Global warming is good

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I saw part of a special on the History channel this weekend but couldn't watch the entire program at the time. The focus of the show was the six greatest threats to human life on the planet.

First was the possibility of nuclear holocaust, potentially problematic as the number of governments around the world, not all particularly stable, with nuclear weapons technology increases.

Second was biological, the potential for a global pandemic that could spread widely before it was even recognized, let alone before treatments could be developed. The greater concern there was not a spontaneously occurring pandemic but the more effective microbiological infectious agents that potentially could be developed as weapons.

Global climate change was third. I didn't see the whole segment, unfortunately, but most of it fit with things I already know to some extent. Droughts, flooding, and changes in storm activity and severity were among those occurrences covered. I had to leave the program at this point.

I recommend the program to anyone who may be interested in this. It was well presented, as are most programs on the HC, and did attempt to address both pros and cons of each position. I'll definitely try to see it when it's re-run. Had to get up at 5 a.m. on Sunday to attend a seminar so I missed the remainder of the show.
 
Thorn said:
I saw part of a special on the History channel this weekend but couldn't watch the entire program at the time. The focus of the show was the six greatest threats to human life on the planet.

First was the possibility of nuclear holocaust, potentially problematic as the number of governments around the world, not all particularly stable, with nuclear weapons technology increases.

Second was biological, the potential for a global pandemic that could spread widely before it was even recognized, let alone before treatments could be developed. The greater concern there was not a spontaneously occurring pandemic but the more effective microbiological infectious agents that potentially could be developed as weapons.

Global climate change was third. I didn't see the whole segment, unfortunately, but most of it fit with things I already know to some extent. Droughts, flooding, and changes in storm activity and severity were among those occurrences covered. I had to leave the program at this point.

I recommend the program to anyone who may be interested in this. It was well presented, as are most programs on the HC, and did attempt to address both pros and cons of each position. I'll definitely try to see it when it's re-run. Had to get up at 5 a.m. on Sunday to attend a seminar so I missed the remainder of the show.
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I saw the program, but disagree with many of the conclusions made about the effects of global warming. While a significantly warmer climate will bring about many changes and potential disasters, humans as a species has a strong potential for survival. If global warming goes to the extent of reducing all ice caps to minimal or zero the human race stands to lose all or most of their coastal cities. We may even lose a large portion of total human population. But I seriously doubt humans will go the way of the woolly mammoth. I even doubt human kind will even be seriously set back like we see in all those post apocalypse movies. In fact, I believe we will find/develop new technologies and some new applications for current technologies as we deal with the effects of global warming.
 
Good Luck said:
I saw the program, but disagree with many of the conclusions made about the effects of global warming. While a significantly warmer climate will bring about many changes and potential disasters, humans as a species has a strong potential for survival. If global warming goes to the extent of reducing all ice caps to minimal or zero the human race stands to lose all or most of their coastal cities. We may even lose a large portion of total human population. But I seriously doubt humans will go the way of the woolly mammoth. I even doubt human kind will even be seriously set back like we see in all those post apocalypse movies. In fact, I believe we will find/develop new technologies and some new applications for current technologies as we deal with the effects of global warming.
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Naah too many people and too much greed.

Humans will not be wiped out but greatly reduced in number and abilities in a worst case global warming scenario.
 
uscitizen said:
Naah too many people and too much greed.

Humans will not be wiped out but greatly reduced in number and abilities in a worst case global warming scenario.
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Even a worst case scenario will take a long time. Long enough human kind will be able to adjust as needed over the decades.

The doomsday scenario of worldwide drought and flooding as if there will be nothing in between, and small pockets of surviving humanity warring over dwindling resources is pathetically unrealistic.
 
Hmm look at what the one year of partial drought did to the wheat supply .

We have just a little bit of food stocked up, not even enough to last 1 year in worst case.
 
uscitizen said:
Hmm look at what the one year of partial drought did to the wheat supply .

We have just a little bit of food stocked up, not even enough to last 1 year in worst case.
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We've had worse droughts and managed to weather them, and increased per-acre yields in the process.

Droughts and flooding are what happens during periods of climactic adjustment. It is not what climactic adjustment leads to. The global warming process is not something that started a few decades ago and will continue until we're all dead. It has been ongoing since the last ice age peaked. We're in a phase shift now, which will last a while, then things will stabilize around a new climactic mean, with somewhat altered weather patterns. That climate and those weather patterns will remain relatively stable (with occasional shifts like the dust bowl days) anywhere from a few decades to a few centuries before the next phase shift starts.

Nor should we expect all phase shifts to be the same direction. We may easily go through a cooling trend that could last a century or so. The doomers seem to forget we are looking at a cycle that is tens of thousands of years long, with spikes and valleys running throughout both the warming part of the cycle and the cooling part of the cycle. The only thing consistent in the data about previous cycles is the cooling trend at the end of an interglaciation period is about 5 times more rapid that the warming trend. But even then the period between maximum mean global temperature and minimum mean global temperature is several thousand years.

And think about what happens in the long run with a warmer global climate. More warm weather means more water gets evaporated. More water in the air means higher average relative humidity. When that higher humidity rises over mountains, it WILL fall as precipitation. Some areas may feel drought, but overall, precipitation will increase. Current class II and class III desert terrain, either non arable or barely arable through massive irrigation efforts will become fertile agricultural land. Much higher moisture content of clouds coming off the oceans will significantly shrink rain shadows behind mountain ranges. Some dry areas will even become swamps. But worry not about that - we can grow rice, too.

Of course, that's several hundred (if not thousand) years in the future. Meanwhile we will muddle through the droughts and disasters and difficultiess like we have for the last several thousand years: with some minor set backs here and there, but with a general trend of ever greater ability and knowledge.

In short, quit with the doom and gloom crap.
 
I was talking about a worst case global warming scenario as portrayed in that show Luck. NO way we we would not have massive starvation and such in that case.

Desert will become arible thru massive irrigation efforts ? Heck we have been restricting water in parts of the USA for many years. You are optimistic, but imho pipe dreaming.
 
uscitizen said:
I was talking about a worst case global warming scenario as portrayed in that show Luck. NO way we we would not have massive starvation and such in that case.

Desert will become arible thru massive irrigation efforts ? Heck we have been restricting water in parts of the USA for many years. You are optimistic, but imho pipe dreaming.
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The "worst case scenario" in the show was pure hogwash. I already pointed that out. The people who wrote that scenario are completely ignorant of paleogeology, paleoclimatology, or any reasonable type of planetology. They simply projected that since we are having drought now due to a shifting climate, we will have worse drought later as global warming continues.

For what they portrayed to actually happen, a large percentage of the water of the planet would have to be somehow removed. No way could the Earth warm that much and then result in world wide drought. The oceans are still there, and in warm temps would be evaporating and, like I pointed out, that water vapor WOULD end up falling as precipitation.

And what I mentioned was class II and class III type desert areas, which already ARE being made arable through irrigation. Just ask Israel. Or Idaho for that matter.
 
Yeah or ask those sucking the colorado dry or the Ogalla aquifer. Water supply is getting to be more of a problem not less of one.
 
uscitizen said:
Yeah or ask those sucking the colorado dry or the Ogalla aquifer. Water supply is getting to be more of a problem not less of one.
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In some areas, yes. In other areas, water supply is above average. In some, too much above average. Water may diminish in one place while increasing in other places, but it does not just go away.

Shifts happen.:p
 
Good Luck said:
In some areas, yes. In other areas, water supply is above average. In some, too much above average. Water may diminish in one place while increasing in other places, but it does not just go away.



Shifts happen.:p
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Yep shift happens gravity shifts it right back to the ocean for the most part. And the aquifers that are being sucked dry might take centuries to refil if we quit sucking them dry. the colorado is predicted to be sucked dry within 20 years. Much of FL has been on water restrictions for many years. Heck the lakebed in Okechobee is burning. We had ultimate rated drought here in KY last year, the SE USA is still under drought I think.

You optimisim is commendable but not very forward looking I think.
 
uscitizen said:
Yep shift happens gravity shifts it right back to the ocean for the most part. And the aquifers that are being sucked dry might take centuries to refil if we quit sucking them dry. the colorado is predicted to be sucked dry within 20 years. Much of FL has been on water restrictions for many years. Heck the lakebed in Okechobee is burning. We had ultimate rated drought here in KY last year, the SE USA is still under drought I think.

You optimisim is commendable but not very forward looking I think.
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Quite the opposite - it is forward looking instead of dwelling on today as if those conditions are going to last forever. Warmer oceans, where gravity keeps dragging water, will give up more water in evaporation.

Droughts are caused by climatic shifts. Climatic shifts do not last forever, in fact rarely last more than a couple decades. The shifts eventually stabilize and most often the droughts end, often with a period of excess precipitation that dwindles over a few years down to a new normal. It is more likely that the drought at the source end of the Colorado will end before the Colorado runs dry. Very seldom, according to geographic studies, do new deserts form as a result of a climatic shift during a global warming phase. Desert more often form during the glaciation phase as cooling diminishes the rate water evaporates from the oceans and seas, thus diminishing rainfall over a much, much longer period of time than climatic shift droughts.

That being said, much of Florida's problems are not from drought, but from people screwing up the wetlands to build homes. They destabilized the entire ecos around there, then wonder why Okechobee is all dried up. Drought conditions didn't help any, but even with normal rainfall in the 80s and early 90s the wetland ecos was rapidly diminishing.
 
I know what the opening articles says. I responded to the post by Thorn which referenced a show that puts an opposite view of global warming - specifically that we are doomed in a "worst case scenario" that ignores climatology and planetology in order to make those predictions.

You refuted by stating how mankind is "too greedy" to weather a worst case scenario.

I pointed out that the worst case scenario will not possibly happen.

You refuted by giving current examples of drought.

I explained drought does not last forever, and that shifts happen.

You came back with more examples, and more predictions of gloom.

I refuted that with the fact that global warming will ultimately increase precipitation.

And you point out your first post was about the positive effects of global warming.

So if you are arguing the POSITIVE effects of global warming, what is with all the doom and gloom?
 
We live too close to the edge as a country and world. We have what 3 weeks of food on the shelves ? It does not have to hit worst case to hit us and the world hard.

I do hope you are right though.
 
Good Luck said:
I know what the opening articles says. I responded to the post by Thorn which referenced a show that puts an opposite view of global warming - specifically that we are doomed in a "worst case scenario" that ignores climatology and planetology in order to make those predictions.

You refuted by stating how mankind is "too greedy" to weather a worst case scenario.

I pointed out that the worst case scenario will not possibly happen.

You refuted by giving current examples of drought.

I explained drought does not last forever, and that shifts happen.

You came back with more examples, and more predictions of gloom.

I refuted that with the fact that global warming will ultimately increase precipitation.

And you point out your first post was about the positive effects of global warming.

So if you are arguing the POSITIVE effects of global warming, what is with all the doom and gloom?
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Well the show I referenced actually was entitled something like the end of humanity. It was presented to portray the most extreme catastrophic events that could -- repeat could -- ultimately result in the end of human life on the planet. Nothing in the show suggested that these possibilities were predictions, but merely that given the right conditions, any of these scenarios could potentially end with the demise of the human race on earth.

It isn't so much climate change per se, but the rate at which these changes are occurring, that presents the most difficulty. It seems that earlier predictions of these changes actually underestimated the rates and perhaps the extent of some consequences of our climate change. The problem with that is that it will be extremely difficult to predict where and how much some changes will take place. That, in itself, is likely to cause some serious difficulties in determining crops and, ultimately, our food sources, for some time. A couple of decades of this type of instability can lead to some serious problems with respect to famine; look at some regions in Africa.
 
Thorn said:
Well the show I referenced actually was entitled something like the end of humanity. It was presented to portray the most extreme catastrophic events that could -- repeat could -- ultimately result in the end of human life on the planet. Nothing in the show suggested that these possibilities were predictions, but merely that given the right conditions, any of these scenarios could potentially end with the demise of the human race on earth.

It isn't so much climate change per se, but the rate at which these changes are occurring, that presents the most difficulty. It seems that earlier predictions of these changes actually underestimated the rates and perhaps the extent of some consequences of our climate change. The problem with that is that it will be extremely difficult to predict where and how much some changes will take place. That, in itself, is likely to cause some serious difficulties in determining crops and, ultimately, our food sources, for some time. A couple of decades of this type of instability can lead to some serious problems with respect to famine; look at some regions in Africa.
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Climatic shifts will most definitely cause trouble. I did not deny that. But the idea that it can end the human species is what I find doubtful. Humanity has the greatest potential of any previous species to adjust to changes. The coming years may wreak havoc with economies, and there will be places of extreme famine. People will undoubtedly die from causes directly attributable to climatic changes brought about by global warming. And others will die in wars started over resources. But I seriously doubt the human race is in danger of extinction from global warming even if the current warming trend does not stop until the earth has global temps equivalent to the mesozoic era.
 
No it won't end the species, but can pretty much end our civilization as we know it.
And vastly reduce our numbers.
I never said it would end the species.
 
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