Atlantis wrote:I think that those who believe that they will benefit from climate change may be in for a rude awakening. All we know is that the climate will change; we don't know exactly how. In most places, a 1 or 2 degree increase isn't exactly catastrophic, but the increase of extreme weather events - we are already seeing now - is going to have impacts even in colder climates.
For example, Russia had harvest failures and huge wildfires due to increased drought. The US will get battered by increasingly violent hurricanes. The destruction of the Amazon rain forest will increase drought and harvest failures in the US. The weakening of the Gulf Stream will produce changes we don't yet fully understand.
The social and political consequences will be felt even in the prosperous West. For how long will democracy and the rule of law resist the autocratic rule preferred by the populist right? At what point do we have to abandon human rights and institute a totalitarian digital police state in order to deprive the poor of their share of resources?
The irony is that the far-right climate change deniers may be the only true believers in climate change since they want to prepare for the event with walls and increased military spending against the future tsunami of climate refugees.
1 or 2 percent is an average increase. That is very significant from a climate science perspective. We are cruising for 3 to 4 percent, which is an extraordinarily big change in the timespan involved looking at geological records. It takes some time for all the effects to filter through the system. Like a thousand years or so. It will be obvious by the end of this century as people will be waist deep in water in most coastal cities.
However, the current global climate regime is ultimately dominated by Antartica sitting on the South Pole and open ocean circulation around it keeping temperatures down. The CO2 we have released will gradually sink into the earth through various processes. I would expect that in a meet ten thousands years the global climate would have settled down into a regime not too different from the pre industrial climate.
As to what shape the biosphere will be in? Probably a lot less diverse than present, but it will recover to pre industrial levels of diversity in less than ten million years.
So there is no problem really. Not from an earth centred view, anyway. As to humans?
Kaiserschmarrn wrote:
Our new messiah. Don't you dare criticise her.
Pretty much all religious characteristics seem to be place with this movement, with the exception perhaps of a designated holy text.
These sort of fruit loops will cotton on to any cause that feeds their need for self importance. It would be better that they didn’t jump on environmental issues, from a policy point of view.
Perhaps the possible existence of UFOs needs to be pushed more strongly so the wackos can form their cults around that cause and thus keep them out of anything important?