Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

Foxfyre wrote:

There are a a couple of people posting in this thread who buy into the AGW theory without question and who I don't consider to be particularly gullible.

so, by not buying into "AGW" - does that make you PGW?

What are the benefits of global warming as you perceive them?

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Foxfyre wrote:

Do you have any knowledge about what he has and has not read?

No--only about the literature he does and does not cite.

Fair point about the Klaus quote being an interview though.

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ehBeth wrote:

Foxfyre wrote:
There are a a couple of people posting in this thread who buy into the AGW theory without question and who I don't consider to be particularly gullible.

so, by not buying into "AGW" - does that make you PGW?

What are the benefits of global warming as you perceive them?

???? Depends on what you mean by PGW.

Some benefits have already been cited by some members on the thread. Some Canadians, for instance, have been appreciating their more hospitable climate. The Russians, if global warming should continue as some predict, are already making huge plans for turning Siberia into the breadbasket of the world. We have seen posts in which plans were once made to melt arctic ice to free up trade routes across the pole--that would be a possible benefit.

As to whether the benefits would be as valuable as the negatives, who knows? Are the doomsday prophets correct that more global warming will result in untold human suffering? Some say yes. Others say no.

I have not taken a position one way or the other except to highly resent being told that an open mind on the subject is anathema and contrary to sound science. I don't know whether the pro-AGW group or the skeptics are correct. So I remain in the unconvinced one way or the other camp, but I think the skeptics so far seem to have the edge on sound science.

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ehBeth wrote:

What are the benefits of global warming as you perceive them?

Why guesstimate the benefits of GW ?
The Earth has warmed about 0.6°C over the 20th century. At the same time, its GDP has increased about 1500%, life expectancy from 40 years to about 55 years (over 70 years for rich countries). A 21th century man has a standard of living with first class medical care, far flung plane travels, heated homes, modern sanitation, microwaves, tv, hifi... that'd get crazy a 16th century king.
It's euphemism to call all this "benefits". I'll call it a huge bonanza or if I was religious, God blessing.

So if someone can believe GW can affect GDP growth with business as usual (instead of wasting money trying to stop GW, btw business is NEVER as usual) more than a fraction of the cost of war, terrorism, civilization clash, population aging, stock market crash, economic recession, virus epidemics..., he'll believe in anything.

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Quote:

Why guesstimate the benefits of GW ?
The Earth has warmed about 0.6°C over the 20th century. At the same time, its GDP has increased about 1500%, life expectancy from 40 years to about 55 years (over 70 years for rich countries). A 21th century man has a standard of living with first class medical care, far flung plane travels, heated homes, modern sanitation, microwaves, tv, hifi... that'd get crazy a 16th century king.
It's euphemism to call all this "benefits". I'll call it a huge bonanza or if I was religious, God blessing

Then, by all means, let's work to increase the amount of warming in future. The hotter, the better, clearly.

Coincidence isn't causality, you euro-weenie.

The "gosh, climate change may work wonderful consequences for humans and other critters" PR line is really rather dull-headed. Saskatchewan as tropical playground! Just think of the new tourism boom that would surely follow!

What will actually follow are consequences such as we see with the pine beetle in British Columbia forests or milfoil in Candian lakes (this last is an introduction of an alien plant from human mobility and not a warming phenomenon, but the disruption/destruction to existing systems is the same). Existing "balances" and sybioses in systems will be destabilized and food/habitat resources altered. Sure, things will inevitably settle down and new integrated systems will develop but lots of dead grandchildren sit between then and now.

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Did I link this earlier? What the heck...

Quote:

Scientists' Report Documents ExxonMobil's Tobacco-like Disinformation Campaign on Global Warming Science
Oil Company Spent Nearly $16 Million to Fund Skeptic Groups, Create Confusion

http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWarming-tobacco.html

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blatham wrote:

The "gosh, climate change may work wonderful consequences for humans and other critters" PR line is really rather dull-headed. Saskatchewan as tropical playground! Just think of the new tourism boom that would surely follow!

Moreover, as I mentioned much earlier in the thread, Antarctica is currently an uninhabitable ice desert. It will take at least fifty more degrees of global warming to even begin to make it attractive for human settlement.

Let's get to work on this. Gentlemen, start your engines!

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blatham wrote:

Then, by all means, let's work to increase the amount of warming in future. The hotter, the better, clearly.

Calm down my friend Laughing

Let's just say the hotter is certainly not the worse as we are told.
We know the past, not the future. So look at the past instead of relying on speculations about the future.

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There's too many polar bears up in the arctic cutting too many farts. I need a new rug.

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cjhsa wrote:

I need a new rug.

Order it from Iceland. They must have discount rates right now:

Quote:

The ice has proved a headache for fishermen, who have been unable to put to sea, but it is what comes with pack ice that has caused most concern: polar bears.
...
I have lived here my whole life, but I have never seen so much pack ice before," said Helgi Árnason, a farmer in -Dyrafjördur.

"Forty years ago, large icebergs drifted on to beaches but it was nothing compared with this.

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Fresh news :

Tue Feb 13 2007 19:31:25 ET, HOUSE HEARING ON 'WARMING OF THE PLANET' CANCELED AFTER ICE STORM

http://forum-images.hardware.fr/images/perso/purljam.gif

http://d.yimg.com/us.yimg.com/p/rids/20070213/i/r1620630823.jpg

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Yes, you're right, miniTAX: that lowered the dangers of climate change dramatically.

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miniTAX wrote:

Fresh news :

Tue Feb 13 2007 19:31:25 ET, HOUSE HEARING ON 'WARMING OF THE PLANET' CANCELED AFTER ICE STORM

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miniTAX wrote:

blatham wrote:
Then, by all means, let's work to increase the amount of warming in future. The hotter, the better, clearly.
Calm down my friend Let's just say the hotter is certainly not the worse as we are told.
We know the past, not the future. So look at the past instead of relying on speculations about the future.

There's nothing speculative about the pine beetle's effects on BC forests.

Hotter is worse, as would be colder...the problem not being the direction of change but rather the mere fact of change.

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blatham, the climate constantly changes, and always has. If you think nature is perfectly static in all ways, I don't know what to say, but you are simply not very realistic about it. Whether it be weather, seasons, the sun, the moon, tides, animals, plants, geography, you name it, nature is naturally cyclical. There are small scale cycles and there are larger cycles. Change is healthy and normal.

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okie wrote:

blatham, the climate constantly changes, and always has. If you think nature is perfectly static in all ways, I don't know what to say, but you are simply not very realistic about it. Whether it be weather, seasons, the sun, the moon, tides, animals, plants, geography, you name it, nature is naturally cyclical. There are small scale cycles and there are larger cycles. Change is healthy and normal.

Sure, change is healthy and normal - for nature and our ecosystem as a whole, not necessarily for us.

Cycloptichorn

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

Sure, change is healthy and normal - for nature and our ecosystem as a whole, not necessarily for us.

Really? If Berkeley traded its climate for Santa Barbara's -- how would that be unhealthy for you? And even assuming this would give you a problem, why couldn't you solve it by just moving to Mendocino? Why is that a less viable solution than a gasoline tax high enough to halt global warming?

Remember, we're talking about 4-10° Fahrenheit over 100 years. Ecosystems and populations are flexible on this timescale. For example, sixteen of my ancestors were alive a hundred years ago. Thirteen of them lived farther away from Munich, my home town, than Mendocino is from Berkeley. And it wasn't because of global warming that they moved.

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Thomas wrote:

Cycloptichorn wrote:
Sure, change is healthy and normal - for nature and our ecosystem as a whole, not necessarily for us.

Really? If Berkeley traded its climate for Santa Barbara's -- how would that be unhealthy for you? And even assuming this would give you a problem, why couldn't you solve it by just moving to Mendocino? Why is that a less viable solution than a gasoline tax high enough to halt global warming?

Remember, we're talking about 4-10° Fahrenheit over 100 years. Ecosystems and populations are flexible on this timescale. For example, sixteen of my ancestors were alive a hundred years ago. Thirteen of them lived farther away from Munich, my home town, than Mendocino is from Berkeley. And it wasn't because of global warming that they moved.

You're right, shifts in climate patterns won't have any effect at all on our food production.

Way to take the shortest possible view here Thomas. There is a huge amount of agriculture which yes would be heavily affected by changes in weather patterns.

Forget straight-up temperature - how about wind and rain pattern changes? Don't think that sort of thing can have an effect?

Cycloptichorn

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blatham wrote:

There's nothing speculative about the pine beetle's effects on BC forests.

Hotter is worse, as would be colder...the problem not being the direction of change but rather the mere fact of change.

Its called "survival of the fittest," blatham.

In the case of pine beetles, it is just another factor that serves to kill trees or even fairly large areas of trees that may be in somewhat of a weakened state. Even if the trees are not necessarily weaker, it is just another one of those factors that in the long run will make better forests. Drawing a parallel to parasites that attack animals, or in the case of predators killing other animals, it is a necessary factor in the grand scheme of things to thin out the weaker and less healthy, thus keeping existing animals stronger and better able to survive in nature. Harsh weather does the same thing for both plants and animals. Just the efforts required by animals or plants to overcome natural opposition keep animals and plants healthier.

I have seen beetle kill in forest areas of Colorado, with forest managers afraid of total devastation, but I have seen those same areas years later and the forests have apparently survived in fine shape. There is always the temptation of wildlife and forest managers to worry and want to intervene, but usually their efforts are not needed. They are finally waking up to the positive effects of forest fires, which thins out the underbrush and smaller trees and adds nutrients to the soil. Areas of Yellowstone Park are much healthier and more vibrant with wildlife now than they were before the 1988 fires.

There is a lesson here for us humans as well, blatham. Competition is healthy.

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Cycloptichorn wrote:

You're right, shifts in climate patterns won't have any effect at all on our food production.

That's not what I said.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Way to take the shortest possible view here Thomas. There is a huge amount of agriculture which yes would be heavily affected by changes in weather patterns.

It would be heavy if all the change happened from this year to next year. But since it's going to happen over a hundred years, there will be a gradual shift in which crop is being grown where. I have no problem with your assertion that agriculture will be affected. Just with your implication that the effect will overall be spectacularly bad for humanity.

Cycloptichorn wrote:

Forget straight-up temperature - how about wind and rain pattern changes? Don't think that sort of thing can have an effect?

I haven't checked what wind and rain patterns in Santa Barbara are, but I'm pretty sure that they, too, are different than Berkeley's.

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Global Warming...New Report...and it ain't happy news

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