Slashdot Mirror
Last Time CO2 Levels Were This High, There Were Trees at the South Pole (theguardian.com)
An anonymous reader shares a report: Trees growing near the South Pole, sea levels 20 metres higher than now, and global temperatures 3C-4C warmer. That is the world scientists are uncovering as they look back in time to when the planet last had as much carbon dioxide in the atmosphere as it does today. Using sedimentary records and plant fossils, researchers have found that temperatures near the South Pole were about 20C higher than now in the Pliocene epoch, from 5.3m to 2.6m years ago.
Many scientists use sophisticated computer models to predict the impacts of human-caused climate change, but looking back in time for real-world examples can give new insights. The Pliocene was a "proper analogy" and offered important lessons about the road ahead, said Martin Siegert, a geophysicist and climate-change scientist at Imperial College London. "The headline news is the temperatures are 3-4C higher and sea levels are 15-20 metres higher than they are today. The indication is that there is no Greenland ice sheet any more, no West Antarctic ice sheet and big chunks of East Antarctic [ice sheet] taken," he said.
We weren't here the last time CO2 levels were that high. Yes, the Earth survived. Hell, the Earth survived the Dinosaur Killer strike, but a shit ton of species died.
It's hard to assess with statements like that whether the poster is just playing a rhetorical game, or is indeed a complete fucking moron.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
The big issue is that in the past, these changes have taken place over thousands of years. This could happen over decades. We just can't adapt that quickly.
The sea level rise is the big issue. We're talking about flooding many major cities. We'll try to add sea walls and such, but if we're talking 10+ meters, that won't work.
And without the sea level rise, we're fine as a species, but much of nature isn't, and isn't going to adapt fast enough. We're talking about a major extinction event. Yes, in some cases, this will help agriculture, but the benefits will be dwarfed by the problems.
Or, you know, we, as a species, could stop being pants-on-head stupid about this, get our collective fingers out of our collective ears, uncover our collective eyes, actually acknowledge this shit is happening and it's at least in part our fault, and actually DO something about it.
Just sayin'..
Your all-or-nothing thinking shows you're not smart. We don't have to """dismantle""" society. We have to CHANGE THE WAY WE DO THINGS. Fucking deal with it.
None of the things you point out are a bad thing, but you have to consider that the climate will change in places that aren't the Sahara, and not always for the better. People generally don't like big changes in life. It's not as bad for countries like the U.S. which due to industrialization and less rigid societal norms are undergoing rapid change on a continual basis, but for people who have been herders in a region for hundreds or even thousands of years, the changes are much more jarring. The world has shown how little ability it has to deal with migrants from Syria due to conflict. What do you think will happen when 200 million people need to move because climate change has suddenly left them unable to continue on as they have been doing for generations?
Do you really think your economy is that independent from what happens on the coasts?
I think you have vastly underestimated the impact of rapid climate change. A 20m sea level rise would affect every major city on a coast and as well as flat, low lying areas which are often highly populated. The shutdown of the gulf stream would not just affect the UK but all of Scandinavia as well as France, Benelux, Germany since their climate would all switch to being similar to central Canada and, having lived in both locations, not many European plants will survive a Canadian winter where it freezes in November, hits -30 to -40C in January/February and the snow only fully melts in April (we still have some on the ground now).
Of course, Canada and Russia will be doing great as more land becomes farmable and the permafrost retreats further north but when water supplies start running out in the US and elsewhere governments are going to have to take action to secure the water their citizens need to live. This is going to cause political instability and probably wars.
Climate change is definitely survivable as a species but the death, instability, famine and ecological damage it will cause is going to be terrible.