6 ms·

I believe in climate change, however, I'm not sure what the big deal is. It is a natural byproduct of increasing prosperity. Humanity can cope with the effects,

• bicubic 10y ago
  > Humanity can cope with the effects, and do so with relative ease. While humanity will cope in the sense that the species will probably go on existing, the current human population of this planet only exists because a large number of ecological parameters are within the sweet spot. Anything that disrupts global food supply, anything that disrupts fresh water supply, will kill billions of people in a matter of decades. Rising sea levels will displace a moderate percentage of our population and be the catalyst for a new round of wars, but the real danger lies in the fact that we're in the middle of a major extinction event that's increasingly likely to leave most of the population in starvation.
  • bedhead 10y ago
    Your mind has been poisoned and I genuinely pity you.
    • Daishiman 10y ago
      So you're here to troll, really. You have a "belief", completely unfounded and unjustified, and you think it's better than what's being understood by science at its pinnacle. Brilliant, really.
• jcfrei 10y ago
  > Humanity can cope with the effects, and do so with relative ease. People in the richer countries most likely. The main concern with climate change are the effects on poorer countries in Southeast Asia.
  • marcosdumay 10y ago
    > People in the richer countries most likely. Why do people here always say that? Are you expecting the consequences of Global Warming to follow some predictable pattern? Or that previously existing capital will suffice to fight long-lasting changes? I can't imagine any of the above being true. Maybe for a short while, but not on the long term.
    • jcfrei 10y ago
      I'm saying that people in richer countries will feel the effects of global warming less - not saying the effects of global warming will be small. A few reasons are: Fewer people live close to the coast. We spend relatively speaking less money on food, so we can more easily afford higher prices. More advanced agriculture can better adapt to higher temperatures. Stable governments can more effectively change and enforce policies, etc.
      • marcosdumay 10y ago
        I grant you that stable governments can help. Overall, I was trying to point that the planet changing may cause rich countries to stop being rich. You sped less on food today, but if you are unlucky and food prices go up, the extra expending can easily descapitalize you.
    • MagnumOpus 10y ago
      > Or that previously existing capital will suffice to fight long-lasting changes This. The Netherlands has been fighting high sea levels, and winning, for centuries. Rich places like NYC and the SF Bay can do so as well. And of course: If food is only 15% of your disposable income, a doubling of global food prices is a nuisance; if it is 60%, a doubling of prices sends your family into starvation.
• nitrogen 10y ago
  Rising sea levels will swallow major coastal cities, not just "beach homes". Entire island nations will cease to exist. Acidifying oceans are destroying marine ecosystems necessary for generating food and oxygen for the rest of the planet. Rising temperatures might cause the release of frozen methane from ocean floor deposits and arctic permafrost. Methane accelerates greenhouse warming. Melting ice could dilute the salt balance that drives major ocean currents and plunge Europe into an ice age while the planet bakes. People are alarmed because the Titanic of society is cruising calmly toward an iceberg, and it takes an awfully long time to change direction, and no amount of technological advancement can swallow trillions of dollars in floods, droughts, famines, and barren seas.
  • dragonwriter 10y ago
    > Rising sea levels will swallow major coastal cities, not just "beach homes". Perhaps more importantly, rising sea levels mean salinity intruding on inland fresh water supplies and low-lying agricultural land, literally salting the earth.
  • chrshawkes 10y ago
    My only question is what caused ice ages and warming periods in the past? I understand humans treat their host terribly... but what about all continents being on a Pangaea? Terrible things have happened to the Earth in the past and I'm pretty sure it had nothing to do with Humans.
• rapind 10y ago
  Oh those silly scientists and their never ending fear mongering.
• elorant 10y ago
  Humanity can cope with the effects, and do so with relative ease. Don't assume that all countries have the same resources. Two thirds of the world population live in developing countries. How exactly will they cope with the effects of climate change remains to be seen.
• Daishiman 10y ago
  See, your problem here is that you consider climate change something you can believe in or not, and consider it as such. But facts and climate processes have no such bias and our understanding of these phenomena have increased greatly in the past decades. Here's the thing: the fearmongering is not only justified, it is underplayed. What do you think will happen to the planet when the climate patterns are taken out of a system of stable equilibrium? What happens when the ocean's acidity level crosses the historical threshold under which most of the oxygen-generating plankton on this planet has existed for hundreds of thousands of years? I'm sorry, but belief has nothing to do with it. We understand very well what the impact on each individual ecosystem this will have, and we have a fairly good idea that the negative interactions amongst each other are going to be even worse. Recent interviews with most climate scientists have shown that most are seriously depressed, and many have been literally contemplating suicide, or decided to not have children. And these are people who don't have any sort of political agenda in play and would rather live in a reasonably safe and sound world. The fundamental political problem is that people have difficulty understanding exponential phenomena. Climate change has been very much exponential given the increase in carbon in the atmosphere, and it has been predicted for a long time that the feedback cycles are going to be accelerating things more and more. Well, we're finally there. A ton of coral reef ecosystems are dying, most coastal ecosystems have changed because of ocean acidification. We're starting to see conditions of permanent drought in the Western USA, and so on and so forth for many different systems.
  • awfgylbcxhrey 10y ago
    your problem here is that you consider climate change something you can believe in or not, and consider it as such. GP didn't say anything like that. You're all jumping on him in a strawman beat-down party.
    • Jtsummers 10y ago
      >> your problem here is that you consider climate >> change something you can believe in or not, and >> consider it as such. > GP didn't say anything like that. You're all jumping > on him in a strawman beat-down party. bedhead: I believe in climate change
• debt 10y ago
  It may not be a big deal to you but perhaps future generations might wish we had strongly thought the opposite.
• omegaworks 10y ago
  As colder freshwater flows into the ocean, it has the potential to massively disrupt weather-stabilizing currents. The reason why the Mediterranean stays as warm (and agriculturally productive) as it is year round (while being at the same longitude as DC) is the North Atlantic Current, which has exhibited signs of slowing. The world's food supply is in jeopardy. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Current https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Atlantic_Current
• 7952 10y ago
  Considering all that it is somewhat suprising that most of us have done so very little about it. Everyone still drives, uses lots of dirty energy etc. The argument on both side is all about some abstract position rather than deciding what we should actually do. This is particular pernicious with climate change as it is all so distant. I would rather we focused more on things closer to home with more direct impacts on peoples lives. That diesel engine is not just heating up the atmosphere it is spewing out toxic gas that is slowly poisoning people. The same is true of coal power stations. I want to spend a little of the benefits of prosperity on making my world a little safer and cleaner. It is just good hygeine!
• cygx 10y ago
  While we're talking doomsday scenarios: The Limits to Growth 'standard run' model from the 70s comes with a global collapse mid-century. We're roughly on track...
• KirinDave 10y ago
  > It is a natural byproduct of increasing prosperity. Lots of other people have pointed out flaws in your reasoning and how privileged your perspective is. I just wanted to add to the dogpile discussion by pointing out this is simply absurd. We have LONG since converted the first world to a primarily electric society, and as science advances an electric society becomes ever cheaper and more imaginable. Our fascination with fossil fuel in all things is much more about the control offered to people who hold lands rich in the energy resources we use. We found the use of our friend fire useful early on for portably moving the energy necessary to make mechanical energy, but as time has gone on we've found many viable ways to replace its use. Solar power has been cost effective near the equator since before anyone talking here was born, Shuman worked out the details of a reflection-powered low pressure steam turbine with excellent properties before 1920. You can build a shockingly effective solar engine in your local techshop, if your goal is to make mechanical energy and you aren't too far off the equator. That's 100 year old technology! This idea that a carbon liberation is the norm of industrialization is a fiction sold to you by industrialists who have a scarce resource. Time and time again, we've already shown that industrialization progresses towards REDUCING our notion of waste and INCREASING efficiency, and yet the social discourse is about the inevitability of environmental impact and "recouping R&D costs."
• bedhead 10y ago
  The responses were as grandiose as I expected. Start bashing a religion and the zealots come out in force. Another lamentable issue in all this is that it's become impossible to have a calm, reasoned discussion about any of this. Take anything other than an extreme view and you get shouted down as a luddite.
  • JoeAltmaier 10y ago
    An extreme view like "Even though widespread measurements of our planet indicate rapid, ecologically disastrous change is underway; hey lets do nothing in case it wasn't our fault"? 'Extreme' depends on the particular understanding of the situation I guess.
  • Daishiman 10y ago
    Dude, you're acting like you can't hear the absolutely, completely overwhelming scientific evidence. That makes you, by definition, a luddite. There is literally nothing to debate. No temperature charts that are not showing incredible amounts of energy being concentrated in the atmosphere and the oceans. Nothing that contradicts the incredible amount of CO2 accumulating in the oceans. The prediction of doom is not just a single one; it is an ensemble of dozens of models with multiple, variable parameters that assume great levels of uncertainty, and they still point at the same place. What are you exactly trying to demonstrate? What proof do you have that the overwhelming evidence and the (thus far) very succesful predictions of climate are wrong?
    • bedhead 10y ago
      You will die many years from now, generally prosperous but completely miserable. I pity you and the misery you peddle. It is sad to see minds turn to mush like this.