Global Warming | Fact or Fiction?

[Trey of Diamonds]

I haven't read that book, but from what I've heard previously, 6 degrees of warming means an ice-free world with sea levels about 240 feet higher than present...which would mean a lot less land area available. Modern agriculture would be a thing of the past as there would be no such thing as stable, reliable weather patterns. That would mean a rapid dieoff of our present oversized population. Considering the ensuing wars, disease epidemics, it's a good chance that the human race could end up so weakened and degraded that the survivors would dwindle down to extinction. And what if some of the thousands of nukes still out there were unleashed?

Ok, let me start of by saying I'm not looking for a fight, nor do I totally disagree with you. However, I think that you are mistaken in some of the details. Lets start with total ice melting meaning less land. While you are correct that no ice means higher sea levels and loss of coastal lands. However, it also means that a great deal of currently uninhabital land coverd in ice will be available. Antarctica, for example, could hold a lot of people don't you think?

Reliable weather patterns? Depends on what you mean by reliable. Patterns may change and many ecosystems will be disrupted or completely changed. For example, much of our farm land will become desert. Also for example, much of the Canadian tundra will become farmland. Agriculture will continue although it may be drastically different than today.

Now to the rapid die off. I see this as a possiblity from war or plague, but not climate change directly. People can adapt, its societies and cultures that have a hard time of it. When it becomes obvious that much of the land that is inhabitied is becoming less so, people will want to migrate to areas that are better. This will be the cause of the wars which will be the cause of the die off. But I do not see a possible extinction of the species though. Even if we were to bomb ourselves back to the stone age, all it will take a few hundred thousand survivors to ensure the survival of the human race.

This is why I say I'm not worried about the Earth or even Humanity as a whole. Both will survive and carry on. What is up in the air is at what level of civilization will humanity end up in. It's a very real possiblity that will will end up a bunch of stone age scavengers living off the scraps of our current society.

 

[work in progress]

Ok, let me start of by saying I'm not looking for a fight, nor do I totally disagree with you. However, I think that you are mistaken in some of the details. Lets start with total ice melting meaning less land. While you are correct that no ice means higher sea levels and loss of coastal lands. However, it also means that a great deal of currently uninhabital land coverd in ice will be available. Antarctica, for example, could hold a lot of people don't you think?

There is not enough land in Greenland or the Antarctic to make up for the land that will be lost in an ice-free world. But the big problem is that even in a warmer world, the polar regions have no soil and the land will be close to useless for human habitation....even if we assumed that weather conditions would be suitable for agriculture.

 

[Riverwolf]

I have a solution that might at least partly help.

Just mandate an bi-annual week where nobody can drive cars. Remember during one of the big flu scares that Mexico City had to shut down for a week, and the air got so clean that people were breaking quarantine to breath it? With internet and skype, it's easier to perform jobs from home these days.

There'd be some exceptions, of course. To prevent cities from shutting down, public transportation would still need to be available, and emergency vehicles would still need to operate. I'm sure there's a few other exceptions that I haven't thought of.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

There is not enough land in Greenland or the Antarctic to make up for the land that will be lost in an ice-free world. But the big problem is that even in a warmer world, the polar regions have no soil and the land will be close to useless for human habitation....even if we assumed that weather conditions would be suitable for agriculture.

Greenland and Antarctica sure, but what about Canada and Siberia? Lots of tundra that will become farmable. Plus, the wars you predicted will reduce the number of humans. I see no worries about the survival of the human race as a species. Its the survival of our culture and sociey is more doubtful. Of course, nothing last forever...

 

[Alceste]

Ok, let me start of by saying I'm not looking for a fight, nor do I totally disagree with you. However, I think that you are mistaken in some of the details. Lets start with total ice melting meaning less land. While you are correct that no ice means higher sea levels and loss of coastal lands. However, it also means that a great deal of currently uninhabital land coverd in ice will be available. Antarctica, for example, could hold a lot of people don't you think?

Reliable weather patterns? Depends on what you mean by reliable. Patterns may change and many ecosystems will be disrupted or completely changed. For example, much of our farm land will become desert. Also for example, much of the Canadian tundra will become farmland. Agriculture will continue although it may be drastically different than today.

Now to the rapid die off. I see this as a possiblity from war or plague, but not climate change directly. People can adapt, its societies and cultures that have a hard time of it. When it becomes obvious that much of the land that is inhabitied is becoming less so, people will want to migrate to areas that are better. This will be the cause of the wars which will be the cause of the die off. But I do not see a possible extinction of the species though. Even if we were to bomb ourselves back to the stone age, all it will take a few hundred thousand survivors to ensure the survival of the human race.

This is why I say I'm not worried about the Earth or even Humanity as a whole. Both will survive and carry on. What is up in the air is at what level of civilization will humanity end up in. It's a very real possiblity that will will end up a bunch of stone age scavengers living off the scraps of our current society.

Speaking as a newly minted vegetable gardener, it's not as easy as just picking up and moving all the farmland to the tundra. You can't grow the same crops in the Arctic that you can in temperate zones. The quality and abundance sunlight is a major factor, as is the quality and abundance of soil and precipitation. All there is on the Canadian shield at Northern latitudes is lichen growing on bare rock. It would take years, if not decades, to build up enough soil there to grow anything approaching the scale we currently produce food. And even then we would have to grow something else, that can handle a very short growing season rather than the crops we currently depend on.

If it were a simple matter to grow food on the Canadian shield, we would be doing it already. At the moment, nearly the entirety of the world's arable land is already being used to produce food. (Whatever we had the foresight not to build cities on anyway). Climate change will put these areas out of commission much faster than any replacement areas can be prepared, even if we assume that would be possible.

 

[Alceste]

I haven't read that book, but from what I've heard previously, 6 degrees of warming means an ice-free world with sea levels about 240 feet higher than present...which would mean a lot less land area available. Modern agriculture would be a thing of the past as there would be no such thing as stable, reliable weather patterns. That would mean a rapid dieoff of our present oversized population. Considering the ensuing wars, disease epidemics, it's a good chance that the human race could end up so weakened and degraded that the survivors would dwindle down to extinction. And what if some of the thousands of nukes still out there were unleashed?

Gwynne Dyer is especially concerned about worsening environmental conditions on the Indian Subcontinent, since the land is shared by two large populations that both have nuclear weapons. Both Pakistan and India are depleting available sources of water and have been in conflict since their origins over control of the Kashmir...where the Ganges and other rivers begin from the runoff of Himalayan glaciers. What happens when there long running water disputes turn desperate?

Gwynne Dyer claimed that his Bush Administration sources took climate change seriously, and I wish he had followed up the paradox between the Bush public policy and private discussions by questioning their motives. They obviously did not want to take action to support carbon taxes or even cap and trade schemes, so were they just allowing a catastrophe to occur through their inaction, or was their reactionary strategy part of a deliberate campaign to encourage mass death and destruction, and have plans that an elite of wealthy and well-connected people will be among the survivors.

One of the most likely prognostications for the future I've seen, comes from former CIBC economist - Jeff Rubin, who forsees a future where civilization gradually winds down in the same pattern that it began at the beginning of the age of industrialization. Rubin says we have to factor in the enormous extraction of natural resources during the last 150 years, that make carrying on our present course impossible. Metals, minerals and carbon-based energy sources are all declining in quality, and require more energy for extraction and more waste products left from production. The first casualty Rubin sees of rising energy costs is globalization...Yeah:trampo::bounce As energy costs rise, it becomes more and more costly to produce in China and ship all over the world...even using slave labour! And rising energy prices will make private automobiles disappear off the road again, except for the very wealthy...the first people who were able to afford cars at the turn of the last century.

All in all, it's easy to see how the future will end up looking like the past, as more and more commercial activity has to become re-localized. The future could unwind smoothly if everyone was cooperative....and that's the big problem! As Gwynne Dyer, Christian Parenti, and many other analysts of wars and civil strife have noted, when food becomes scarce, neighbour starts turning on neighbour, and plundering and taking from others. It's hard to say where would be a safe place ahead of such a crisis, since the quite, peaceful idyllic community with plenty of food will be the first place raided as more societies turn into failed states, and just like after the fall of Rome, refugees start wandering out into the countryside looking for food.

People don't necessarily turn on each other. The British dealt with food shortages during WWII by rationing and turning all their green space over to food production.

Cuba faced a huge and abrupt food shortfall when the US cut off access to international shipping, forcing them to establish local resilience practically overnight. The country's arable land was handed over to anybody willing to grow food on it. The Power of Community tells that tale.

During the depression, people didn't mug each other for food. They simply went hungry. The grocery store shelves were filled with food nobody could afford to buy. Many people (especially young men) went looking for better economic conditions - mothers in various communities along the railroad tracks prepared lunches for hobos, hoping that other mothers might do the same for their own sons down the tracks. My grandmother's family fed and sheltered itinerant workers in exchange for labour.

Hard times can bring out the worst in people, but also the best. It's a fact that poor people are more generous than the rich, giving a much higher percentage of their income to charity. Pretty soon we'll all be poor, so it follows we might become more generous too.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

Speaking as a newly minted vegetable gardener, it's not as easy as just picking up and moving all the farmland to the tundra.

Never said it would be easy.

You can't grow the same crops in the Arctic that you can in temperate zones.

And if the climate changes, the arctic will not be arctic anymore.

The quality and abundance sunlight is a major factor, as is the quality and abundance of soil and precipitation.

Growing seasons are a consideration. Soil can be imported though.

All there is on the Canadian shield at Northern latitudes is lichen growing on bare rock. It would take years, if not decades, to build up enough soil there to grow anything approaching the scale we currently produce food. And even then we would have to grow something else, that can handle a very short growing season rather than the crops we currently depend on.

Sure.

If it were a simple matter to grow food on the Canadian shield, we would be doing it already.

Never said it was simple. As to why we aren't doing it now, it isn't possible or necessary. But if the climate changes enough to make the area warmer and the areas we currenly use more arid, then it becomes necessary which in turn makes it more possible.

At the moment, nearly the entirety of the world's arable land is already being used to produce food. (Whatever we had the foresight not to build cities on anyway). Climate change will put these areas out of commission much faster than any replacement areas can be prepared, even if we assume that would be possible.

This will be why the wars start. The wars will reduce the number of people to a more sustainable number.

People don't necessarily turn on each other. The British dealt with food shortages during WWII by rationing and turning all their green space over to food production.

Different time.

Cuba faced a huge and abrupt food shortfall when the US cut off access to international shipping, forcing them to establish local resilience practically overnight. The country's arable land was handed over to anybody willing to grow food on it. The Power of Community tells that tale.

Different place.

During the depression, people didn't mug each other for food. They simply went hungry. The grocery store shelves were filled with food nobody could afford to buy. Many people (especially young men) went looking for better economic conditions - mothers in various communities along the railroad tracks prepared lunches for hobos, hoping that other mothers might do the same for their own sons down the tracks. My grandmother's family fed and sheltered itinerant workers in exchange for labour.

Do you really think the current population of the world will react in this manner?

Hard times can bring out the worst in people, but also the best. It's a fact that poor people are more generous than the rich, giving a much higher percentage of their income to charity. Pretty soon we'll all be poor, so it follows we might become more generous too.

I would predict a return to the feudal system. The strong will take over and make the weak grow food for them.

 

[Alceste]

Never said it would be easy.



And if the climate changes, the arctic will not be arctic anymore.



Growing seasons are a consideration. Soil can be imported though.



Sure.



Never said it was simple. As to why we aren't doing it now, it isn't possible or necessary. But if the climate changes enough to make the area warmer and the areas we currenly use more arid, then it becomes necessary which in turn makes it more possible.



This will be why the wars start. The wars will reduce the number of people to a more sustainable number.

Different time.

Different place.

Do you really think the current population of the world will react in this manner?

I would predict a return to the feudal system. The strong will take over and make the weak grow food for them.

Your bleak vision of the future is pretty standard fare among American doomers. I can understand how it would seem plausible in a country like the US, where everybody has a gun, poverty is rampant, crime rates are high, "the welfare state" is a despicable phrase, and more people per capita are incarcerated than anywhere else in the world. OTOH, the rest of the developed world is more community-minded than the US, and somewhat less prone to violence and bullying (eg. Iraq, Afghanistan, etc). There's no real reason to turn on your neighbours when you can all prosper more by helping one another. It's basic monkey stuff. Primates are not individualists by nature.

 

[painted wolf]

Your bleak vision of the future is pretty standard fare among American doomers. I can understand how it would seem plausible in a country like the US, where everybody has a gun, poverty is rampant, crime rates are high, "the welfare state" is a despicable phrase, and more people per capita are incarcerated than anywhere else in the world. OTOH, the rest of the developed world is more community-minded than the US, and somewhat less prone to violence and bullying (eg. Iraq, Afghanistan, etc). There's no real reason to turn on your neighbours when you can all prosper more by helping one another. It's basic monkey stuff. Primates are not individualists by nature.

LoL... I think it's a primal fear for us. We do have a history of group on group violence here and it's not hard to extrapolate that onto the whole nation. The Civil War still has deep scars. Which isn't surprising given it's only a few generations behind us.
We also tend to get involved in civil disputes around the world, so our recent history is filled with stories of ethnic and sectarian violence.

Plus a lot of our entertainment is built around stories on these subjects. Just look at the popularity of zombies.

We are a culture primed for implosion.

Honestly it's not hard to be concerned given the break down of our political system that is ongoing.

However, back on topic. It's impossible to say what the future will hold in the event of a major climate system change. Some places are likely to benefit from it, while many will not. The powerful nations will seek to continue to exploit the weaker ones and refugees will seek shelter wherever they can.

wa:do

 

[work in progress]

People don't necessarily turn on each other. The British dealt with food shortages during WWII by rationing and turning all their green space over to food production.

Cuba faced a huge and abrupt food shortfall when the US cut off access to international shipping, forcing them to establish local resilience practically overnight. The country's arable land was handed over to anybody willing to grow food on it. The Power of Community tells that tale.

During the depression, people didn't mug each other for food. They simply went hungry. The grocery store shelves were filled with food nobody could afford to buy. Many people (especially young men) went looking for better economic conditions - mothers in various communities along the railroad tracks prepared lunches for hobos, hoping that other mothers might do the same for their own sons down the tracks. My grandmother's family fed and sheltered itinerant workers in exchange for labour.

I'd like to be an optimist too! But citing examples of mostly homogeneous societies were able to pull together to deal with a crisis does not reduce my skepticism. The British were drawn together to fight a common enemy; similar story in Cuba, except that the enemy laying seige was the U.S. rather than Nazi Germany; and my father left the family farm down east to ride the rails across the country looking for work. He had lots of stories about conductors, police and security guards chasing him and others who were riding the boxcars, but I can't recall any stories about mothers coming along with free food! He did say that most of the hobo camps where he stayed were pretty safe and orderly, with few incidents of fights or thefts. It is worth noting that the culture was much different back then than it is now. Hobos had a lot of pride in spite of their circumstances, and virtually all of them believed that stealing was a sin....now it's only a bad thing in most people's eyes if you get caught stealing!

Anyway, the odds of everyone pulling together will have a lot to do with how long this period of adjustment lasts. If it's a sudden collapse, then all hell breaks loose. If it's a gradual unwinding of our present globalized capitalist system, a trend to re-localization and cooperatives will have time to create real communities. What we have at present, especially in the average suburb are not real communities that could deal with a transition to a more sustainable way of life.

Hard times can bring out the worst in people, but also the best. It's a fact that poor people are more generous than the rich, giving a much higher percentage of their income to charity. Pretty soon we'll all be poor, so it follows we might become more generous too.

And that's the big difference between our social life now and the way it was when my father came of age during the Depression of the 1930's. Right now there is too much stratification of wealth and income to develop the same sense of social cohesion. But again, that may change in the future, when most people pretty much end up in the same boat!

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

Your bleak vision of the future is pretty standard fare among American doomers.

I'm a doomer? I thought I was the one saying we aren't going to be driven to extinction. I predict a survival of the human race, as far as I can tell that makes me rather moderate.

I can understand how it would seem plausible in a country like the US, where everybody has a gun, poverty is rampant, crime rates are high, "the welfare state" is a despicable phrase, and more people per capita are incarcerated than anywhere else in the world.

I wish everyone had a gun, it might keep a lot of innocents alive when the world goes to hell.

OTOH, the rest of the developed world is more community-minded than the US, and somewhat less prone to violence and bullying (eg. Iraq, Afghanistan, etc).

You mean like England? Where unemployeed youths run the streets at night, looking for elderly victums to beat and steal from?

There's no real reason to turn on your neighbours when you can all prosper more by helping one another. It's basic monkey stuff. Primates are not individualists by nature.

Sure there is. They have something that their neighbor wants.

As to the over all point you are trying to make, I believe, in the US anyway, that the more rural areas will be willing to work together for the common good. It is the urban areas that are already divided along class and racial lines that will implode.

In rural areas, resources will not be so stressed that the community can't pull together to survive. Also, they will have the skills and experience to do so.

In the Urban areas you will have nothing but people who have little or no idea how to survive without all the resources offered up in a store. When those resources run out, the poor will assume those wealthier than them have more and will use violence to get it.

Those that survive the slaughter will be the strongest and most ruthless and they will turn their eyes towards the farmland in rural areas. If those area aren't ready to defend themselves then they will be enslaved and put to work growing food for the armies who survived the urban meltdown.

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

Analysis of global fire risk shows big, fast changes ahead

By the end of the century, almost all of North America and most of Europe is projected to see a jump in the frequency of wildfires, primarily because of increasing temperature trends. At the same time, fire activity could actually decrease around equatorial regions, particularly among the tropical rainforests, because of increased rainfall.

The study, published today (Tuesday, June 12) in Ecosphere, an open-access, peer-reviewed journal of the Ecological Society of America, used 16 different climate change models to generate what the researchers said is one of the most comprehensive projections to date of how climate change might affect global fire patterns.

“In the long run, we found what most fear — increasing fire activity across large parts of the planet,” said study lead author Max Moritz, fire specialist in UC Cooperative Extension. “But the speed and extent to which some of these changes may happen is surprising.”

I hadn't thought about how climate change could change wildfire patterns.

 

[painted wolf]

Oh absolutely.... massive wild fires are going to be an increasingly major problem in places experiencing prolonged drought (like the American West and Australia) and in increasingly common problem in places where wild fires were serious but uncommon (like Spain and Russia).

Species of trees that are adapted for fire tolerance may see their ranges expand.

But another concern that isn't getting as much press as it should is the increasing signs that the "Dust Bowl" is set to return and shut down agriculture in a significant portion of the American West. Not to mention what the loss of the Ogllala Aquifer will do to population centers across America. The Ogllala Aquifer supplies 8 states directly and several more indirectly.
20 Signs America Is Headed For Another Dust Bowl - Business Insider

We will see more and more of this across the South Western USA, this is what we need to prepare for because it will happen with increasing frequency.
[youtube]8W4Cx44XKZ4[/youtube]
Phoenix Dust Storm: Video of Doomsday Scenes in Arizona - YouTube

wa:do

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

I saw some serious dust storms in North Africa when I was a kid. People just don't understand what it means until they've been in one.

 

[painted wolf]

I saw some serious dust storms in North Africa when I was a kid. People just don't understand what it means until they've been in one.

And imagine the havoc it will play on our modern technological culture. From grounding aircraft and stopping automobiles to choking computers and automatic doors.

Then there will be health effects on people exposed to the dust, especially the elderly and the young.

And the interference with agriculture... from buried crops to asphyxiated cattle.

It may not be doomsday, but it will make life much harder for the majority of the people living there.

wa:do

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

Here is a good site for Dust Bowl information. This happened in the 1930s and yet it is almost forgotten.

The Dust Bowl of the 1930s

Think about this happening now and what kind of effect it would have on our society.

 

[painted wolf]

In some ways it won't be as bad... less of our population relies on agriculture as a means of employment. However the agriculture we do have is far more intensive and provides a lot more food for a lot more people. Worst case scenario loosing it would be a significant problem for not just our country but for all the other countries we supply. We could potentially loose as much as 20% of our total agricultural output. The reason we can keep growing in a region that has been experiencing drought for the last decade is because we can pump the Ogallala Aquifer.

Given that the Ogallala Aquifer is becoming increasingly tapped out that adds significantly to the potential long term problems. In the 8 states that draw directly from the aquifer, it supplies 80% of the population with water. People living within the aquifer will be increasingly called upon to change their water use habits.

It will be interesting to see how the situation in the South West plays out over the next decade or two. Will our technology be able to offset the effects of the decades long droughts or will there have to be a migration of people out of the area.

wa:do

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

I've seen Climate Change blamed on a lot of things but this is a new one for me.

Predators Influence Over Habitats

A grasshopper's change in diet to high-energy carbohydrates while being hunted by spiders may affect the way soil releases carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, according to research results published this week in the journal Science.

Grasshoppers like to munch on nitrogen-rich grass because it stimulates their growth and reproduction.

But when spiders enter the picture, grasshoppers cope with the stress from fear of predation by shifting to carbohydrate-rich plants, setting in motion dynamic changes to the ecosystem they inhabit, scientists have found.

"Under stressful conditions they go to different parts of the 'grocery store' and choose different foods, changing the makeup of the plant community," said Oswald Schmitz, a co-author of the paper and an ecologist at Yale University.

The high-energy, carbohydrate diet also tilts a grasshopper's body chemistry toward carbon at the expense of nitrogen.

So when a grasshopper dies, its carcass breaks down more slowly, thus depriving the soil of high-quality fertilizer and slowing the decomposition of uneaten plants.

 

[painted wolf]

Well, at least it will be good news for some reptiles.

Global Warming May Make Reptiles Smarter | Wired Science | Wired.com

Amiel and colleague Richard Shine developed a simple predator avoidance test: At each end of a rectangular tub, they placed an upside-down flower pot into which skinks could run and hide. The entrance to one pot was blocked by clear plastic.


After incubating two different sets of eggs at different temperatures — the warmer set mimicking natural incubation settings of skinks at lower elevations, the cooler set mimicking higher elevations — Amiel and Shine tested the hatchlings.


They sent each lizard running by touching its tail, then measured how long it took to find the open shelter and how often it tried to enter the blocked door. Warm-incubated lizards learned to find the open flower pot much more readily than their cool-incubated siblings. In the wild, improved learning abilities likely increase chances of survival.

wa:do

 

[Trey of Diamonds]

This states the obvious in my opinion.

Climate change to worsen hunger as UN's Rio+20 begins

The number of undernourished women and young children could increase 20% and affect one of every five within a decade because of climate change's impact on food production, according to an analysis by the World Health Organization and other groups. Today, one in seven or 495 million women and children under age 5 lack sufficient food, the report says, adding population growth will worsen the problem.