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All the climate change i hear about is a change for the worse. Are there any places on earth where the change will be for the better? We've had pretty mild summ
by chasd00 5y ago
All the climate change i hear about is a change for the worse. Are there any places on earth where the change will be for the better? We've had pretty mild summers in TX for the past 5 or so years. If that's due to climate change then great, i'll just live here.
- crackercrews 5y agoYes, many more people die of cold than of heat. Global warming will likely save a couple hundred thousand lives per year in this regard. [1] 1: https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-natural-disasters-ahr-river-flood-germany-wildfire-risks-11628177742 https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-natural-disaster... edit: added "in this regard". Did not mean to suggest that we know how all of the implications of global warming pan out.
- IntrepidWorm 5y agoAt the cost of horrific hurricanes in the tropical and subtropical regions. Locally there may be effects seen as beneficial, but globally it's looking to be a downhill slide.
- takeda 5y agoA lot of people who also think about it politically forgetting that it will also increase migrant crisises. As things get unhabitable people will be migrating. This will apply to the southern border of US.
- crackercrews 5y agoGP acknowledged that there are many bad things but asked if there were also good thing. I was only answering that question. I was not claiming that it is good on balance.
- soperj 5y agohasn't there actually been less horrific hurricanes instead of more? There's been one cat 5 that's hit the US since 2005.
- freen 5y agoWet Bulb temperature above 35C is deadly no matter how much water or shade you have. If the global average increases over 1.5C, most of the tropics will experience prolonged deadly heat. https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/08/global-heating-tropical-regions-human-livability https://www.theguardian.com/science/2021/mar/08/global-heati...
- whoaisme 5y agoYeah it's not as if Texas was frozen over helpless and without power not too long ago
- oliv__ 5y agoThe freeze would've been pleasant if it weren't for the power failure
- Afforess 5y agoNo, it wasn't. I had power the entire time and I had to help neighbors whose vehicles would not start and deal with dangerous roads. No one in Texas has the correct winter tires and cities lack the infrastructure to clear the roads quickly. It was dangerous, not pleasant, even with electricity.
- fzzzy 5y agoWinter tires can't really help on ice. Source: live in michigan.
- elevenoh 5y agowot!? regular tires are terrifying on ice. source: canadian
- AuryGlenz 5y agoAs a Minnesotan I concur, but most people don’t put winter tires on. It’s infuriating. For those not in the know, the rubber is formulated to be softer at cold temperatures. Summer/performance tires get ridiculously hard and all-season tires are “meh” at best.
- fzzzy 5y agoAnd winter tires are just as terrifying on ice.
- 5y ago
- ornornor 5y agoI doubt you’ll be able to comfortably watch the rest of the world burn from there.
- jdavis703 5y agoRussia is supposed to be nicer. Some people believe it’ll become the bread basket of the world if climate change continues unabated.
- tootie 5y agoAnd it will likely open the Arctic ocean for much shorter shipping lanes from Russia to Canada.
- dv_dt 5y agoI think that’s a simplistic view of it. As far as I’ve followed along, Russia has been having droughts and mega fires which tend to be incompatible with high crop yields.
- sgillen 5y agoWell I believe the droughts and wildfires are not really occurring in Siberia, which is the area I think some are speculating will become a breadbasket. Edit: I was wrong.
- 3327 5y agoThere are unprecedented wild fires in siberia. What are you talking about!
- wiredearp 5y agoPerhaps they argue for this case over in https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/16/magazine/russia-climate-migration-crisis.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/12/16/magazine/russ.... I haven't read the article, I just keep the bookmark around.
- kzrdude 5y agoPeople will complain if you put any change in positive terms. But of course there are upsides and silver linings. I won't get into some contentious discussion, but let's just say it's more and more viable to grow and produce wine in Denmark, which is on its own a positive thing. So that's just one example of a positive change.
- jdavis703 5y agoBut at the same time it’s becoming impossible to grow wine in California due to smoke taint and increasing fire insurance premiums. When folks are loosing what was once a nice climate, it’s not of comfort that some foreign land with strict immigration rules is getting a better climate.
- kzrdude 5y agoMy comment was not provided for comfort - not much to find in this topic - just for conversation and exchanging ideas :)
- BitwiseFool 5y agoYeah, commenters here aren't taking the spirit of the question into account. Overall, climate change has substantial negative impacts, yes. But not literally everything will be worse because of it. The GP was just curious about what might end up being better - and not trying to justify climate change using those examples.
- groby_b 5y agoYou're taking about destabilising a global-spanning system with tremendous energies. No, there's no "change for the better" I mean, the cold y'all had this winter was possibly climate change, so you have that to look forward to. Likely worse wildfires, too. East Texas will get higher humidity. So... probably not too nice.
- gtfoutttt 5y agoThe issue is the warming planet isn't only causing a change in weather for various areas. Yeah for example the Arctic is getting a bit warmer. Which sounds like a good thing. But the warming up of the sea and atmosphere is giving more energy potential to our weather systems. So every hurricane season, tornado season, fire season, monsoonal season, etc is getting worse and worse. And there's no such thing as isolated climate. That extra energy in the system is world wide, which is really bad for most of us. There may be places that have slight benefits, sure. But the worldwide negative effects cancel those out IMO.
- IntrepidWorm 5y agoLets not forget that the thawing of the permafrost in the arctic has significant environmental impact on greenhouse gases such as methane.
- refurb 5y agoDo you have data showing that every hurricane, tornado, fire and monsoon season is “getting worse and worse”?
- another_story 5y agoThis is something which you can easily check yourself. We shouldn't expect people to make citations for statements which can be verified by typing the exact question into a search engine.
- refurb 5y agoThat’s not how this works at all. You don’t get to make claims and then tell people they should go find supporting evidence themselves.
- treis 5y ago>But the warming up of the sea and atmosphere is giving more energy potential to our weather systems. So every hurricane season, tornado season, fire season, monsoonal season, etc is getting worse and worse. Global warming is adding somewhere between 0.3 and 0.5% more energy to the system. It's a neglible amount of energy for the overall system. What it does is change the equilibrium of a complex system. Things are going to be different. Not necessarily more intense across the board.
- trophycase 5y agoIs this the new anti climate change meme? I saw nearly this exact post on the last climate change article about fires or something.
- tuatoru 5y agoNot exactly new. It's the old misunderstanding/deliberately dense denier point of "global warming would mean everything will be just as it is now, just a degree or two warmer." Yeah, nah. It doesn't work like that.
- johnchristopher 5y agoI used to have a personal list of stages but can't find it at the moment. Denying it's a problem/claiming it's a good thing is not the last one though. But: 1. Deny the Problem Exists 2. Deny We're the Cause 3. Deny It's a Problem 4. Deny We can Solve It 5. It's too Late 5b. And it's the fault of doom prophets who scared us into denying it (it's a mechanism to resist stress) and should have communicated better. https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97-per-cent/2013/sep/16/climate-change-contrarians-5-stages-denial https://www.theguardian.com/environment/climate-consensus-97...
- lamontcg 5y agoTexas is predicted to go from 60 dangerous heat days per year to 115 heat days per year by 2050. I doubt that's a good thing. And 5 years isn't enough to establish what the trend is, a countercyclical trend for 5 year can happen by random or via any of the multidecadal climate cycles.
- hncurious 5y agoThere is no way to predict that. We can't even predict how many there will be this year or the next 5 years, let alone decades from now.
- lnwlebjel 5y agoThis is the difference between climate and weather. You can very easily predict that there will be on average x amount of days over, say, 100 deg. Predicting which days, however, is not really possible.
- theli0nheart 5y agoWhere’s your source for this?
- Diederich 5y agoPutting more energy into a meta-stable chaotic system will greatly increase the number of extremes across the board. Models and forecasts are currently mostly focused on how the various averages are trending, which is fine and useful. It's most correct to plan around every location getting more wet, more dry, more hot, more cold, more storms and more droughts.
- treis 5y ago>Putting more energy into a meta-stable chaotic system will greatly increase the number of extremes across the board This doesn't really track. We're talking about adding less than 1% increase in energy.
- eximius 5y ago> chaotic system
- treis 5y agoWhat exactly is your point?
- wbsss4412 5y agoA chaotic system is generally defined to mean one in which small changes to the inputs lead to large variations in the outputs. So your reply noting that it’s only a 1% change doesn’t contradict the previous statements.
- treis 5y ago>A chaotic system is generally defined to mean on in which small changes to the inputs lead to large variations in the outputs. A large variation, yes. A direct relationship between a small increase in input and a corresponding large increase in a specific output, no.
- mempko 5y agoTexas Power Grid laughs.
- mempko 5y agoTexas Power Grid
- long_time_gone 5y ago==We've had pretty mild summers in TX for the past 5 or so years.== The same Texas where hundreds of people froze to death in February? Seems like there has been some extreme weather.
- cableshaft 5y agoTexas is most likely fucked long-term. You can probably get away with living there another 10-15 years (total guess, some things could happen which could kick off some positive feedback loops sooner than that), but I wouldn't buy any housing there and maybe start looking further north before everyone else does and housing prices skyrocket.
- refurb 5y agoMakes perfect sense when Arizona is 20F warmer on average than TX during the summer and yet people seem to live there fine.
- JKCalhoun 5y agoAZ has been allowing for their climate (with regard to water) since 1974. Texans will have to move fast.
- JKCalhoun 5y agoFortunately (?) people are dumb and the rush will happen at the last minute.
- cableshaft 5y agoI think the northern migration will start at a trickle, slowly start increasing but still slow enough people don't really notice, and then suddenly and without much warning become a flood. Just need to make sure you sneak in before that flood, but if you try to time it just right you'll probably wait too long and be in the same situation as everyone else.
- elevenoh 5y agoShill me your housing bag, whereabouts?
- cableshaft 5y agoI own a home in the Chicago region right now (not the city itself). It'll probably fare better than Texas but if the Earth warms up 2-3 degrees Celsius it's probably not going to be a good idea to stay here either. Much more than that and it probably doesn't matter where I go. I would like to sell it and move further north in the next 5-7 years myself, hopefully, probably either Wisconsin or Michigan, near the Great Lakes. The decision isn't 100% up to me, though, as I'm married. We have been talking about it, though.
- v77 5y agoThe Canadian Prairies are getting warmer and forecasted to have a longer/more productive growing seasons although a bad drought this year isn't encouraging.
- marcosdumay 5y agoOur society is highly optimized to the current climate. Any change is for the worse.
- ClumsyPilot 5y agoThis what people fail to grasp - if you move where deserts, forests and rivers are, even if you loose nothing 'net', now your city is in in the desert, has no fresh water, the suer system doesnt work because the ocean level is higher, and all you infrastructure needs to be rebuilt
- prawn 5y agoDoesn't even have to change a great deal. Been watching real estate in regional towns where I live in Australia and places that are somewhat dry now but at risk of getting drier/hotter are full of cheap houses struggling to sell. Everyone's thinking the same thing about the prospects of that town in 10-20 years, and it's on top of the usual plight of small country towns.
- jopsen 5y agoNature general adapts though evolution... So any large scale changes to our eco-system will likely have negative effects short term. Notice that "short term" in nature is probably a very long time for a human :)
- usrusr 5y agoLong even for a humanity
- cproctor 5y agoClimate resiliency was a primary factor in our decision to move last year to western New York. Farmland, fresh water, and not too hot. Check out Figure 10 in the linked report... http://uploads.oneregionforward.org/content/uploads/2015/01/Resilient-Buffalo-Niagara.pdf http://uploads.oneregionforward.org/content/uploads/2015/01/...
- mikewarot 5y agoLooks like you'll be growing peaches, pecans and Vidalia onions in a few decades, yikes!
- cproctor 5y agoActually, Niagara County is surprisingly temperate--warmer and much less snowy than Buffalo and the south towns. It's been famous for apples, pears, and stone fruit since the 19th century; we even have some vineyards. But yeah, maybe we'll add figs and bananas.
- kevin_thibedeau 5y agoWNY isn't completely immune. A drought five years ago killed the corn crop. Long term stats are only updated every ten years and we only just switched over to data including 2010-2020.
- paganel 5y ago> But yeah, maybe we'll add figs and bananas. Give it a few years. I live in Bucharest (Romania), located at ~45 Northern latitude, and I’ve first started seeing fig trees around here about 10 years ago. In the last few years I’ve started seeing more and more of them, so much so that I’ve started taking photos of almost all of them and I’m thinking of putting those photos on a map and exporting the geo-locations somewhere on GitHub in a .kml or geo-json file for other people to look at.
- prawn 5y agoThey grow like weeds in most places I've seen!
- elevenoh 5y agoGreat Lakes area (Toronto etc.) supposed to benefit.
- HWR_14 5y ago> pretty mild summers in TX for the past 5 or so years. If that's due to climate change then great, i'll just live here. There have been two weather related massive grid failures in Texas this year so far. I would not want to live there as climate change intensifies. The winters are going to suck.
- TeeMassive 5y agoYes. Nordic countries like Russia and Canada will benefit the most, especially considering the opening of maritime routes and the easier exploitation of natural sources that were usually locked up under ice or permafrost.
- prawn 5y agoWould mosquitoes become a major hassle in those areas? I understand they're already bad for part of the year.
- BiteCode_dev 5y agoExtreem changes in a system deeply adapted to a current situation is always a problem, that's why you hear mostly about the down and not the up. Slow or local changes are ok because life adapts nicely. Brutal or global changes will also see adaptation, but will cause much pain and damages. Moving a cristal glass on a few yards or meters at the average speed of 4 miles or km an hour may be fine for the glass or not, depending if your speed is mostly constant, or not. If you move the glass excrucingly slowly first, of throw it brutally at the last inch/cm, it will be bad for the glass. You won't hear about the good stories about this, because there are not aligned with the nature if the situation.
- TurningCanadian 5y agoLet's say the weather gets better in one place due to climate change. Isn't that nice. You have that on the one hand. On the other hand, there are big risks inherent to change. You don't get to pick just the good parts of climate change. Spitballing here: risks to food stability from droughts, fires, etc. Some areas no longer economically support farming. Other areas open up but aren't as productive, so food is a bigger part of your budget and might be subject to disruption. Political risks: displaced people start eyeing the habitable places and find ways to make life miserabile unless they're let in. Costs of the disruption while everyone tries to adapt weigh on the economy and make the products/services you take for granted today more expensive or unavailable. Your children (or others that you care about) will have to deal with even worse. And things don't stop getting worse until greenhouse gas emissions are dealt with. The mentality of looking at the silver lining while ignoring the rest is wrong on so many obvious levels.