Could the benefits of global warming outweigh the disadvantages?
There has been a huge amount of research effort put into this. Check out the IPCC’s working group on Impacts, Adaption & Mitigation: http://www.ipcc.ch Generally they conclude that up to 2C warming above preindustrial levels (we’ve had about 0.8C so far) is beneficial to humans overall. Without action, we’re likely heading for 3-4C+ warming. Even if we cut CO2 as much as we could, we’d still see a little more warming before stabilisation; we wouldn’t swing back into an ice age any time soon.
You skeptic you, sorry couldn’t help it. But considering that the Medieval Warming Period saw both plants and animals around a 100 miles further north then they can currently grow, I would say that we have lived during warmer climates. Also, if you take into account that some type of humanoid form has been around for around 6 million years or so, we have survived other warm periods and cool periods including ice ages.
Of course it is possible that global warming could be helping us avoid a major cool down that could come in the near future. Remeber in the 1970’s they were much more afraid that we were headed into a deep global cooling cycle. I can remember people being afraid that crop land would be lost because of growing areas being pushed much further south. Cold harsh winters that would last several months. People were all in an uproar about it at the time. In southwest missouri at the time it would just snow and snow. The wind would blow so bad that you couldn’t see from the white out. Cold cold artic air that you couldn’t go outside for very long unless you had several layers of clothes on. Now we don’t get those bad artic blasts. I can also remember several times of florida losing orange crops because the cold was able to reach south florida and ruin crops. Personally I would be much more afraid of a global cooling cycle than I would of a global warming one. I just remembered. One year in the
