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Rise In CO2 Has 'Greened Planet Earth' (bbc.com)
schwit1 quotes a report from BBC: Carbon dioxide emissions from industrial society have driven a huge growth in trees and other plants. A new study says that if the extra green leaves prompted by rising CO2 levels were laid in a carpet, it would cover twice the continental USA. Climate skeptics argue the findings show that the extra CO2 is actually benefiting the planet. But the researchers say the fertilization effect diminishes over time. They warn the positives of CO2 are likely to be outweighed by the negatives. The lead author, Professor Ranga Myneni from Boston University, told BBC News the extra tree growth would not compensate for global warming, rising sea levels, melting glaciers, ocean acidification, the loss of Arctic sea ice, and the prediction of more severe tropical storms. The new study is published in the journal Nature Climate Change by a team of 32 authors from 24 institutions in eight countries. A new study has also shown that ever since Americans first heard the term global warming in the 1970's, the weather has actually improved for most people living in the U.S. The study published in the journal Nature found that 80% of the U.S. population lives in counties experiencing more pleasant weather than they did four decades ago.
1321: Cold
I get that CO2 is a greenhouse gas, but it seems like nearly all of the "society ought to do X" suggestions for combating climate change equate to "reduce CO2 emissions." However, CO2 isn't the only greenhouse gas; methane is barely mentioned except in reference to livestock emissions, particularly from ruminants; and water vapor is practically ignored. Why isn't anyone suggesting interfering with the water cycle? Water vapor is a major greenhouse gas. Alternatively, since clouds cause global cooling, why not a plan to increase cloud formation? It's known that decreased albedo in the poles will lead to them getting warmer, why not a plan to artificially increase albedo? White paint or whatever. When it comes to "plans that require decades, cooperation between most of the world, and trillions of dollars", why are we so laser-focused on this one plan to decrease CO2 emissions?* It seems to me that big problems tend to be solved with dozens of smaller solutions, rather than one big "hurray, it worked!" solution; true, there are many ways of producing energy aside from burning carbonaceous materials, but as I've mentioned above that's just attacking the issue from one angle.
*I imagine a big part of the reason is "don't spend $billions on that, spend $billions on this (which I have a stake in) instead." But that doesn't fully explain the issue either, I think the 'call to arms' to rally scientists to consensus has caused a little too much groupthink, and bluesky ideas which should be seriously considered are being dismissed out of hand.
Corruption is convincing someone that the selfless ideal is the same as their selfish ideal.
The reason is that there are really two issues rolled into the climate change debate. The first is man-made warming itself. The second is environmental conservatism in general. What many climate campaigners would like is for humans to stop destroying our natural environment - cutting down forests, polluting rivers and lakes, that sort of thing. Many of the same people/organisations who were drumming on about environmental conservatism since before the climate change debate, simply used climate change as their latest vehicle to get their message out. Nothing wrong with that.
However, the reason they don't want to talk about geo-engineering, is that if this is seen as a viable option, then the two issues separate again. In other words many people will see a much simpler third way which involves technology preventing global warming, while they continue burning oil and buying endless junk they don't really need.
Sadly, humans being humans, it is likely that this third way will be the one we take. However, the biggest risk I see is that while us rich westerners just buy a few more air conditioners and argue about whether climate change is a thing or not, some country that is bearing the brunt of the problem decides to setup an aerosol plant and begin feeding something into the atmosphere that they think might fix the problem for them. I mean, if your country is starving due to drought, or sea level rise threatens to wipe you out, and the rich western countries are busy arguing about whether they should be able to have enormous cars or giant cars, you might just get desperate and do something risky for the planet.
You're confusing a cyclical drought with global warming. We had a drought in California like that in the 1970s. It happens every 40 years or so. The water planners drew up a plan for how to deal with it last time. The plan presupposed that people would actually do it. They half assed the project and as a result the shortages were painful though not fatal.
Look... you can't understand climate unless you make an effort to understand climate. To do that you have to look at the history of climates to see what the patterns are in the first place.
Saying "oh california didn't have bad droughts before" is ignorant. You'd have a hard time finding anything in Cali that has remarkably changed from a climate stand point.
I've decided to stop wasting my time responding to AC trolls/sockpuppets... so if you want a response from me... login.
Since when was the sea level predicted to rise so fast people would drown from it?
Sea levels rise, storm floods now start flooding areas that were previously farther from the coast and relatively safe, people cannot afford to just abandon their property and buy new land and build a new hose/farm in a safer place elsewhere because they are so poor they can hardly afford food, the government is to corrupt/apathetic/incompetent or just plain too poor to build flood defences which in many cases may even be a futile effort... result? Lots of people drown in storm floods in places like Bangladesh.