5 ms·

I sometimes wish descriptions of climate change would include one or two potential positive benefits, no matter how small. This would give me more faith that t

I sometimes wish descriptions of climate change would include one or two potential positive benefits, no matter how small. This would give me more faith that the discourse coming from climate scientists is entirely objective and descriptive. Even if we accept that climate change is overwhelmingly negative for human life on the whole (which I do), I still find it hard to believe that there aren't one or two minor effects that could actually be beneficial. Much of the left seems to view climate change as a crime that humans commit against nature. This view seems as morally blind to me as the right's view that God gave humankind the Earth to have dominion over. The objective view is that the activities of humans are changing the climate, and the effects are X, Y, and Z. Changing the climate is not wrong because it makes an anthropomorphized Mother Nature shed a tear, but because X, Y, and Z are harmful to animal and plant life, including us humans. Unfortunately if I get what I want (an objective account that includes possible upsides of climate change), climate change deniers might seize on that as an excuse to do nothing.

eli_gottlieb 10y ago
>Much of the left seems to view climate change as a crime that humans commit against nature. This view seems as morally blind to me as the right's view that God gave humankind the Earth to have dominion over. The objective view is that the activities of humans are changing the climate, and the effects are X, Y, and Z. Changing the climate is not wrong because it makes an anthropomorphized Mother Nature shed a tear, but because X, Y, and Z are harmful to animal and plant life, including us humans. As a leftist, I want climate change addressed because fully automated luxury communism is going to require a technological base, of the kind we can't create or maintain if the ecosystem collapses out from under us, the fossil fuels run out, we can no longer run what we need without downgrading to human and animal labor, and a mass extinction occurs while everyone's working a lot harder.
- haberman 10y ago
  What you say isn't the same as my admittedly extreme "Mother Nature sheds a tear." But a phrase like "the ecosystem collapses out from under us" implies that climate change is a total and unambiguous attack on "the ecosystem." This is the assumption that I often feel is inadequately justified. For example, CO2 is used for photosynthesis in plants. This Nature article concludes: > Under elevated CO2 most plant species show higher rates of photosynthesis, increased growth, decreased water use and lowered tissue concentrations of nitrogen and protein. Rising CO2 over the next century is likely to affect both agricultural production and food quality. The effects of elevated CO2 are not uniform; some species, particularly those that utilize the C4 variant of photosynthesis, show less of a response to elevated CO2 than do other types of plants. Rising CO2 is therefore likely to have complex effects on the growth and composition of natural plant communities. http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/effects-of-rising-atmospheric-concentrations-of-carbon-13254108 http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/effects-of-... When articles and arguments acknowledge both positive and negative effects of something, I trust them more.
  - flukus 10y ago
    Plants are adapted to the climate they are in and aren't known for their mobility. Temperatures increasing and rainfall patterns changing have huge effects. Sure those plant in the amazon might theoretically grow faster with more CO2, but no rain means the amazon disappears.
  - eli_gottlieb 10y ago
    > What you say isn't the same as my admittedly extreme "Mother Nature sheds a tear." But a phrase like "the ecosystem collapses out from under us" implies that climate change is a total and unambiguous attack on "the ecosystem." This is the assumption that I often feel is inadequately justified. It doesn't matter if there's any concept of an attack, as such. If, for instance, the pollinators of our food crops go extinct, then our food crops will suffer a die-off and we will go hungry.
- mangeletti 10y ago
  Out of curiosity, I have some questions about the "luxury communism" idea (I've heard of it a few times, sometimes maybe worded differently - I picture something like the ship on Wall-E): What leverage will people (leftists?) use to ensure access to "fully automated luxury communism"? For instance, what if those who claim ownership of the means say "no"? Will those people use force? If so, what weapons will they use? I'm having trouble understanding how this scenario will play out exactly. If the answer is that they will simply create the luxury communism on their own, then why haven't they done that already (it would be so cool to see something like the ship from Wall-E)? I mean, what will have changed, and through what means would such a change be forced?
  - infinite8s 10y ago
    If you really want to know, Marx had a thing to say about that. He viewed capitalism as the 'necessary evil' to get economic production to the point where socialism was possible.
    - mangeletti 10y ago
      I've read the Communist Manifesto. I'm just curious about how this transition will take place. It's easy to suppose that those with means (which also tend to be those with weapons) will resist this, even to the point of taking their money elsewhere (divesting from e.g. US markets, etc.), and this pattern could keep repeating until there aren't enough moves left for all of those with means. At that point, is there a war between those with means / food / weapons and those who have nothing, because the money left them behind? Here's what I think will happen. The same people (Buffet, etc.) that tricked everyone into thinking something like "luxury communism" would ever happen will have everyone virtual reality and Soylent, and call that "luxury communism". If you think otherwise, than ask yourself why they don't give their own money to you now. But, I don't think these people will literally hand everyone this VR and Soylent. I think they'll trick everyone into believing they've achieved "luxury communism" with a "basic income" (read: "printed money", lest we forget where the means will come from), and then inflation will reduce the value of this income and the need for better efficiency will force the population into VR and Soylent.
yongjik 10y ago
I don't know what purpose it will serve. In addition to distracting the main point with minutiae, it will merely serve as a basis for "See? Even scientists say climate change may be good!" But since you asked, here's one actual benefit of climate change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_shipping_routes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_shipping_routes I'm sure there are others, but I'm too lazy to look up.
- haberman 10y ago
  A scientist's job is to study the world as it is. If a scientist decides that the information must be filtered to represent only one side so that I will reach the "right" conclusions, I will distrust what the scientist tells me, and look further to get the full picture.
  - yongjik 10y ago
    That's an awful way of describing the current state. A scientist discussing the public health effect of Zika virus has no obligation to discuss potential benefit to competing tourist locations: it's simply not pertinent to the research they are doing. If any hotel manager in Rome thinks they may get more reservations, they're free to research and make predictions using their resources. If you want to learn about potential benefits of global warming, you're free to search for it, and it's not like scientists are suppressing the information: here we have a nice chart with a dozen potential benefits [1]. It's just that most scientists think "Greenland may make more money catching cods" is just not worth mentioning, in a press release where you get a few sentences to discuss ecological collapse in the oceans, never mind an individual paragraph for Arctic North Atlantic. Also keep in mind that there's a multi-billion-dollar industry very interested in everyone knowing how global warming may benefit themselves... and so far all they've dug up were lame platitudes like "Don't you like warm weather?" [1] https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-negatives-intermediate.htm https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-ne...
    - haberman 10y ago
      > A scientist discussing the public health effect of Zika virus has no obligation to discuss potential benefit to competing tourist locations: it's simply not pertinent to the research they are doing. A better analogy would be if some small percentage of people infected with Zika gained some benefit, like resistance to HIV. That would absolutely be pertinent information that the scientist should report.
infinite8s 10y ago
How would you positively describe an impending comet strike on the planet? Sometimes there are situations in which there is absolutely no positive benefit.
- haberman 10y ago
  I don't think climate change is comparable to an impending comet strike on the planet. If you argue that it is, I'm going to distrust you unless you can make a pretty compelling case about it.
  - infinite8s 10y ago
    I wasn't trying to say that climate change would be as catastrophic as a meteorite strike - just that maybe the reason no one is talking about the benefits of dramatic climate change because there aren't any?
- toasterlovin 10y ago
  Winter generally supports less life than the warmer seasons. In colder parts of the world, it is a season to be survived. Surely, if winters were shorter and milder, there would be some benefits, no?
  - infinite8s 10y ago
    What makes you think winters will be milder? Researchers believe that climate change will lead to more massive winter storms in areas that before had mild winters. https://thinkprogress.org/why-big-blizzards-in-winter-dont-disprove-global-warming-9fdd41e71f0b#.8lod72y6n https://thinkprogress.org/why-big-blizzards-in-winter-dont-d...
    - toasterlovin 10y ago
      Perhaps I'm using the wrong word, but by milder winters, I meant warmer winters. The article you link to points out how increased moisture in the atmosphere will lead to more extreme snow storms in below-freezing areas, but acknowledges that winters will be warmer in general (just not enough warmer to get those below-freezing areas above freezing, which would result in rainstorms instead or snow storms).

eli_gottlieb 10y ago

>Much of the left seems to view climate change as a crime that humans commit against nature. This view seems as morally blind to me as the right's view that God gave humankind the Earth to have dominion over. The objective view is that the activities of humans are changing the climate, and the effects are X, Y, and Z. Changing the climate is not wrong because it makes an anthropomorphized Mother Nature shed a tear, but because X, Y, and Z are harmful to animal and plant life, including us humans. As a leftist, I want climate change addressed because fully automated luxury communism is going to require a technological base, of the kind we can't create or maintain if the ecosystem collapses out from under us, the fossil fuels run out, we can no longer run what we need without downgrading to human and animal labor, and a mass extinction occurs while everyone's working a lot harder.

haberman 10y ago
What you say isn't the same as my admittedly extreme "Mother Nature sheds a tear." But a phrase like "the ecosystem collapses out from under us" implies that climate change is a total and unambiguous attack on "the ecosystem." This is the assumption that I often feel is inadequately justified. For example, CO2 is used for photosynthesis in plants. This Nature article concludes: > Under elevated CO2 most plant species show higher rates of photosynthesis, increased growth, decreased water use and lowered tissue concentrations of nitrogen and protein. Rising CO2 over the next century is likely to affect both agricultural production and food quality. The effects of elevated CO2 are not uniform; some species, particularly those that utilize the C4 variant of photosynthesis, show less of a response to elevated CO2 than do other types of plants. Rising CO2 is therefore likely to have complex effects on the growth and composition of natural plant communities. http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/effects-of-rising-atmospheric-concentrations-of-carbon-13254108 http://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/effects-of-... When articles and arguments acknowledge both positive and negative effects of something, I trust them more.
- flukus 10y ago
  Plants are adapted to the climate they are in and aren't known for their mobility. Temperatures increasing and rainfall patterns changing have huge effects. Sure those plant in the amazon might theoretically grow faster with more CO2, but no rain means the amazon disappears.
- eli_gottlieb 10y ago
  > What you say isn't the same as my admittedly extreme "Mother Nature sheds a tear." But a phrase like "the ecosystem collapses out from under us" implies that climate change is a total and unambiguous attack on "the ecosystem." This is the assumption that I often feel is inadequately justified. It doesn't matter if there's any concept of an attack, as such. If, for instance, the pollinators of our food crops go extinct, then our food crops will suffer a die-off and we will go hungry.
mangeletti 10y ago
Out of curiosity, I have some questions about the "luxury communism" idea (I've heard of it a few times, sometimes maybe worded differently - I picture something like the ship on Wall-E): What leverage will people (leftists?) use to ensure access to "fully automated luxury communism"? For instance, what if those who claim ownership of the means say "no"? Will those people use force? If so, what weapons will they use? I'm having trouble understanding how this scenario will play out exactly. If the answer is that they will simply create the luxury communism on their own, then why haven't they done that already (it would be so cool to see something like the ship from Wall-E)? I mean, what will have changed, and through what means would such a change be forced?
- infinite8s 10y ago
  If you really want to know, Marx had a thing to say about that. He viewed capitalism as the 'necessary evil' to get economic production to the point where socialism was possible.
  - mangeletti 10y ago
    I've read the Communist Manifesto. I'm just curious about how this transition will take place. It's easy to suppose that those with means (which also tend to be those with weapons) will resist this, even to the point of taking their money elsewhere (divesting from e.g. US markets, etc.), and this pattern could keep repeating until there aren't enough moves left for all of those with means. At that point, is there a war between those with means / food / weapons and those who have nothing, because the money left them behind? Here's what I think will happen. The same people (Buffet, etc.) that tricked everyone into thinking something like "luxury communism" would ever happen will have everyone virtual reality and Soylent, and call that "luxury communism". If you think otherwise, than ask yourself why they don't give their own money to you now. But, I don't think these people will literally hand everyone this VR and Soylent. I think they'll trick everyone into believing they've achieved "luxury communism" with a "basic income" (read: "printed money", lest we forget where the means will come from), and then inflation will reduce the value of this income and the need for better efficiency will force the population into VR and Soylent.

yongjik 10y ago

I don't know what purpose it will serve. In addition to distracting the main point with minutiae, it will merely serve as a basis for "See? Even scientists say climate change may be good!" But since you asked, here's one actual benefit of climate change: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_shipping_routes https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arctic_shipping_routes I'm sure there are others, but I'm too lazy to look up.

haberman 10y ago
A scientist's job is to study the world as it is. If a scientist decides that the information must be filtered to represent only one side so that I will reach the "right" conclusions, I will distrust what the scientist tells me, and look further to get the full picture.
- yongjik 10y ago
  That's an awful way of describing the current state. A scientist discussing the public health effect of Zika virus has no obligation to discuss potential benefit to competing tourist locations: it's simply not pertinent to the research they are doing. If any hotel manager in Rome thinks they may get more reservations, they're free to research and make predictions using their resources. If you want to learn about potential benefits of global warming, you're free to search for it, and it's not like scientists are suppressing the information: here we have a nice chart with a dozen potential benefits [1]. It's just that most scientists think "Greenland may make more money catching cods" is just not worth mentioning, in a press release where you get a few sentences to discuss ecological collapse in the oceans, never mind an individual paragraph for Arctic North Atlantic. Also keep in mind that there's a multi-billion-dollar industry very interested in everyone knowing how global warming may benefit themselves... and so far all they've dug up were lame platitudes like "Don't you like warm weather?" [1] https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-negatives-intermediate.htm https://www.skepticalscience.com/global-warming-positives-ne...
  - haberman 10y ago
    > A scientist discussing the public health effect of Zika virus has no obligation to discuss potential benefit to competing tourist locations: it's simply not pertinent to the research they are doing. A better analogy would be if some small percentage of people infected with Zika gained some benefit, like resistance to HIV. That would absolutely be pertinent information that the scientist should report.

infinite8s 10y ago

How would you positively describe an impending comet strike on the planet? Sometimes there are situations in which there is absolutely no positive benefit.

haberman 10y ago
I don't think climate change is comparable to an impending comet strike on the planet. If you argue that it is, I'm going to distrust you unless you can make a pretty compelling case about it.
- infinite8s 10y ago
  I wasn't trying to say that climate change would be as catastrophic as a meteorite strike - just that maybe the reason no one is talking about the benefits of dramatic climate change because there aren't any?
toasterlovin 10y ago
Winter generally supports less life than the warmer seasons. In colder parts of the world, it is a season to be survived. Surely, if winters were shorter and milder, there would be some benefits, no?
- infinite8s 10y ago
  What makes you think winters will be milder? Researchers believe that climate change will lead to more massive winter storms in areas that before had mild winters. https://thinkprogress.org/why-big-blizzards-in-winter-dont-disprove-global-warming-9fdd41e71f0b#.8lod72y6n https://thinkprogress.org/why-big-blizzards-in-winter-dont-d...
  - toasterlovin 10y ago
    Perhaps I'm using the wrong word, but by milder winters, I meant warmer winters. The article you link to points out how increased moisture in the atmosphere will lead to more extreme snow storms in below-freezing areas, but acknowledges that winters will be warmer in general (just not enough warmer to get those below-freezing areas above freezing, which would result in rainstorms instead or snow storms).