At Ask Me Help Desk you can ask questions in any topic and have them
answered for free by our experts. To ask questions or participate in
answering them you must register for a free account. By registering you
will be able to:
Get free answers from experts in any of our 300+
topics.
It’s not in Al Gore’s PowerPoint presentation, but there are some upsides to global warming.
Northern homes could save on heating fuel. Rust Belt cities might stop losing snowbirds to the South. Canadian farmers could harvest bumper crops. Greenland may become awash in cod and oil riches. Shippers could count on an Arctic shortcut between the Atlantic and Pacific. Forests may expand. Mongolia could see a go-go economy.
This is all speculative, even a little facetious, and any gains are not likely to make up for predicted frightening upheavals elsewhere. But still ... might there be a silver lining for the frigid regions of Canada and Russia?
“It’s not that there won’t be bad things happening in those countries. There will be — things like you’ll lose polar bears,” said economic professor Robert O. Mendelsohn of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies. “But the idea is that they will get such large gains, especially in agriculture, that they will be bigger than the losses...”
The future may have arrived already in icy Greenland, where fishermen are thrilled by the return of cod and farmers are reporting higher yields.
“Maybe the turnips get a little bit bigger, and the potatoes get a little bit bigger, but that’s important,” said Kenneth Hoegh, a government agricultural adviser. “We are right on the edge here for agriculture.”
Jesper Madsen, who directs Arctic research at the National Environmental Research Institute in Denmark, said Greenland’s agricultural gains would seem like small potatoes economically if the retreating ice there clears the way for more oil drilling.
But don't get excited...
Quote:
Some researchers stress there aren’t really any winners in global warming because the planet will be such a big loser. Marginal gains in limited areas can’t be stacked up on one side of the ledger, they say, when the negatives can include planet-wide food and water shortages, mass flooding and extinction.
Like the scientists I'm still trying to figure this out. We could see both increased agricultural production and "planet-wide food" shortages, and both "mass flooding" with "planet-wide" water shortages. I wish someone would make up their mind.
I would like to make my position clear. I am not against conservation, finding alternative energy sources, etc. What I am against is the global warming cabal that is trying to drive a political, anti-capitalist agenda.
I happen to think there are some very good reasons to develop renewable energy sources... the most important being energy independence and the chink in our armor that a reliance on Arab oil creates. I believe that nuclear energy is a solution to many of our energy problems, and greater fuel efficiency and new fuel types for our vehicles will help some more. I also support reasonable conservation measures... emphasis on reasonable.
But I don't accept that the reason to take these measures is in order to decrease emissions that are creating a global warming that nobody can prove via some mechanism that nobody understands, and that can't be reliably linked to those emissions. I don't see "global warming" as a reason to curb our nations productivity. And I don't think we should be taking radical action based on dubious science.
Anyone remember DDT? DDT is an insecticide that was banned in the 1960s based on dubious claims by alarmist scientists who made some very tenuous claims of dangers to the birds, including the bald eagle. None of these claims were really proven and most were based on limited on limited observation, but the product was taken off the market anyway, despite the fact that it was the most effective insecticide on the market at the time. The Ban was taken up by the UN who made it a worldwide ban.
Turns out that the UN had been using DDT to eliminate malaria worldwide with great effect (malaria deaths decreased from 192 per 100,000 population to 7 per 100,000 worldwide). But when the product was banned, malaria boomed. Not only that, but we now have West Nile Virus and many other diseases that are spread by mosquitoes that kill millions of people every year. These diseases could have been completely wiped out, but without DDT to help control the mosquito population, it could never happen.
These are the effects of jumping to conclusions and taking radical actions based on dubious scientific claims of ecological danger that may or may not exist. People get hurt or die based on these decisions.
That's why it is important NOT TO JUMP TO CONCLUSIONS OR TAKE ACTION WITHOUT REAL SCIENTIFIC PROOF AND A STUDY OF THE EFFECTS OF THE ACTIONS BEING TAKEN!!!
That is why I'm such a "radical" on the issue of global warming. I don't want people to be hurt by stupid decisions made by stupid people who are relying on dubious evidence to take radical actions without understanding the consequences of those actions.
Oh... one more point about DDT: in September 2006, the World Health Organization announced that DDT was going to be one of three products that were going to be used to control malaria. Turns out that the WHO and other bodies have decided that the ban was wrong and that its use as a control for malaria outweighs any potential ecological issues. USAID has agreed to fund the use of DDT as a malaria control product. In the end, the "scientists" who called for the ban on DDT were WRONG.
You make some great points Wolverine. It seems that for every study saying X is true, there is another study saying X is false (in this case global warming).
I'm no scientist, nor do I play one on TV, so I don't know what position to take on global warming. You look at the photos, the warming trends, etc and it seems legitimate, but then when some of the pics are debunked and the warming trend is proven pretty typical, it throws a wrench in the whole thing. Regardless, I agree that we should be taking steps to find a renewable source of energy (nuclear power, etc) to reduce our dependency on foreign oil, but also find something that burns cleaner. If you look at the skyline of any major metro area you can see the smog hanging above it - find a cleaner burning fuel, that will go away/reduce. I think it is naive to think humans have not had an impact on the world, but it goes a little to far (in my opinion) to say that we are going to cause all this doom and gloom end of times, blah blah blah.
Here's a link to a book I read recently which covers all the fear-mongering topics in the media and politics today:
I have not done my fact-checking (frankly I'm too lazy) but it was a good read and provided an opposing point of view to most of the claims put out there. I'd say it's worth the $12 to pick up a used copy if anyone is curious.
I would like to make my position clear. I am not against conservation, finding alternative energy sources, etc. What I am against is the global warming cabal that is trying to drive a political, anti-capitalist agenda.
Absolutely.
Quote:
Turns out that the UN had been using DDT to eliminate malaria worldwide with great effect (malaria deaths decreased from 192 per 100,000 population to 7 per 100,000 worldwide). But when the product was banned, malaria boomed. Not only that, but we now have West Nile Virus and many other diseases that are spread by mosquitoes that kill millions of people every year. These diseases could have been completely wiped out, but without DDT to help control the mosquito population, it could never happen.
Ever checked out the Malaria Clock at JunkScience? While you're there you can also get your DDTee to wear to the next enviro-mental rally.
That's the whole point, nature does indeed take care of itself, the issue is man's involvement in it.
Yes... and the point is that we don't know that man's involvement has had any effect whatsoever.
Do you know the single largest source for methane (a major greenhouse gas) in the world? Cow flatulance. Want to know the next one? Volcanoes. Human ativity is actually pretty far down the line in terms of being a source of methane.
Know the single largest source of carbon dioxide (another major greenhouse gas) in the world? Plant life. That's right, the very thing that is supposed to absorb CO2 is the major source of CO2 as well. CO2 is absorbed during respiration by plants during the growth phase, but emitted by plants during resperation when they are mature. The second source of CO2 is decaying plant and animal carcasses. Human activity is again way down on the list of sources of CO2.
So if we are not the major sources of these greenhouse gases, and are in fact rather small contributors to the overall level of greenhouse gases, what, exactly, is our part in global warming? What changes in human activity will create a major change change in the level of greenhouse gasses, if we aren't the source for them? Exactly what is our real impact on the environment?
NONE of these questions have ever been satisfactorily answered. And if we don't even know what our impact on the environment is, how do we know what actions we must take to correct a problem we're not even sure exists? Even if there is a problem, how do we know we won't be making it worse with our attempts to cure the problem?
Do we dare jump off the cliff without knowing what lies below?
We need to take this slowly. We need to truly study the matter and understand all the ramifications of our actions and be SURE of our decisions before we take action. If we don't, the risks are high, from the environmental, social, sociological, political and economic standpoints. When the risks are that high, we had better be absolutely sure we know all the angles before taking action.
And that is the sum of my argument. We are not sure. The science is NOT settled. We don't know allo the issues. And we shouldn't act before we do, because the WRONG action may very well be worse than no action at all, as it was with DDT.
I'm willing to accept that there may indeed be global warming, that human activity plays a role in it, and that we need to act to stop it. But PROVE it to me. Don't make computer models that are full of unproven assumptions about atmospheric activity and claim that the matter is settled. PROVE it, and I'll be happy to jump on the global warming bandwagon. But until it is proven, there's no reason to jump the gun.
Linear Mode
