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In much more primitive societies. Again what scientifically demonstrated (not speculated) consequences of climate change are you worried we can't deal with when
by ThomPete 8y ago
In much more primitive societies. Again what scientifically demonstrated (not speculated) consequences of climate change are you worried we can't deal with when it happens?
- SketchySeaBeast 8y agoI think that millions of people running out of water due to glaciers disappearing could be a bit of an issue that will, at the very least cause massive social problems. How much of North America is reliant on glacier waters?
- ThomPete 8y agoAnd this has been scientifically demonstrated or are you speculating? When will this happen?
- SketchySeaBeast 8y agoYes, the glaciers are disappearing. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-rocky-mountains-largest-glaciers-are-melting-with-little-fanfare/ https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-rocky-mountai... https://abcnews.go.com/International/canadas-glaciers-shrink-70-percent-study/story?id=30140031 https://abcnews.go.com/International/canadas-glaciers-shrink... https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warming/big-thaw/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/global-warmin... https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/11/us-glacier-national-park-is-losing-its-glaciers-with-just-26-of-150-left https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/may/11/us-glaci... https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/earth-ice-melting-glaciers-disappearing-glacier-los-glaciares-national-park-us-geological-survey-a7730466.html https://www.independent.co.uk/environment/earth-ice-melting-... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_glaciers_since_1850 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Retreat_of_glaciers_since_1850
- ThomPete 8y agoYes, they are and they have been doing that before. But that was not the claim you made. You said it affect our ability to get water.
- saagarjha 8y agoMillions of people around the world use glaciers to get their drinking water. It's pretty easy to see that those disappearing would affect their ability to get water.
- ThomPete 8y agoWe can deal with that so while it might effect it that doesn't mean they won't be able to get access to water. That's one thing we've become better and better at making drinkable.
- saagarjha 8y agoMaking it harder to get water that we previously got for free is not a great solution. Making drinkable water or moving it fundamentally requires time, energy, and money.
- ThomPete 8y agoWe've never gotten water for free. All resources come at a cost. The water in your tap is not free. Again. Please try and stop just for a minute and rethink your position.
- saagarjha 8y ago> The water in your tap is not free. But it sure is a lot cheaper than trying to desalinate the ocean water next to me. > Please try and stop just for a minute and rethink your position. On what? I am struggling to see your argument here. We have an issue that you are claiming doesn't need to be solved, and are trying to convince people to ignore, and I am repeatedly providing you with evidence that there is this is a real issue that at the very least would have some impact on us. Trying to "fix" the issues we cause 50 years in the future is going to be much, much more difficult than trying to improve today.
- Jach 8y agoMass starvation, mass dehydration, yes those are big concerns. But they can be overcome. For water, for instance, desalination exists, as do pipes, as do pumps. It would be expensive, someone's gotta pay for it -- what are millions of lives worth? But it's a reasonably well-defined engineering solution that doesn't require new technology or better understanding of the sciences to create e.g. atmosphere scrubbers or whatever. I'm biased as an engineer, big engineering projects seem a lot more feasible than international political ones. If those political ones are backed by threat of war, that's also a lot more worrying to me on the prospect of ways the planet can be rendered uninhabitable.
- baxtr 8y agoHave you looked into the environmental effects of desalination? https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/01/desalination-plants-produce-twice-as-much-waste-brine-as-thought/ https://www.nationalgeographic.com/environment/2019/01/desal...
- irrational 8y agoI don't eat seafood, but a lot of people around the world rely on it as a primary food source. Warm water cannot hold as much oxygen as cold water. We can already see that seafood populations are plummeting dramatically.
- ThomPete 8y agoThere are many other reasons that affect that not the least fishing.
- BLKNSLVR 8y agoPointing to one problem doesn't mean the other problems don't exist. Multiple problems will have a multiplier effect on each other. If there are five different reasons for fish population decline, and one of them gets worse, then the others may become magnified. If commercial fishing is governed by quotas then if there are fewer fish in the sea due to population decline reason 1, then "overfishing" will become a worse problem without re-adjustment of fishing quotas. Re-adjustment of fishing quotas won't happen if there's a prevailing attitude of "we can deal with dwindling fish populations".
- ThomPete 8y agoNo one said that. I was responding to claim that made it about that when it's clearly about a lot of other things and thus the argument isn't as clear cut as it was attempted.
- BLKNSLVR 8y agoNot sure where the other guy said it was clear cut. He merely stated some facts about what happens to water when it gets warmer - scientific facts, like what you've been asking for. The backhanded good news is that with fish populations declining, there doesn't need to be as much oxygen in the water...
- thinkcontext 8y agoSome places, like the US, can afford to pay substantial amounts for mitigation. It can build a lot of seawalls and desalination plants and probably even relocate Miami (or at least some of it). Other places like Bangladesh, cannot. Its per capita GDP is 2.5% of the US's, is incredibly low lying and incredibly densely populated. A 3 foot rise in sea level would displace 30 million people [0]. That would make Syria's refugee crisis look like peanuts, its hard to imagine it occurring without millions dying and a regional war. Would this be considered something we can deal with? [0] https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-unfolding-tragedy-of-climate-change-in-bangladesh/ https://blogs.scientificamerican.com/guest-blog/the-unfoldin...
- ThomPete 8y agoYes, of course, we can deal with it. Just like we have done in the developed countries.
- BLKNSLVR 8y agoBecause look how well the Syria thing has worked out? I think you have a problem seeing the scale of humanity that could be affected, and the scale of engineering and infrastructure effort would be required to support relocating 30 million people. Bangladesh doesn't have the money to do it, and the US will be too busy working on the Mexico wall. Unless of course you're only concerned about the species surviving, rather than a large percentage of the population surviving. Even if we know what a solution is, there's an ocean separating knowing a solution from implementing a solution.