Slashdot Mirror
Could Global Warming Make Life on Earth Better?
mikee805 writes "A lengthy article in Spiegel explores the possibility that global warming might make life on Earth better, not just for humans, but all species. The article argues that 'worst-case scenarios' are often the result of inaccurate simulations made in the 1980s. While climate change is a reality, as far as the article is concerned, some planning and forethought may mean that more benefits than drawbacks will result from higher temperatures. From the article:'The medical benefits of higher average temperatures have also been ignored. According to Richard Tol, an environmental economist, "warming temperatures will mean that in 2050 there will be about 40,000 fewer deaths in Germany attributable to cold-related illnesses like the flu." Another widespread fear about global warming -- that it will cause super-storms that could devastate towns and villages with unprecedented fury -- also appears to be unfounded. Current long-term simulations, at any rate, do not suggest that such a trend will in fact materialize.'"
I live in the Netherlands. We are now taking measures to prevent the flooding of my country. But, recent calculations show that we can manage the extra water that we will have to cope with.
-- Cheers!
Would the decrease in cold-related deaths be countered by an increase in heat-related deaths?
(IANAL)
What about the guy who did the original paper on Global Warming, who is saying it is a sham?
I don't know, but as the first Iowa poster, let me say...
Global warming? Yes, please.
09 F9 11 02 9D 74 E3 5B D8 41 56 C5 63 56 88 C1 bottles of beer on the wall. Take one down, pass it round... Oh, umm...
Global warming will be good for all species? I think polar bears, coral reefs, penguins and humans living near coastal regions might disagree.
The argument that "yay more sunshine, more warmth, what's the fuss, party!" is generally not considered a serious one.
Although arguing based on authority is something I don't usually do, but in the case of global warming most common people just display ignorance about the matter. That in itself is not a problem, but writing articles proclaiming truths which show signs that the guy didn't even bother to do basic research is bad. I wish people would try to inform themselves before trying to form the opinions of others.
Science is complex, deal with it. Naive, overly simplistic ideas set off my bullshit alarm, like in the case of "paranormal" stuff.
It takes a man to suffer ignorance and smile
Be yourself no matter what they say
You're right in implying there's an element of deception in the global warming "debate". People mistake correlation for causation all the time, often because they're told to and they're unable to think for themselves. Many mistake global warming correlating with higher CO2 with a global warming caused by CO2. Having perused material on the matter, and discussed it with colleagues who track this, there is no evidence to suggest that higher CO2 causes the global warming we are seeing today. As well, you are right to assert that global warming causes higher CO2, a known causation.
:)
I don't know if you're right about the sun (though there is evidence to suggest you are), but you're certainly right to be skeptical about CO2 causing global warming. Worse is that the lack of balanced scientific debate on the topic, and the number of lemmings who blindingly need to point a finger without any actual evidence, is undermining the ability to observe and make rational opinions.
However, it's Slashdot. It's a populous opinion. Don't take it personal when the lemmings come and mod you down for, God forbid, positing something contrary to the convenience of their finger-pointing!
El Niño the burrito, or El Niño the global coupled ocean-atmosphere phenomenon?
Why does everyone refuse to acknowledge that Katrina was so bad because the levees in New Orleans failed. Other than that, this was no worse than past hurricanes.
Katrina was only proof it is bad to live below sea level.
Ocean Warming, which is a recorded fact has severely harmed coral reefs.
I have no doubts that life will adapt to global climate change, fewer corals but lots of algae and red tide in the new warm oceans.
I think maintaining the status quo of historical climates seems to have many economic benefits that should not be ignored. And major global climate change would likely shift most markets fast towards the red. The markets would be forced to adapt quickly, which they are not very good at doing without a lot of suffering by the people at the bottom. Perhaps this is the conservative in me talking. (not neo-conservative!)
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
> Humans? We're the best adapters of them all.
That's sort of like claiming that you're better than Ty Cobb if your first at-bat of the season gets you to first. We don't have the track record to make that claim. We might be smart, but we've got an awful lot of squishiness to compensate for. It might be better for adaptability to be smart AND hardy like--say--sharks. Or hardy and insanely prolific, like cockroaches. THOSE guys have some adaptability cred.
--I'm so big, my sig has its own sig.
-- See?
We've spent the last hundred years or so covering all the best food-producing land with asphalt. (ex: Silicon Valley) Just look at it as a second chance at not screwing up our food supply.
My little site.
I for one will strive to honor your real estate investments to the best of my efforts as I flee desperately from my submerged home along with hundreds of thousands of fellow refugees. I'll try not to raid your garden, but I can't promise I won't be hungry form all that travel. Sure it will be rough, but let's face the facts. If Katrina proved anything, it's that we'll be taken care of in case of a disaster.
No, it was also bad because the wetlands that act as a natural buffer between the city and the ocean have been severely eroded over the past several decades. What caused them to disappear? The levees.
We hope your rules and wisdom choke you / Now we are one in everlasting peace
The issue seems to be dynamics rather than specifics. My understanding for 20 years or so was that global warming would bring more violent weather, rather than more consistently bad weather.
Also, with respect to the warming is good for life argument, the Earth has most certainly been warmer, and likely more violent weather-wise. Our distinct problem is that we have virtually eliminated the possibility of more life spawning by killing its potential habitat and introducing toxic waste of various forms.
I wrote an article 15 years or so ago arguing that global warming wasn't the biggest issue, but rather that desertification and the elimination of biodiversity was. Whether we can live in a world without a functional ecology is going to be something we quickly find out. If it's warmer doesn't really matter, unless you are in a stressed area. My opinion is that a lot of people are going to perish, but as usual YMMV. As if they already are not perishing! It may simply be more permanent for many regions.
Predicting those regions is like predicting the weather!
I have always heard the same thing, FWIW. That "catching cold" wasn't actually caused by being physiologically cold, but occurred more often in the winter because people tend to be inside, packed together, with the houses/buildings all sealed up, basically creating little petri dishes for bacteria to thrive in.
I can imagine that if you were really cold, for a long time -- like, hypothermic -- that perhaps this would weaken your body's immune system to the point where you would become more susceptible to disease. However, I really don't think that there's much credence to the old adages about "putting your hat on so you don't catch cold!"
"Ladies and gentlemen, my killbot features Lotus Notes and a machine gun. It is the finest available."
The only real loss there is Michigan (which I believe you are wrong about, since most of MI is well above sea level), good riddance to the rest of them.
But then what will the rest of the US do when they can no longer mooch off the cash that California and the east coast provide?
The libertarian solution to the failures of capitalism is to apply more capitalism til the failures are fixed.
How does heat make scantily-clad women more popular? I thought they were already pretty popular.
"Once we decide to stop warming the planet.."
You assume we have anything to do with it. We humans LOVE taking credit for things much bigger than we are. The sun goes around the earth, you know.
The greenhouse gas emissions created by the human race are about 3-5% of the total. The rest comes from the planet itself.
I really wish you people would stop repeating the same lines over and over.
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
I would make the argument that significant change in an ecosystem will usually be bad for the dominant species that have adapted to live in that ecosystem. Change can of course give opportunities to other species that have struggled to live in an ecosystem. The obvious examples are the past mass extinctions, especially the one that gave rise to the dinosaurs, as well as the one that destroyed the dinosaurs and gave rise to mammals.
Significant change destroys. It destroys existing systems. It plays havoc on most species. It creates starvation for species that have grown to need the existing systems that are being swept away. Of course, this allows new species to rise and fill the vacuum. Change is the prime driver of evolution. Evolution works at its fastest when there is mass death and destruction.
And today, we are the dominant species on the Earth. The agricultural systems that we rely on are built on our current climatic conditions. Farms are located in certain places that have the perfect combinations of good soil, and good weather. Too much rain, or too little, or rain at the wrong time can destroy crops. If the rain moves from an area with good soil to an area with bad soil, then this will reduce crop yields, even if our farmers follow the rain. Moving the water by canal or pipeline is an option, but it is expensive (how much did the Panama Canal cost to build?).
I can think of no better an example of the problems of climate change than the Australian drought. Australia has already lost 1% of its GDP due to drought conditions. And without significant rain in the coming weeks, the country faces draconian water restrictions: Brisbane is at stage 5 water restrictions right now, which effectively means flushing the toilet every 7 uses and keeping shower water in a bucket for later use. Agriculture along the Murray Darling River (the main agricultural river system) faces a complete cutoff of irrigation. That means the death of the many grape vines that form the basis for Australia's wine industry.
Here is a map that shows how rainfall patterns have changed. The interior (where no one lives) is receiving more rain. The coasts (where almost everyone lives) are receiving less rain. The rainfall patterns have changed, and the Australians are struggling to adapt to the new conditions.
This and no other is the root from which a tyrant springs; when first he appears as a protector - Plato (423 to 327 BC)
Would global warming increase the availability of solar energy? My first thought is no, because global warming is just retaining more heat in the atmosphere, and not increasing the amount of energy reaching the earth's surface. Does anyone have a different take on that?
Prov 9:8 Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you; rebuke the wise and they will love you.
Just about every argument I've heard about global warming can be summarized by a few talking points:
Liberal talking points
* Because of over a century of adding carbon dioxide to the atmosphere, the average temperature in Earth is increasing.
* This has foreseeable negative impacts.
* The scariest impacts are from subtle effects that we can't even predict.
* Models say we are approaching a tipping point where the changes become self-sustaining and self-feeding.
* We can slow or stop this, but we're running out of time, and must act now.
Conservative talking points
* Global warming is not happening. It's a liberal myth.
* It's a normal cycle, not caused by man.
* It's pointless for us to try to slow global warming because India and China are putting much more carbon dioxide in the atmosphere than the United States is, and they won't stop.
* What's the big deal? It's only a few degrees change, and will make life better on Earth. Don't you like nicer weather?
* It's too late to stop the major effects of global warming. Better for the the government to encourage and subsidize business to adapt to and profit from the major changes that will inevitably occur.
[update: Damn you, NeutronCowboy, for beating me to the punch. But really, thank you. You have been a lot more elequent than I in this thread.]
0 2/1686
You do *not* get to have the last word. Everyone here is mostly trying to have a civil discussion with you. But so far, all you've done is insult and intimidate your critics. You say I don't provide any references or resources. I need to cite only one:
http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/57
Oreskes has sampled almost a thousand seperate scholastic studies across multiple disciplines. and there was *NO* direct dissent. This is a far cry from the "gobal warming hoax" you claim. These researchers are serious scientists. They only responsibility they have is to their own designated area of research.
What have you done? Aside from providing a link to that god-awful documentary and a reference to "the global carbon cycle" at the Umich website cited by one of your critics, you have produced absolutely squat. I have gone through all your comments and as of 2 PM PDT, everything you've expressed so far in reply to those in this discussion thread has been a whole bunch of hand waving, groundless assertions, or evasive facts. You're quick to dismiss the references provided by others but other than just those two citations, I can't find any other sources despite your repeated assertion that you have indeed provided references. In reply to my earier comment, you mention:
ice record
CO2 sedimentation
weather balloons
atmospheric temperature gradient
oceanic outgassing measurements
the CO2/temperature correlation
(basic common sense)
saying doesn't make it so. where is the reference to back up your position? Where are the figures and charts from studies that use these methods to disagree with the conclusions of our current understanding of global warming? I think your engaged in this exchange just for the sake of arguing without any genuine intention to enlighten or be enlightened. Some of what you say just makes absolutely no sense. "realistic data that predates animal life"????? "wholesale rape of baby seals."??????
In light of such bizarre comments, I am left with no alternative but to urge you to stop bothering the nice folks at slashdot and don't skip out on your medications.
Stay sentient. Don't drink bad milk.
I found a nice spoof on an advertisment for the Flemish socialist party (sp.a).
I don't think you need a translation, but you might not know that Spa is *the* best known mineral water in Belgium !
Flourescent (adj): smelling like ground wheat.
Nobody, of course. The same does apply though about me dropping a stone to the ground - I can not say with absolute certainty that it will actually reach the ground. However I'm a lot more certain about this, than about global warming. So can we agree at least, that degrees of certainties (i.e. probabilities) do matter?
all we have are computer models and theories
I can write a model of the climate with a simple 10-line perl script, but it won't be very good. I would think the quality of the model is vital. All of science is just theory, but I trust it with my life each time I enter a plane, and each time I use my car. Even the methods used to evaluate the statics of the house I'm in are based on scientific theory, and not absolute certainty.
It is my belief that money, time, and energy are better spent in actively reducing air, ground, and water pollution than throwing money into global warming research.
I don't think that the money spent on climate _research_ is significant in comparison to what's needed to reduce pollution. In any case - that using the money to reduce polution would be beneficial is a belief with a very low degree of certainty. (Quite fairly you used "my belief" not "I'm 100% certain".) You base it on your private doubts about a theory which you (and me too, for sure) do not fully understand. Now if I build a house, I would listen to the engineer doing the statical calculations. Similarly, if I hired a professional in that field to check whether my house is still statically sound, I would listen to his advice if he concludes that it's not and make the required repairs.
I realize that there must be at least some people in the field who are not competent, so the chance that this engineer would be one of them is not zero. Nevertheless unless I'm able to do the calculations myself, I would go with the professional opinion. Now with global warming, the vast majority of experts agree. The probability that they are part of a huge conspiracy is not zero, but it has to be low considering the number of people who'd have to be involved. The risk of not taking their advice if they are not part of a huge conspiracy, is high. Given that we can not be 100% certain it seems sensible to err on the side of caution.
You *do* realize just how fragmentary the fossil record is, don't you?
My personal opinion (without studying the matter) is that we probably don't have enough evidence to guess whether there were more or fewer species. (Well, except that clearly there were fewer, e.g., right after the asteroid hit. And right after whatever caused the Permian Catastrophe. Etc.) Most species never leave any discovered and recognized fossil record, and we don't know what percentage "most" means, just that it's large relative to 50%. (There may, of course, people who have reasons to believe some particular number is "about right", but I'm not one of them.)
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
I hope to FSM your comment was not serious.
I was pointing out how through all history, Humanity is quick to make themselves the center of the universe. With the sun going around the Earth and now this "We're causing Global Warming" nonsense.
Also, it would be "How credible ARE your other facts?"
Not a Twitter sockpuppet... but I wish I was.
Are they nuts? Until HIV/AIDS overtook it, Malaria was the number one identifiable cause of death in the world.
Even modest increases in temperatures can have non-linear effects in transmission of vector borne diseases. For example Mexico City, while in a latitude where Malaria is endemic, is free of it because its altitude makes it too cool for the Anopheles mosquito to establish itself; that is to say the range of the disease vector is limited by latitude and altitude. Once conditions at its 2240m elevation become inhabitable, the tenth most populous city in the world becomes vulnerable.
In the US,there have been serious outbreaks of Yellow Fever as far north as Boston. The 1793 Philadelphia epidemic killed 10% of the population and was only checked by cold weather in November. Philadelphia was an interesting case because it epidemic came in with slave trading ships; international trade is now a major transporter of disease vectors such as the asian tiger mosquito.
Infectious agents are now thought to play a role in both maintaining and disrupting ecological stability. New organisms who move into an already occupied are immunologically naive to pathogens present in the habitat, which forms a kind of natural defense. Likewise they may bring new pathogens in; the European settlement of the Americas would have gone differently were it not for smallpox.
The disruptions caused by both climate change and the human response to it are likely to spill a number of novel tropical infectious agents (such as Ebola) from their currently limited geographic ranges. International trade will transport them around the world. In particular vector borne diseases that have a capacity to establish themselves in wild animal populations have the potential to become endemic in temperate regions (as West Nile did, although WNV is relatively benign as such things go).
That's not to say global warming won't have some health benefits. But we can expect a number of novel diseases to emerge, many well known diseases to become more of a problem.
Post may contain irony: discontinue use if experiencing mood swings, nausea or elevated blood pressure.