The polar ice caps are a rather recent event in earth’s history and probably didn’t exist at all during the Mesozoic period. In fact the Pleistocene Epoch has seen the rapid cooling of the planet and some speculate that the earth is once again returning to its normal temperature. Many desolate places such as the Sahara Desert were actually rainforests due to the increased rainfall caused by a higher climate temperature and perhaps died off because of the cooling of the planet. In all these instances we can see that dramatic climate change is not new in earth’s history nor is global warming a dangerous disaster. Global warming, if it is occurring, can only be a positive development for the planet as plants, animals, and humans will have greater sources of rain and food.
I think it would be useless to state whether or not certain species benefit or die from global warming. some do, some dont, but the overall equation is more rapid change = more species death = less ecological stability = more human death.
We have already witnessed massive meteorlogical events that are clearly attributed to global warming, what else would you attribute all the record breaking anamolies in the past few years. even if global warming wasnt considered a fact, i dont understsand how it can be argued that the weather in the world has been more benign the past few years.
It says in the article u posted that the rate of change is substantially slow, about 100 years time to dramatically change an environment, but that is relative. Would it be easy to move entire cities like san francisco or cities in china with millions of people in 100 years? Some cities and populations have relied on that environment in all aspects of their life for tens of thousands of years. Like evolution, survival will depend on how rapid a change the environment is and how fast the people can adapt. for people with access to technology that may not be too hard, but for the majority of the billions of people who rely on their environemnt for substanance and homes it would be very hard for them to just get up and leave or make substantial changes to their culture or lifestyle that has been in effect for generations. Whehter change in the environment may speculated to be good or bad, the fact is that the more change in the environment in any way, the more people will die. The same thing happens to animals and people are subject to this relationship too.
The worst affect would be from the increasing infectious diseases. Not only are overpopulation, lack of new antibioitc research, increasing antibioitic resistance, making the world’s number one killer much worse, but increases in temperature would dramatically raise infectious disease and death. I dont know what that UK article was talking about but diseases and microbes propogate much better in hotter temperatures, they are in general not worse in cold temperatures.
Any past weather conditions can be called normal, we can freely choose between last year, the past ice age, the time when the dinosaurs roamed on the ice-free antarctic continent, or the time when earth was a volcanic rock without an atmosphere. Whether changes in the weather are judged good or bad depends on how they affect human life and life in general.
Humans should be able to adapt easily because we have the ability to alter our environment according to our needs. Animal and vegetable life would lose some of its diversity due to warming, but deforestation and pollution are much bigger concerns in this regard so I think this argument is directed at the wrong problem.
The current global warming hysteria, where every unusual natural event is interpreted as a sign of approaching doom, is unfortunate because it is becoming propaganda. The scientific evidence for warming is real enough, but the magnitude and consequences of this warming are simply not known. So the environmental movement is working overtime to find the worst-case scenarios and disseminate them as widely as possible. I consider myself an environmentalist as well, but I think this is a bad strategy. It will be a prime example of the Boy Who Cried Wolf, this issue gets the attention of the world for 5-10 years, then everybody realizes that the danger really isn’t that imminent, and actions to reduce emissions are abandoned. More importantly, more urgent environmental issues are ignored while this Big Issue is overhyped.
Granted, there’s a lot of unknowns, but that’s just the whole problem.
We’re messing with things that are far too big for us, and we’re hardly aware of the risks, except that we know the potential danger is huge.
I wasn’t referring to a “global environment” but to our immediate living environment. If a few coastal areas are flooded by rising seas, people should have plenty of time to move away from them and we should still have plenty of food for everyone, like we do now. The fact that people are starving today is a problem of politics and distribution, obviously it is not due to a lack of food because you and I have much more than we need.
Good points all of you. I too am an environmentalist, I contribute money to reforesting campaigns and encourage environmental reform. Thus I am upset by the fact that so much energy is being concentrated on dealing with global warming when the real problems go unnoticed: extinction events, endangered habitats, alien species introduction and parasitism, easy fixes that could be dealt with if money wasn’t wasted worrying about the changing climate. I am also upset that environmentalism has become associated with the political left. Not only has this made it appear reactionary and even “hippie” but it polarizes the issue instead of making it a universal concern for all. This global warming craze gives conservation a bad rap.
the weather changing aspect of humanities destruction of earth is just the most prevalent aspect of it. even if global warming leads to a untopia society on anartica it doesnt mean we should abandon our respect for the planet. though that point never really seems to convince anyone so ill finish with… if you dont the world will explode via global warming.
The punch line is that it’s all connected. You can’t work on one aspect and forget about the others or you might be making matters worse. No mistake, this is by far the most complex problem we’ve ever seen.
I would argue that although it may be more cost effective to deal with deforestation, extinction, and endangered habits than something as vague and giant as global warming, they all have the same causes and can be all improved by doing things like reducing deofrestation (carbon emissions), environmental friendly energy sources, decreasing pollution, etc.
I see your points, but I don’t think carbon emissions are harming the planet. Consider the theory that during the mesozoic era there were in fact drastically higher levels of carbon in the atmosphere as well as higher temperatures and life as we know it still exists today. In fact, the earth contains less diversity than probably flourished during those hot periods. As for deforesting, I think we need also consider the fact that man actually only inhabits 7% of the earth’s surface. That is actually a fairly small amount. Habitat destruction and extinction typically revolves around deforesting and poaching caused by man and has no direct relation to global warming. In fact, logically the earth would cool down if the forests were all cut down because darker objects collect more sunlight than a light brown soil. (Not like I would support that, but its for the sake of the argument).
It’s the extreme rate of change that does the damage. Not higher temperatures, but higher temperatures and drastic change in local climate conditions in a very short time.
And you know this how exactly? ‘In fact’, high productivity tends to favor a only a select number of species. It’s sort of odd that you bring this up while the biodiversity is rapidly declining. Did i mention all of these problems are interconnected? Climate change is bound to make a lot of species go extinct.
We may inhabit only 7%, but we affect a whole lot more through toxics, noise disturbance, fragmentation of habitat, etc., not to mention we occupy most of the fertile areas.
Habitats will change drastically because of the global warming. Conditions that lifeforms are adapted to will move fast, geographically speaking, or even cease to exist (polar bears anyone?) which is very problematic for many of them.
Forests happen to have a general cooling effect because they use the solar heat to evaporate water, which also provides most of the much-needed water for rain (on land).
considering the worst case senerio, and global warming is drastically affected by humans, it might be the one thing that finally unites all human groups and helps us work together, but that might only unite us to prepare for a bunch of death.
Anyway, I think we should do what we can, but at the same time, global warming is too complex to ever really understand, you have to take into consideration everything . . . and everything in the planet working in its own intervals and means is too much to stuff into a computer, and is there a computer that you can put that into? I don’t think so.
Global warming is always speculation, anyone who says it is fact is full of bullshit. Hopefully the speculation is more substancial than not.
It’s as much a fact as it’s a fact that ice caps are melting, vegetation belts are shifting and apples fall down. It’s a repeatedly observed phenomenon.
Arthritis, do you live anywhere near a smog filled city? In the summer we cannot even see the mountains, and they are the San Bernardino Mountains, huge. Regardless, I do not want to see more smog and prefer an alternative energy source to oil for both political and enviornomental reasons.
Scientists do not know what is causing the current temperatures, but the ozone and gas clouds surrouding some of our cities may have something to do with this… Also, algae increases with heat, and often clogs the sea.
This is not my area, so I will listen to your refutes.
yes watching ice caps melt is an observed phenomenon, but when did we start keeping legitimate records of how often they melt. Maybe big pieces of them melt every few thousands of years, we do know that the earth constantly goes thru shifts of heat and cold.
I think we should curb what we contribute to global warming for sure, but I am just playing the devils advocate, which has to be played do to the unsurity of this issue.
There’s uncertainty, yes… But it works both ways. It may be less bad than we think, it may be a whole lot worse.
Global represents a massive risk and we know that we’re contributing to it, although the mechanisms involved all not all figured out yet.
No doubt, serious investment into reduction of the rate of change will repay itself many times in the future…