equator (there’s some overlap there) until they get desperate enough to risk ocean crossings in overloaded crappy boats or just try to walk to another continent. Risk death? Well, yeah, if staying put is certain doom you’ll undertake risky journeys in hope of survival.
At that, Puerto Ricans were lucky - they had a place to go, being allowed to freely travel and/or relocate to the US mainland. About half a million have made the trip so far. If they were a wholly independent island nation they’d be screwed, or waiting years to get a refugee visa from somewhere. Or maybe setting out in leaky boats (or worse) to try to make to somewhere else.
Yes, crop failures have happened from time to time. And from time to time they killed millions.
I think this gets to what YOU consider “serious”, “painful”, or “dire”.
As I mentioned, some food items are already getting more expensive. How big a problem is that? I don’t know, you tell me. It used to be that in temperate climates a fresh orange was a rare and precious thing, given as a gift at Christmas or New Year’s. Are we going to return to that? I don’t know. Keep in mind, too, that one reason crop failures don’t kill people the way they used to is because we have a modern transportation system. If every orange in Florida is lost in a year we can get oranges from other places. Sure, they’ll cost more (supply and demand does that when supply drops) but you’ll be able to get oranges. Rinse and repeat for just about any other crop.
Yes, I believe humanity will survive… but that doesn’t mean a lot of individuals won’t die along the way.
Let’s take a look from history: the Irish Potato Disaster. In four years Ireland lost half its population. Roughly one-two million went elsewhere and one-two million died of starvation, malnutrition, and related causes (there is some dispute about numbers for the various categories of dead/gone/survived, and whether or not you include other deaths/emigrations from other affected areas in Europe - the blight was by no means restricted to just Ireland, Ireland was just hit hardest). So yes, the Irish survived, Ireland survived… but there were a LOT of changes, not all of them good, and millions died. Nevermind the weather hadn’t turned deadly for humans, or that other crops besides potatoes were still growing - just take out the potatoes in the 1840’s and >boom< millions of the population of a country gone forever, either other places or to the grave. In just four years.
So don’t disregard the effects of the failure of a crop. Or just an overall reduction in agricultural efficiency.
So - complete hypothetical here - imagine a place on the planet that is low-lying by the sea, in an already warm area of the world. Now, imagine that they lose, oh, 10-20% of their land area to rising ocean levels, agriculture is disrupted reducing the food produced, and summers start seeing heat waves that in and of themselves start causing casualties… no one item on that list might be outside of their ability to handle, but all three at once? How much money do these people have?
Depends, doesn’t it? Singapore or Hong Kong might be able to simply build their skyscrapers higher, install some seawalls, import more food, and run the air conditioning when needed. If you’re looking at Bangladesh, though… there simply isn’t the money to do any of that to any significant level. There, they lose land and become even more overcrowded, go hungry or malnourished (or actually starve to death) and every summer lots of people die from heatstroke. What for Singapore or Hong Kong is a serious or even painful situation may be for Bangladesh dire or apocalyptic.
So… where do you live, how much money do you have, and what are you willing to do to adapt?
Current agriculture depends on weather staying within certain parameters, parameters that are changing with the climate. It’s not just temperature and rainfall - there are crops that have requirements for day/night lighting that are just not compatible once you get out of their adapted zone. Sure, a lot of crops can migrate towards the poles, but not all of them, not even if you provide warmth and water because the light available isn’t available on a compatible schedule.
It’s not enough to simply say “the weather is getting more extreme”, you have to consider the effects that will have. It’s not enough to say “the sea level will rise”, you have to consider both who and how people will be displaced, whether or not they are able to relocate elsewhere, and the expense not only building but maintaining essentially forever sea defenses. At what point do you decide it makes more sense to abandon a city like New York or London rather than trying to hold back the sea? I’ve seen models where most of Florida goes under water - sure, we can talk about building a seawall around Miamai, but around an entire state?
It’s not enough to look at each effect in isolation. They have synergistic effects.
Also, there will be some “winners” - places that get warmer, wetter/drier, that have a longer growing season, and so forth. The fact that such spots exist does not invalidate the misery the rest of the world will experience.
On top of that - weather and climate are not exact sciences. There’s a lot done with statistics, and deniers will always be able to find an exception to “invalidate” the rest of a stack of results.
Maybe not as catastrophic, but if a place really does get a Cat 5 every other year that would probably qualify as “catastrophic” by some measures. At the very least you’d have some huge changes in building codes (essentially, you’d have to build bunkers) and the local vegetation is going to change drastically with that sort of assault every other year. Big changes. Changes that the human race could survive? Sure - but we’re going to lose individuals, a lot of them, until we make some significant changes and adaptions.
No, not from my viewpoint - look at what happened to the recent migration from MENA to Europe. It was certainly catastrophic for those doing the migrating. Pretty harrowing for those picking bodies off their shores, having to deal with hundreds of thousands if not millions moving to/through their territory… “People having to move” have to move somewhere and these days “somewhere” is already occupied. The worse things get the more reluctant others will be to take in refugees. That’s a problem.
Yes.
Consider Venice, which is having even more of a flooding problem than usual. How much would it cost to save Venice? Does anyone want to spend that money? If no… where do the people of Venice go?
Consider New York City, Miami, Los Angeles, New Orleans… How much will it cost to save them? Well, obviously that will vary with how much the sea rises… but at some point it’s no longer cost effective. What do you think the effect would be on the US if we have to abandon just those five cities? Except it won’t be just those five, because if we can’t afford to save those cities we can’t afford to save any threatened by those sea levels… imagine the economic losses, having relocate everyone in those areas, all the businesses…
As any refugee - sure, great, escape something horrible with your life but lose everything else. Every material good, all your money, all your investments, your job, your home, wind up somewhere where you need to learn a new language… Maybe your life is not at risk (anymore) and you’re alive, but don’t you think for at least some people that would qualify as “dire”? Sure, we can evacuate people from the path of a hurricane or a wildfire… but if they have nothing to return to? What then?
The problem is that it will take millions, tens of millions of years for that “new species take over” thing to happen. Life recovers on geologic time scales, not human time scales.
Currently, we depend on a LOT of different species. Wipe out half of them (a Thanos finger-snap for species) and what do you have? Consider major grains: wheat, rice, corn, barley, rye, oats. Remove half of them - what happens if we lose wheat, rye, and oats? Or rice, corn, and barley? Different people starve depending on which you remove, for one thing - remove rice and Asia is going to be having a LOT of problems. Remove wheat and Europe will be having problems on an epic scale.
So, sure, shrug and say “99% of all species ever are already dead, so what’s a few more?” It depends on which species - if it’s one YOUR species (or nation) depends on heavily you’re fucked. Again, consider the Irish in the 1840’s - it’s not that there weren’t things other than potatoes grown in Ireland, or that the Irish weren’t physically capable of eating things other than potatoes, it’s that they were so heavily dependent on potatoes for so much that removing potatoes became a catastrophe.
No, some will die - because “adjust” requires money, or somewhere else to go, and not everyone will have that option.
Yes, the species survived. We will never know how many individuals died during those changes, though.
The key is that is proper to say that hurricanes will become more intense, IMHO the item to take into account is not just the expected increase in energy going into a hurricane, but in the already reported increase of water that is dumped from the hurricane clouds. This is because in a previous discussion some contrarian actually did go for the point that somehow clouds in a hurricane do not dump increasing amounts of water like the clouds in other storms in a warming world. :rolleyes:
Now, how many hurricanes can appear in a warming world is where things are iffy still. But the sad thing is that contrarians and politicians that follow them are willing to bet on us getting fewer hurricanes in the future, forgetting that more intense hurricanes will still come even if they are in lesser numbers.
Now the thing is that usually in past discussions a cite like yours here is not really one coming from the misleaders, it is not what I asked as a favor from you.
The sources of misinformation usually do make a post or a link telling others that the good scientific site there shows something else. From past discussions it usually comes looking like click bait that the ones that are wrong are copying and pasting with no regard of what the cite is actually saying, chances are that whoever did send you the information in the past did so with a description like “scientists here were wrong about the number of hurricanes!” and of course very few people do bother to check the “fine print”.
A classic example of how contrarians do “research”:
[QUOTE] No, sadly the Mail on Sunday has got it wrong... yet again. Here's what's behind the sensational news that global warming ended in 1997, and how it comes from misreporting, misquotes and omissions. [/QUOTE]Sorry, but that is where we do disagree and hard, I have seen this before, what I have concluded is that a lot of talking points manufactured by deniers do percolate through right wing media, social media and even mainstream media. Sometimes the effort is subtle, like getting the talking point from a friend or at a glance from a misleading meme on twitter and others.
That was also pointed out in the cite I made already explaining how incomplete is the idea that we will adapt out of this issue. Even migration was explained that it will not be a solution for many species. So that really it is also a boiler plate denier talking point as it was reported years ago by Skeptical Science. So, yeah, you still need to dig a bit to remember who told you those misleading bits.
Thanks, but one thing that needs to be remembered is that no one is immune to be offered misleading information in such subtle or peer pressure ways that the misinformers do manage to convince people that ‘they did figure out about a scientific or social issue all by themselves’.
While I understand there will be huge shifts in these markets and systems, are these changes going to be sudden enough to be considered “dire”? I really have no idea how quickly something all these shifts can happen. I long understood that shellfish would have softer shells, etc., but my perception was that the fallout from this would be happening over the next 50 years, not suddenly.
I can see why whales would take it in the shorts, but how does that affect the rest of the systems? We don’t, by and large, eat whales or use them for much of anything. I’m not trying to be completely callous about a species going extinct, but I am trying to understand how their extinction makes this situation “dire.”
Be fair, here. Please. I didn’t quote a contrarian website and I didn’t come by my information from right wing media sources or social media. You are accusing me of doing something that others have done that I don’t think I’ve done.
I don’t understand how my statement, “There will be a higher frequency of Cat 5 hurricanes” isn’t completely in alignment with what that cite indicates. How are they different?? You told me that statement is wrong. How is it wrong?
I get it that you see me as some sort of contrarian who is “just asking questions.” If I were you I’d be thinking the exact same thing. If you want to see me that way this likely won’t go anywhere because you are likely going to dismiss my questions with some motivation that I do not have. I’m trying to ask legitimate questions and if you are going to just toss them off to me being something I’m not, we should just stop here because you won’t be able to help me. I truly do not see anything I’ve said as denying anything. I’m now trying to understand the basis for the conclusion we are in a crisis situation. You’ve explained some of it, to be sure, that species die off and ground water pollution will be a huge deal. That helps.
Up to you to believe me or not when I tell you where I came to the thought species replacement. I’m not on any social media. Not twitter, facebook or anything else. I read stuff here all the time, but that is about it. I detest Fox news and wouldn’t click there if you paid me. If you don’t want to believe me, I really can’t help you.
I’m not sure why you feel it is so hard to fathom the logic I posted about how I came to the conclusions I came to. It really isn’t a complicated thought process. So the source of the info really is me. I also now understand why that thinking is wrong, so thanks for the cite. That is appreciated. You can consider that ignorance fought.
I have to admit that I don’t understand this attitude, which is far from unique to you. If what we are doing today is guaranteed to create enormous damage in 50 years shouldn’t that be meaningful? Shouldn’t we try to mitigate those ills? Shouldn’t we even try to eliminate them? That such mitigation would be difficult or expensive is a concern, of course, but not an absolute impediment. Not only would be it less difficult and expensive to start taking steps today instead of twenty years from now, it might even be cost effective. After all, the damage will be done not to one species or one area but to thousands, maybe millions.
Perhaps it’s a matter of age. I can remember 1969 vividly. Fifty years doesn’t seem so long now, certainly not as long as it did then. I can see the actions that were taken then profoundly affect our lives today. (Nixon’s Southern Strategy is a major example.) It’s historically unprecedented that we can see the future as clearly as we do today. We need to take historically unprecedented actions in response. The challenge lies as much in convincing individuals that action needs to be taken as the actions we take themselves.
I can’t respond to this point by point, but I appreciate the response.
I’m trying to understand the realistic possibilities of what could happen and how that translates to “dire.” You made some good points about how forcing mass migrations would be considered dire. Others made that same point and I agree. That would be a huge issue, to say the least.
On the other hand, some of your points seem hyperbolic and extremely far fetch. New York, Los Angeles and Miami are not going to be abandoned due to rising sea levels. Unless you have some serious data to point to that as a realistic possibility it won’t help educate me on the seriousness of this issue by imagining extremely unlikely situations.
I’m looking for factual, science based consequences to climate change, not thought experiments on how bad things could get if some extremely unlikely scenarios happen. Does that make sense?
I didn’t disagree about crop failures and how if it happens it would be a dire situation.
Others have indicated the seriousness migrations would be, and I understand that now.
I think to me 50 years is a looong time. But I just barely older than 50, so I don’t remember 1969 vividly.
The best I can explain is two fold. First, 50 years is a long time. Technology and societies can change very rapidly in that time. There is no guarantee there will be enormous damage in 50 years. Of course, I was wrongly assuming that the impact to the shellfish would quickly be replaced by other species, but I’ve been shown that isn’t likely to happen at the same rate shellfish are dying out, so it won’t really help. Something new I’ve learned.
I look back at 1969 and see slide rules, leaded gas, USSR, leaded paint, etc. Many of these things changed very, very rapidly, particularly the breakup of the Soviet Union.
My point is simply that on some scales 50 years is a long time. On others, as you note, it is a blink of an eye. I’ve always been under the impression that life, and particularly humans, are highly adaptable. As has been pointed out, that adaptation is often not without huge upheaval and that is where the “dire” part of climate change seems to be stemming from. Unless I’m still completely missing the point.