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Global Warming's Silver Lining For the Arctic Rim
Pickens writes "According to Laurence C. Smith, an Arctic scientist who has consistently sounded alarms about the approach of global warming, within 40 years the Arctic rim may be transformed by climate change into a new economic powerhouse. As the Arctic ice recedes, ecosystems extend, and minerals and fossil fuels are discovered and exploited, the Arctic will become a place of 'great human activity, strategic value and economic importance.' Sparsely populated areas like Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and the northern United States — the northern rim countries, or NORCs — will become formidable economic powers and migration magnets. Predictions in Smith's new book The Earth in 2050 include the following: New shipping lanes will open during the summer in the Arctic, allowing Europe to realize its 500-year-old dream of direct trade between the Atlantic and the Far East, and resulting in new economic development in the north; NORCs will be among the few place on Earth where crop production will likely increase due to climate change; and NORCs will become the envy of the world for their reserves of fresh water, which may be sold and transported to other regions."
They are not the main obstacle anymore, its greenwashing, lack of public information on effective actions, and political stalemates due to business interests, business as usual. For example, huge efforts to sell cars doing 45mpg only, instead of 25mpg, but almost none to encourage anyone to leave the car home, which would be 0gallon per mile, and everyone can try to do it, no fancy new car requirement and limitation.
Build your own energy sources from scratch. http://otherpower.com/
I've observed a bit of a spectrum (with some people occupying an 'area' of the spectrum instead of a single point - not being absolutely positive of where they stand).
For example, I've heard the following from several different people:
* there's no possible way we have accurate temperature readings of the global temperature 'state' - you'll find out that someone placed the thermometer too close to the earth (too warm) or in direct sunlight in the Sahara, etc, etc (they don't seem to understand the concept of taking lots of samples from lots of places and averaging the result)
* I heard Rush Limbaugh spend most of a program once going on and on about the eruption of a volcano, and how it was putting out more CO2 than mankind would emit in like 200 years or something like that, and concluding there's nothing mankind could possibly *do* to change the climate.
* I've heard people say there might be warming, but it is related to Solar activity cycles and has nothing to do with human activity.
* I've heard people say "So what? Global warming means winter is less horrible. I'm all for that." - which, I suppose, if you live in Canada or the Northern States of the lower-48 (places like New England, NY, PA, the Midwest, etc), is true - some people, as this article discusses, will likely *benefit* from global warming; unfortunately, that benefit comes at the expense of a lot of other (some of whom are very poor to begin with and their lives will be made even worse) people.
* I've heard people say maybe global warming will/is happening a little bit, but that as it happens, cloud cover will increase, which will reflect solar energy, so it will be self-moderating.
* Then there are the folks who believe that any kind of problem is just the fulfillment of prophecy, and Jesus will come rapture the righteous, while the damned will suffer 'real global warming'.
So basically, among the deniers, there's a range of people from "it's definitely not happening", to "maybe it's happening, but I don't think we need to do anything about it", to "it's happening, but there's nothing we can do about it, so eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die".
Climate change isn't predicted to destroy the gulf stream, at least not to remotely degree of confidence we associate with other climate-related predictions.
(disclaimer: oceanographer with only fleeting interest in global warming)
True, but I would like to elaborate. Some of the early climate models predicted the Gulf Stream to shut down* and naturally one of the objectives for building better models was to confirm or disprove these predictions. I don't think any of the newest IPCC models show the Gulf Stream shutting down but there are indications that it may slow down in the future. Not enough to off set the underlying warming though.
So it seems we don't have to fear rapid changes because of a sudden shut down. Last thing I heard about this predicted shut down was that it was being classified as "low probability, high impact event". The impact would indeed be high, but it seems the probability becomes less and less the better the models become.
*) I'm being very imprecise. What I mean is that the North Atlantic Current (an extension of the Gulf Stream) was predicted to slow down or that the northern branch would become weaker (from Ireland towards Norway) and the southern branch stronger (from Ireland towards Spain). Worst case scenario the northern branch would turn off.
Hahaha, yes it's been horrible.
The real problem with the Arctic rim isn't heat, although lack of heat is a challenge. The real problem is sunlight. The northern regions of the Arctic rim doesn't get enough sunlight to sustain trees, then there's a belt of pine needle like conifers, then there's a transient belt of broad leaved trees.
Personally, I hope that we never develop the Arctic rim in a meaningful way. The broad leaved trees produce an unbelievable amount of oxygen out of CO2 in the relatively short growing season. We've already decimated the rain forests, the oceanic regions of oxygen production are down a bit due to phosphorus posioning (or some other pollution, they think it's phosphor), and the Arctic region's oxygen contribution becomes more important every day.
"It is also true that 500 mil years ago, Earth was a ball of ice despite the fact that atmospheric CO2 was ~4200ppm (about 12 times higher than today). Oh yeah, you guys always forget to include that 'law of physics.'"
I am certainly not an expert in the subject, but my basic understanding of snowball earth is that first the continents got into a position that led to a runaway glaciation. More ice on the ground/water equals more light reflected equals more ice forming. Once the entire earth was covered in ice there was no photosynthesis going on, so carbon dioxide started to build up, mostly from volcanic activity. In fact according to the citations on wikipedia it didn't build just up to 12 times higher than today, but might have been more than 300 times higher before there was enough greenhouse heating to overcome the cooling effects of reflection from all the ice.
You seem to be implying that high levels of CO2 at the same time the earth was frozen over somehow contradicts global warming when in fact it supports the idea. Were you not aware of that? Or were you just hoping that we weren't? (And in any case, how is a fact or set of conditions a "law of physics"?)
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I've never, ever heard of anybody say it would. Please link to any place where you've heard it.
What is there is a potential for things getting seriously unpleasant. There was an earthquake in Haiti recently for instance. That's the kind of "unpleasant" I'm thinking of, only in multiple places at once. Will the human race survive? Sure. Do I want to be there when it happens? Hell, no.
Oh, there's been a lot of flourishing in New Orleans lately? You mean that they quickly fixed everything in a couple of months and since then it's been awesome? And of course I'm sure you don't mind at all the amount of tax money that it took to fix it, as well as the loss the economy took from having all those people stop what they were doing and get to rebuilding.
There's a big difference between having to adapt quickly and having to adapt over centuries.
Let's say the sea level rises. If it rises a few meters in 50 years, you may see your house on the beach get flooded. If it rises in 5000 years, there's likely to be a point where one of your descendants decides that the sea came uncomfortably close a few years back, and moves somewhere else.