Political action was taken. CFCs were outfased, the ozone hole is recovering.
The same (in Europe at least) regarding acid rain. All coal-fired powerplants are fitted with sulphur-filters today.
We already have coral reefs dying in various places because of changes in sea temperature, - a result of AGW. Increased ocean acidity is not going to benefit crustaceans. If AGW continues, we're likely to see changing changing weather patterns. Imagine the Monsoon being absent 2-3 years in a row; destruction of entire foodchains.
Polar bears.
And not because we're invading their habitat.
Cheers
Here's the thing: due to the interrelatedness of the world economy, extermination of, say, all Americans and Europeans would also do tremendous things to help stop/slow reductions in biodiversity in those areas.
But the fact is this sort of argument is completely pointless, even if it were possible to do so, because people would simply repopulate those areas and you'd have the same problems all over again.
Coral. Look up the effect of ocean acidity on coral reefs. And remember that such reefs are some of the most biodiverse ecosystems on the planet.
Er, you didn't understand my point. My point is that the economic activity of people elsewhere in the world is in large part responsible for the reductions in biodiversity in those areas.It would, but not as much as the two continents I put forward. The USA and Europe are heavily farmed already so biodversity is low compared to the two continents I picked out which aren't to that extent.
Yeah, wouldn't happen.I said in my original post event re-population was banned. You obviously have problems reading other peoples posts before bashing away at the keyboard in response. That's twice you have gone wrong, take more time next time.
outbreaks of the crown-of-thorns can now cause permanent and devastating damage.
Well, they already think a lot of very strange things are tasty...We need to convince the french they are tasty...
Well, first of all, the medieval warm period appears to have been a particular, local phenomenon. There isn't any good evidence that the global average temperature was actually noticeably warmer than the centuries before/after, though admittedly temperature proxies that far back are somewhat difficult and have rather large errors.
That said, yes, there will be some positive benefits to global warming. But the areas where the positive benefits outweigh the negative aspects are a much smaller fraction of the globe than the areas where the negative aspects win out. One change that has already happened, for instance, is that more and more precipitation is falling in severe storms. This means that droughts are longer and typical rainstorms more severe than they were before. That's a bad situation basically no matter where you are, and is expected to be even more the case in the coming decades.
Another really nasty one is sea level rise. Current estimates are looking at over a meter of sea level rise by the end of the century, which will be especially nasty for poor island nations.
Well, you have to bear in mind that not all forms of warming are identical. Different sorts of warming tend to warm different parts of the Earth by different amounts. And if different parts of the Earth are different temperatures, this has significant impacts on wind and rainfall.I know about all that. It just seems crazy that even though we have it on historical record that countries in northern Europe improved quite substantially due to warmer weather that these same countries would be touting how bad warming would be for them. It seems that everything is fixed on such a pessimistic outcome that all the models are tainted by this idea.
A bit too noisy for me to get into at the moment...Hi chalnoth,
Well although you might think I have been anti AGW on this thread, I have just been trying to put the other viewpoint across. I could do with some help on this thread though
http://www.pistonheads.com/gassing/topic.asp?h=0&f=205&t=759191&mid=101613&nmt=Climate Change - the big debate
where I have been posting as zakelwe against the hordes !
I get the feeling you like this discussion, do you fancy helping convert the masses over there?
I'm pretty AGW neutral but like scientists, they are anything but!
Well, you have to bear in mind that not all forms of warming are identical. Different sorts of warming tend to warm different parts of the Earth by different amounts. And if different parts of the Earth are different temperatures, this has significant impacts on wind and rainfall.
Overall, because the life (and human civilization) in any one area will have adapted to the conditions in that area, it is unlikely that a change, in any direction, will lead to benefit. Sometimes it does, but it isn't common.
Actually, there are some indications that ice melt in the arctic will cause significant temperature drops in Europe due to slowing down the Gulf Stream that keeps Europe rather warm for its latitude. Such a cooling would be quite bad. Extreme weather in general is also expected to be worse.Im certainly not against action on climate change. For one the actions of the U.K. government seems more altruistic in that if they don't do anything they probably won't be damning themselves. It just seems that they are acting as if climate change would cripple their country which is probably because of the bitterness of the general U.K. population towards their governments over the years. If they didn't deceive the public on how bad climate change would actually be for them they probably couldn't pass any legislation to do anything about it. Im not saying that there would be negative consequences for the U.K however they are probably better manageable than most countries with drier, warmer climates already.
Sadly, I'd be rather surprised if the new conservative government in the UK will keep this up. We'll see.It isn't a bad thing that a country like the UK is making such a strong stand towards shifting their economy off hydrogen/carbon fuel. It stands as an example and it certainly lubricates the wheels of change for other less willing nations. Any 1st world action on climate has to be considered altruistic at this point as most of the major producers of climate altering gasses aren't the ones who would be the most negatively effected by these gasses. Most of these countries have the ability to adjust to climate change and the resources to mitigate most negative effects. Even a supply of water can be contrived if enough energy is made available considering certain regions moving to be more drought prone and flood works on the other hand can be more easily erected when you have the money and population density to do / justify it.
Actually, there are some indications that ice melt in the arctic will cause significant temperature drops in Europe due to slowing down the Gulf Stream that keeps Europe rather warm for its latitude. Such a cooling would be quite bad. Extreme weather in general is also expected to be worse.
Of course, the slowing of this stream is just a bit of shuffling of heat within the Earth, and thus has little to no effect on overall global average temperatures.
Sadly, I'd be rather surprised if the new conservative government in the UK will keep this up. We'll see.
You can find more info if you Google it, but it looks like much of this is overblown. I did some more reading up and it looks like the effect will probably be superseded by overall warming.If the slowing down of the gulf stream is such a potential issue how come I haven't seen it mentioned in relation to global climate change? I have looked at dozens of articles and the titles of hundreds if not thousands of them and still nary a mention.
Yes, sadly.Oh and regarding the conservatives? My suspicion is that the first chance they can get they will back out of it and not without first firing a few shots back at the already torpedoed and sinking climate change mitigation legislation.
Mate theres been a whole film about itIf the slowing down of the gulf stream is such a potential issue how come I haven't seen it mentioned in relation to global climate change?
You can find more info if you Google it, but it looks like much of this is overblown. I did some more reading up and it looks like the effect will probably be superseded by overall warming.
At any rate, the primary point I'm making is that on average, you don't necessarily expect every region to end up with negative impacts from warming, but on average the impacts will be quite bad. See here:
http://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-negatives-intermediate.htm
Yes, sadly.
Mate theres been a whole film about it
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Day_After_Tomorrow
I doubt it. For the most part, there has been a bias towards understating the impacts of global warming, because of the inherent conservatism of science (scientists tend to want to be really, really sure before they state something with confidence). However, many of the effects of warming are simply unknown.However I think theres a kind of selection bias in play for terestrial warming. The scientists are typically only looking for negative outcomes from warming in order to convince people to change their ways. This isn't bad in itself because the cause is noble. However I do feel that the balance is still stacked in one direction too much. If the reverse were true and people were looking to justify how good warming would be you'd find the positive side stacked to the gills whilst negatives in developing countries such as India would be minimised.
I doubt it. For the most part, there has been a bias towards understating the impacts of global warming, because of the inherent conservatism of science (scientists tend to want to be really, really sure before they state something with confidence). However, many of the effects of warming are simply unknown.
I'd also like to mention that at no time in human history has the global temperature changed nearly as rapidly as it has in these past few decades. There may have been a period a few hundred years ago where the Earth was slightly warmer than the average over the past few thousand years, but there is no reason to believe the changed happened as suddenly as a few decades. Ecosystems (and people) have much more difficulty adapting to rapid change than slow change.
Well, yes, some species gaining advantages due to climate change is expected. But this, on the whole, tends to just add to the damage to the ecosystem. Usually when one species becomes overpopulated, it tends to end up doing quite a lot of damage. This is a problem with introduced species the world over.Theres always an inherrent bias in us all which is that change is typically seen with suspicion. I would suggest automatically that cooling, warming, socal change, economic change etc are all seen as bad. This is the reason why conservative parties exist for a large part. Im not suggesting a cover up but perhaps a selection bias and a bias in how data is intepretted. If for instance one species loses out due to a changing climate then another species may infact win barring an area becoming a wasteland.
It's rapid compared to the ability for most ecosystems to adapt. I'm not talking about peoples' perceptions here, just how change that is fast compared to ecosystems' ability to adapt is almost always going to be destructive.Rapid from whos perspective? Not many people would label a change over a 50 year period as rapid change. Someone moving away from home for a couple of years and finding the vacant lot out back of their house turned into a megamall would probably term that 'rapid change'. Given the fact that it requires concious effort for a lay person to even concieve of global climate change as rapid because a marginal change every year means nothing to them, it cannot be relied upon that a lay person would concieve of these changes in the same way as a scientist or historian for instance.
We would be well on our way towards effective action on climate change if it wasn't for the right-wing noise machine that is bought and paid for by largely oil interests. See here:The great flaw in the whole climate change debate is that the solutions offered as the primary responses by those representing the cause that we both do something about it are presenting it in a way where effectively they are asking people to pay more money for intangible things like electricity for intangible reasons. Naturally this is the path of greatest resistance. Because you'd have to fully convince people of the rightness of this path before they would even consider going along with it. Even then there are still a number of people who will / can see and understand the evidence, believe it, and still consider doing nothing as the best course of action. It is presented almost as a punishment for 'sinful consumption' and a lot of people have likely decided they will choose not to take their punishment.
