Other than displacing a large number of people who live on coastlines, what's the big deal?
Insult me for my niavety if it makes you feel better, but I honestly don't know the answer.
"Other than that, how did you enjoy the play, Mrs. Lincoln?"
The displacement of large numbers of people will cause immense strife. Just look at the nasty reaction to the relatively small migration away from the Syrian civil war.
The problem is basically that all the land near populated coastlines is already owned, and those owners are not going to be inclined to let millions of their neighbors move in without some compensation.
But if those neighbors' coastal property just got swallowed by the sea, they probably don't have many assets left to pay.
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/photo-booth/indias-fence-o...
http://indianexpress.com/article/india/laser-walls-smart-sen...
For me, one of the most eye-opening experiences was reading an article from the New Yorker the worst of what may happen due to climate change.[0] Because the "climate change is happening" side often tries to ground their claims in research and climate-models, they are rarely apocalyptic or even the slightest bit exaggeratory, while the other side often argues at the opposite extreme of "nothing will happen." I found this article to be helpful in orienting the debate, as it helped me realize that the expected value of doing nothing is really far worse than what I imagined.
[0] http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/07/climate-change-...
Look at figure 10.1 on page 690 of the IPCC’s AR5 WG II report. As it shows, most of the studies on the total impact of climate change for increases between 2.6 and 4.8 °C, which is the range for the IPCC’s highest emissions scenario during the 21st century, result in estimates of the impact on welfare equivalent to a change between 0% and −3% in GNP. Positive effects are included in the estimates, so 0% and two positive values appear outside the range. This is not about the economic impact but about the total impact on welfare, so it really is what is relevant. The factors considered by the studies include variation in agricultural yield, water availability, changes in tourism flow, energy demand, impact on human health, labor productivity.
How bad do you think −3% is during the 21st century? That’s less than 0.035% less economic growth starting in 2014 when the Fifth Assessment Report was published. Even a policy that was completely effective at entirely preventing any global warming could only be justified if its cost was otherwise less than 0.035%. The policies we could implement would not be completely effective and would certainly cost more than 0.035%. Therefore the expected value of doing nothing about global warming is higher than the expected value of doing something.
Note that the literature diverges in its estimation of the impact. Much of the report on the economic impact basically says "there's a lot we don't know about most of these things" because the event haven't taken place yet. But that doesn't mean we can't extrapolate. Economic forces push populations. And, the effects will differ by geography, which is the crucial point. If only coastal areas are affected, that will still incentivize people to make decisions that affect inland economies. And these are the risks that a high proportion of the world's population would face (from the very same report):
The key risks that follow, all of which are identified with high confidence, span sectors and regions. Each of these key risks contributes to one or more reasons for concern [RFC].
i) Risk of death, injury, ill-health, or disrupted livelihoods in low-lying coastal zones and small island developing states and other small islands, due to storm surges, coastal flooding, and sea level rise.37 [RFC 1-5] ii) Risk of severe ill-health and disrupted livelihoods for large urban populations due to inland flooding in some regions.38 [RFC 2 and 3] iii) Systemic risks due to extreme weather events leading to breakdown of infrastructure networks and critical services such as electricity, water supply, and health and emergency services.39 [RFC 2-4] iv) Risk of mortality and morbidity during periods of extreme heat, particularly for vulnerable urban populations and those working outdoors in urban or rural areas.40 [RFC 2 and 3] v) Risk of food insecurity and the breakdown of food systems linked to warming, drought, flooding, and precipitation variability and extremes, particularly for poorer populations in urban and rural settings.41 [RFC 2-4] vi) Risk of loss of rural livelihoods and income due to insufficient access to drinking and irrigation water and reduced agricultural productivity, particularly for farmers and pastoralists with minimal capital in semi-arid regions.42 [RFC 2 and 3] vii) Risk of loss of marine and coastal ecosystems, biodiversity, and the ecosystem goods, functions, and services they provide for coastal livelihoods, especially for fishing communities in the tropics and the Arctic.43 [RFC 1, 2, and 4] viii) Risk of loss of terrestrial and inland water ecosystems, biodiversity, and the ecosystem goods, functions, and services they provide for livelihoods.44 [RFC 1, 3, and 4] Many key risks constitute particular challenges for the least developed countries and vulnerable communities, given their limited ability to cope.
IF you were correct in your assertion that the economic cost of doing nothing is lower than the economic cost of doing something, the ETHICAL cost of doing nothing is immeasurable because we'd willingly be exposing current and future generations to all of the above higher risks.
The questions are what the best course of action would be: for individuals, neighborhoods, states, continents.
We cannot escape the physical environment we live in, and to fantasize that somehow compiling a list of risks could lead to some dramatic action is not illuminating. Taking such talking points out of context is confusing.
This list isn't taken out of context. It's from a detailed report outlining causes and effects, followed by policy recommendations and methods for governments to address each risk as well as mitigate climate change to reduce those risks. (It's also not out of context because I posted it in a comment thread about the effects of climate change [context])
What you're seeking is found in the report I quoted from
"global warming is said to have played a role in sparking the 2011 uprising. Severe drought plagued Syria from 2007-10, causing as many as 1.5 million people to migrate from the countryside into cities, exacerbating poverty and social unrest."
http://america.aljazeera.com/articles/2015/3/2/syrias-civil-...
The life cycle of countless animals and plants is finetuned to our current climate. Crops are also at the mercy of weather patterns. We have no idea whether our food sources will get through the changes. Example of unknown unknown: https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/01/australia-green-...
> What's the big deal?
We are talking about hundreds of millions of starving people moving away from the coastlines AND the Equator. Example: https://web.archive.org/web/20180107084251/https://blogs.sci... Bangladesh alone has half the population of the US.
Actually we do, chances are temperature increase by the end of the century will make agriculture impossible in most part of the lands of the planet.
> What's the big deal?
Simply put, it is a matter of destroying the conditions favorable to human life on this planet.
This along, with the issues you've mentioned, could result in significant political instability across the world, massive migration issues that could easily dwarf the migration issues of the last decade, perhaps even severe wars, and other disastrous situations.
I'm not qualified to give a full description. Some form of the above seems fairly plausible to me if we don't take serious pragmatic action.
It's of course incredibly difficult to give meaningful predictions about something this complex. But let's not bet the damn farm on it.
It is very well established that there are serious risks. The time has long come for anyone in a relevant position of leadership to accept the responsibility and take effective action.
There is also worry of a positive feedback loop that could cause global warming to spiral out of control. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Clathrate_gun_hypothesis)
A lot of wildlife requires specific environmental situation. A lot of species won't survive changes in temperature.
Most poor people will have hard time surviving either increased flooding or increased droughts. Where I live(South MH, India), we are already facing drought every other year, and I am preety sure this is going to get worse. Millions live in this area. Where do you think we will move when we don't have water? (clue: look for places with more water)
So in short, huge parts of world either get submerged in sea, suffer from severe droughts/flooding, from desertification, or from the destruction of crops. Without food, water and land, people migrate in large numbers, and thus exert more pressure on those places.
Some experts believe that a war is likely between India and China over water in next decade.
I haven't touched the issue of lack of antibiotics and resurgence of old diseases at all.
Actually, no, I can't. This won't happen overnight, cities will just slowly move away from the coastline. It will take hundreds of years to cover such cities with water (if ever).
On the other hand people living in the countryside, are able to grow food, have knowledge of local plants and generally can sustain themselves have much better chance to survive the catastrophic events to come.
Though some experts think a war over water between India and China is possible, other think the collapse will happen so fast that it will wipe all possibility of military action and leave only people that will have no choice but work together to survive. This scenario is also likely.
It's been a while since I've been in India but imho this is one the places on earth with potential to survive climate change.
https://youtu.be/LJf5JjZjsGI have a look at this video, this region which suffered hailstorm destroying most crops, is supposed to be a somewhat dry region.
I was referring to things like the Bundeswehr (German military) study that was leaked in 2010 in der spiegel which explored the probable future to better prepare themselves to face it. Here you'll find page 2 of the english version of the der spiegel article reporting on the partial to complete market failure and global chain reaction causing global economy collapse.
Fun thins is that this report places the collapse around 2025-2030 same as predicted by the world3 in the 1970's.
The other thing I was referring to is a report about the transition period which had a part about risk of violence and war in the event of a societal collapse (they actually evaluated the whole range from steady decline interspersed with rupture points to full civilization collapse), and among the possible scenarios without violence were the ones where the collapse happened fast enough. Sorry I don't have source readily available IIRC I found this report while documenting myself on post oil agriculture in the EU.
It is a common misconception to not understand that the upcoming change is unprecedented in human history, it will be nothing like what we have faced before. Expecting it to be something like past events would be a mistake.
[1]: http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/peak-oil-and-the... [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World3
Poor people in equatorial regions that are already on the edge of uninhabitability without air conditioning will start to experience actual uninhabitability unless underground or air-conditioning solutions are procured (and even then, things will get very very uncomfortable outdoors for portions of the year)
Again, this will affect the most vulnerable people on the earth first: "A study by the World Health Organization (WHO, 2009)[120] estimated the effect of climate change on human health. Not all of the effects of climate change were included in their estimates, for example, the effects of more frequent and extreme storms were excluded. Climate change was estimated to have been responsible for 3% of diarrhoea, 3% of malaria, and 3.8% of dengue fever deaths worldwide in 2004. Total attributable mortality was about 0.2% of deaths in 2004; of these, 85% were child deaths." (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming)
I think first worlders will be among those hit the harder because they will lose almost everything they're used to and left with the inability to live as the grand parents did for they have forgotten this knowledge.
I know you are not debating the issue, but to me one of the most interesting questions is why do people deny this even when they have no vested interest?
One obvious answer is that it’s become a party platform issue and those that do have an interest have poisoned the well of thought for large numbers of people.
Maybe that’s part of it, but it’s hard to believe it’s that simplistic and there is no other psychology at play. Whatever lack of respect one has for an opposing political party, you’d think after hearing enough doomsday scenarios it would at least be worth digging in a little to see what all the fuss is about.
Seems you may be victim of a bias of some kind here[1], or have been exposed to some misinformation of some kind.
[1]: https://youarenotsosmart.com/2017/01/30/yanss-094-how-motiva...
The public perception is that science keeps warning of imminent disasters that keep not happening. Climate profiteers like Al Gore have totally undermined the credibility of science.
https://academic.oup.com/bioscience/article/67/12/1026/46052...
Bad news -- drought/blight/warmth could destroy crops...perhaps even be an extinction level event.
Good news -- there is none.. likelihood of aliens or future humans saving us is next to nil.
I think we have maybe 50 years till we're close to any near ELE but my kid might see it.
IIRC we were warned about it in 1992: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Scientists'_Warning_to_H...
Those people won't peacefully move somewhere else. Especially in Europe as the middle east becomes literally unliveable and millions of people will start walking north to just survive another day - I can't imagine even the most tolerant european countries willingly accepting this, especially since it won't happen overnight, but over many decades, with more and more people flowing in. That is bound to cause huge amounts of unrest, possibly civil war/ or just war.
2. It's a feedback effect. Less ice means less light reflected means more energy in our oceans/atmosphere. In turn this creates more ice loss that won't be sea ice.
But like everything else (to various extents) it will expand when it's warmer.
[1] number invented for brevity.
But to get even a 1/3 of the Greenland ice cover to melt requires an unimaginably large amount of energy to do so. I'd have more concerns about the devastation of that much energy on the atmosphere than I do about any trivial amount of ice melt and associated sea-level rise.
The planet is close to being a steady state system, that is the energy inflows from the day side is about equivalent to the energy outflows on the night side. This varies throughout the year due to various factors, including orbital position, solar energy output, climate factors like clouds, etc.
The required energy to get 1/3 of Greenland glacial melt is approximately about the amount of energy received by the Earth on a single day, without any of that energy being released on the night side. Due to the slow conductivity of water in both solid and liquid forms, the atmosphere would need to essentially hold all of that energy. Even over a hundred years, that would probably mean atmospheric temperatures that would probably kill most, if not all, life on the surface of the planet.
There has been one study (that I know of) that has looked at the retention of energy over a period of about 50 years and the conclusion was that only 2 to maybe 5% of the energy retained managed to get into ice-melt. So to get the required ice-melt energy needed, we would need, say, 20 to 25 days worth of solar input radiation to be fully retained within the atmosphere (no leakage back into space).
In addition, I somehow think that even a 5 or 10 degree Celsius temperature rise would lead quickly to a sharp fall in global temperatures and would the initiation of a global ice-age. Since the planet has an approximate coverage by oceans and sea ice of 70%, an average rise of 5 to 10 degrees would more than likely see a huge rise in cloud coverage and subsequent reflection of energy back out into space, followed by a subsequent rapid cooling of the globe.
Of course, these figures are dependent on common available information and could be wrong by some percentage. It's not hard to do your own calculations if you want to get some feel for what might be possible.
It's up to you to decide how and what you will believe.
[Afterthought edit]. Many years ago, I was given the following advice:
Surround yourself with experts, but make your own decisions as you see fit. Experts are just that, specialists in a narrow field and they do not see the bigger picture. It is up to you to do that for yourself.
Furthermore, why must we blindly accept the status quo when there are legitimate dissenters? The very nature of scientific advance is that it overturns the status quo. Your methodology would seem to undermine scientific progress.
Finally, it is said that the mark of a true expert is the ability to boil a complex subject down to the lay level. If the layman must study fulltime for 5+ years to understand climate science results, is the field perhaps not at the necessary level of expertise?
The problem today is that there is no encouragement to investigate ideas that are different to the accepted models. Nor are this encouragement to do full scale duplications of reported results. Anomalies are only investigated if they don't appear to dispute the current consensus.
I had a recent discussion with a nuclear physicist that I admire about this and his response was to the effect that he would discourage such experiments. There was a lot more in the discussion which is not relevant here.
What we must be careful of is blindly assuming that our theories and models are correct. We have to realise that our interpretations of the results are many times based on deeply held beliefs that are not provable but are assumed to be true.
What happened is the author got caught, found guilty of professional misconduct and removed from practicing medicine while the paper was retracted. But this had consequences as a growing and vocal fringe population used this to fuel their agenda and spread misinformation against vaccines playing a role in the resurgence of contagious diseases.
But your arguing about climate change makes no sense, climate change has been happening for a while now there's no denying it field measure all points to this; sea level rises gradually, ice cap disappear, athmosphere composition changes, mass extinction of species is happening, natural disasters are increasing, etc. Instead of wasting everybody's time on minute details and discussing attribution you should focus on what can be done to minimize the consequences.
You just have to have enough interest to look at the data and see if it matches the conclusions reached based on the fundamentals of the theories involved.
If you reading and interest is extensive enough, you can pick up a lot of information that will help you do this.
I am not an organic chemist, but I have enough knowledge of the subject to understand if there is hand waving or actual evidence for the conclusions. This really only involves what I initially learned at school and university and what I have picked up in the intervening decades.
There are many who don't dispute that climate change occurs, what they say is that anthropogenic effects are, at this time, unknown and that any anthropogenic causes are minor compared to the various other causes.
Since I started taking an interest in this subject in the 1970's, the evidence of anthropogenic causes has been underwhelming.
As far as evolution and intelligent design are concerned, I have consigned both to the field of religious discussion and belief. I was an avid evolutionist until I started reading the actual results of experiments in the field. The results did not support any evolutionary model and still don't. As a result, I started to question why these scientists were pushing the wheelbarrow of the this model.
Just because someone is a scientist doesn't mean that they will completely logical and fair-minded about some model or another. Scientists are no different to any other group of people. They are people too and as such, have their own foibles and unsubstantiated beliefs.
If these scientists can demonstrate fair results then certainly we must look at those results. But the conclusions about what those results mean will depend on what an individual's starting point is. Just remember that old adage, to someone with a hammer, everything looks like a nail.
If you are standing on scientific consensus as your "authority" then you are not acting in a manner that says you are investigating the facts as they are.
It may well be that anthropogenic causes will disrupt the planets climate in dangerous and possibly even unalterable ways. But I have yet to see any such evidence presented, nor have I seen valid questions being answered by these same anthropogenic climate change scientists. From where I stand, it appears that money still speaks louder than the facts.
However, I’m fascinated that someone could realistically doubt the “theory of evolution.” For one thing, it is very much an active area of research, with new discoveries all the time. (Reading about the epigenetic aspects of hereditary traits kind of blew my mind. It turns out that animals adaptions to specific environments can influence later generations.)
So how do consign a relatively young area of research, that is making concrete contributions to science as being akin to religious belief?
The specifics, and controversies, of evolutionary theory, and it’s scientific cousins, are quite complex, and it seems rather capricious to wave it all away as if it was some cartoon theory of reality.
My own, very limited, view of the weakness of evolution as a theory, is that it can seem like a “just so theory,” almost true by tautology.
But the mechanisms of natural selection, and hereditary transfer of traits are so well established that to dismiss the lot of it strikes me as irrational.
As an aside, I used to believe in all of the fanciful notions like "black holes" and "neutron stars". But after some specific questions and subsequent investigation into what was being proposed, I doubt the existence of these entities. I have very specific reasons for doubting these entities and after attempting to discuss these reasons with those more "knowledgeable" in the subject, I am left with the same impression that this is also a matter of dogma.
But hey, each to his own.
In relation to consigning both views to the realm of religious discussion, I have found that proponents of both sides tend to dogma. I especially find that evolutionists tend to the ad hominem mode very quickly. When this occurs, I tend to the position that that person is incapable of holding a sensible discussion about the subject and is relying solely on "authority".
When the proponents of a particular theory or model will not get involved in reasoning discussions and simply wave away the question raise then yes they are in some sort of cartoon theory of reality. This applies across the board to all discussions.
I don't have a problem with natural selection nor do I have a problem with transfer of traits. What I have a problem with is the model of evolution (or its variants). Those who are proponents of the theory and model do a lot of hand-waving that does not match the evidence at hand.
In terms of active research, if you look at anyone who demonstrates odd data or finding that oppose the general evolutionary theory, they are treated as pariahs and infidels. This is a characteristic of religious thinking and does not bode well for any science.
Same, it would be nice if you would source some of the "many" saying anthropogenic effects are minor to other causes. Why not explicting those other causes by the way ?
Same again for the actual results from field experiments not supporting evolution, please source them so we can read it ourselves and apply the principles of making our own min that you are putting forward.
I do agree that there is a religion of science or scientism increasing with time even among scientists themselves and undermining actual science, but this existing is not enough to dismiss the theory of evolution as a religious belief.
Can you also tell us what are the unanswered valid questions you're talking about ?
Right now you're talking in very vague affirmation that are unverifiable, which means your point will be dismissed as personal opinion.
The problem I see here is that the energy flows and pathways required are of such a magnitude and are so complex that the simplistic modelling being used basically ignores it.
For every kilotonne of ice being calved, it will require, at a minimum, the energy stored in 4 kilotonnes of sea water at 20 degrees Celcius. The resulting temperature of that sea water would be reduced to just above freezing point of water. If you, say, set the limit at a 1 degree Celsius drop, then we are looking extracting the energy of about 84 - 85 kilotonnes of sea water. You still need to take into account the energy conduction through water and also from water to the ice.
At this end of the globe, we see stories often enough of the end of small icebergs that have calved off the Antarctic ice mass. Many of these have been tracked from the initial calve to their final demise and it takes many years for even small ones to finally disappear.
To get any serious ice melt, you have to have serious amounts of energy flowing into that ice.
One question to ask is how the calving is occurring? There can be a variety of ways this can happen and they are not all caused by temperature increases. This, in itself, is a very interesting subject and there are some quite complex processes involved.
The world around us is extremely complex and we have very little understanding of how things work, irrespective of what is portrayed in popular media.
Historical records do indicate that the Arctic Polar ice mass has been of varying sizes. Some of these have essentially indicated that the ice mass was very small at some points in history and at other times very large. Some of these records and reports go back many hundreds of years.
So melting is an issue only for ice that melts on land and then flows into the oceans because that represents new water volume.
If the rate of deposit is greater than the rate of calving then there is a nett addition to the ice mass. If the rates are equal, then you have steady state. If the rate of calving is greater then you have a nett loss.
This has to be looked at over a longer period of time to see what the variation is in the data.
The other aspect is that there are some very specific physics involved and I have yet to see any discussion over these specific effects.
We have seen, in some areas, what appears to be increasingly variable climate conditions. Yet, if one is willing to look into and take the time to investigate the appropriate historical records, these variations have occurred before and were, in fact, much stronger.
The affects from these conditions were not felt to the same extent as today because we have vastly different population distributions.
Let me give you an example.
When I was a child, we had a family regime every spring to prepare for the cyclones that would regularly hit the region in summer. As I moved into my latter teens and forward into my twenties, the regularity changed and we saw quite a diminished number and size of these events. Further time passed and the events grew less frequent but were significantly stronger.
The general consensus was that climate variation was getting worse. I dug into the available historical records for the mid 19th century to the early 20th century for the same region. I found that the events during that time were significantly stronger. We talk about category 5 cyclones today and, honestly, I rather have a category 5 than the monster cyclones from 19th century.
As far as Greenland is concerned, even with higher global temperatures (as specified by the IPCC), the amount of ice melt is still to be expected in the range of dead skin cells being rubbed off the back of an elephant. The energy requirements are just so unimaginable that if you were to put the entire world's nuclear arsenal to the task, it would barely be a pin prick.
If you have a basic scientific education you know that any example starting by "when I was a child" is anecdotal evidence and have very limited value because it is akin to confirmation bias and cherry picking.
I'm curious as why you don't apply the principles you were bradishing to the 19th century meteorological data: http://www.isws.illinois.edu/pubdoc/CR/iswscr2011-02.pdf
About Greenland ice sheet disappearing your thinking is oversimplified by looking only at energy required to melt ice. There are several other mechanisms to take into account, for example the increase in cloud cover preventing refreeze at night, or the melted cover snow and ice running into moulins to the ground which then flow under the glacier lubricating it and acceleratiing its motion and thus glacial calving, etc.
When studying a system you need to have basic understanding of second order cybernetics and feedback loops. In climate change positive feedback loop are the reasons past a tipping point there's no stopping it.
The problem of confirmation bias and cherry picking is not a problem with "anecdotal evidence". Anecdotal evidence is an opportunity to further look into the events related to the evidence to see what its veracity is. I have been involved in various experimental activities and I have found that in some of those activities that the results obtained were deemed unacceptable because they did not match the expectation of the reviewers. Even when the experiments were repeated (under further supervision) and were similar to the original results, they were not accepted.
With regards to the 19th century data, this information was supplied by the National Bureau of Meteorology. Since these records were not recorded in a time of Political Correctness for climate change, I don't expect them to have been manipulated either way. So at face value and for a first approximation we can regards them as accurate.
You additional mechanisms are all involved in the energy transfers and requirements. What you forget is that to have the phase change from solid to liquid requires a set amount of energy given a set atmospheric pressure. Irrespective of how much calving occurs, we have to consider what is the accumulation rate of ice to the back end and the total amount of calving at the front end. In addition, the required calving on a daily basis still needs to be measured in the cubic kilometres or in the gigatonne range.
The problem with feedback loops in climate is that we do not know, we only think we know. With very simple systems, we can and do get to a position of understanding the various feedback loops. With complex system, we do not. We often see unexpected results. Climate is a global phenomenon and is so complex that we will not understand it for the forseeable future. That does not mean we shouldn't try, but to rely on the current models as if they are "truth" is good way to end up in a blind alley with no way out.
I don't have a problem with cleaning up the environment and finding more efficient ways to run transport and waste handling, mining and manufacturing. But to take the position of climate change being mainly or only anthropogenic is foolishness at best and utter stupidity at worst.
We have no idea (that includes every climate scientists who pushes the anthropogenic climate change agenda) as to the real relationships being natural and anthropogenic causes for climate change.
If you were to put every one of those who believe such in the position of having to bet their life on it, how many would do so? I mean putting gun against the head and testing with that wonderfully reliable device called a polygraph and pulling the trigger if any doubt was shown at all. Since the polygraph is an unreliable piece of equipment, I don't think we would see too many takers, would you?
The above, I know, is a bit ridiculous, but think about it.