Could the benefits of global warming outweigh the disadvantages?
The coral reefs are starting to die from ocean warming and acidification. We’re seeing increased incidences of massive “dead zones” in the ocean. Millions of acres of ponderosa and lodgepole pine forests in Montana have died during the past 3-4 years. These are startling events so soon in the process. We do know the true consequences from several past earth warmings. Huge percentages of all species on the planet died. Look up the Permian-Triassic Extinction. Scientists have provided a conservative estimate for the number of species comitted to extinction by 2100 as over 30% of all species, but other studies point out that the earth is likely to continue warming through the year 3000 simply due to thepersistence of today’s carbon releases into the air, so the final tally could well be far higher.
Well a mini ice age is not a benefit it would cause mass starvation. Also if by causing global warming we cause an ice age it would get colder and colder and would not longer be a mini ice age. As the ice caps (which are melting too much currently) start freezing up too much (beyond what is natural) more heat would be reflected and more ice would freeze and so on. Yes your right some of it is unpredictable depending on what you want to prove. If you say that global warming will cause an ice age, you can prove that. If you want to also say how much global warming must take place and for how long you can’t prove that.
You won’t get a straight answer to this question because the effects of a warming earth are not clearly understood. This allows a lot of leeway to only report the most extreme of scenarios thus allowing the disadvantages to rise to the top and the advantages to be virtually buried in the noise. In case you haven’t noticed, the people running the AGW circus believe that pushing people with frightening scenarios is the only way to overcome the inertia of apathy. They do this for our own good, don’t you know. The film An Inconvient Truth is a good example of that and unfortunately that’s about the only “climate science” a lot people are basing their opinion on. ***********From the Ottawa Mike Theatre Company**************** Dullard: But won’t warming bring longer growing seasons and more crops” AGW Ring Master: Yes that is true. But it won’t be much good if there is 10 year drought and feilds are consumed by the ocean levels rising and Category 6 hurricanes are making landfall every two w
There certainly could be some beneficial changes – wheat yields in Canada and the northwest passage for examples. But we are already seeing some bad things. In the Western US, snow-pack is reduced. With higher temperatures and more rain, we get more run-off. The western states depend on the snow-pack to store water for the summer and there is no way to capture the water that runs-off early. Reduced snow-pack means less water for drinking and agriculture: very bad. We have already seen a doubling of heat waves (4+ days of excessive heat) in the past 50 years, and people die in heat waves (Europe 2003, Chicago 1995). Ultimately, where we now live, farm, gather and store water, have all been determined during rather stable climate in the history of man. We are getting more category 4 and 5 hurricanes, and more torrential rain storms. Any extreme weather is bad. We have seen civilizations destroyed by even the very slow natural climate changes; warming as rapid as we have now will cause ma
