Environmental Mega-disaster within 100 years

[Belz...]

Not murdering people.

Then you both die, and the whole thing is over. Congratulations; your vaunted principles have killed the human race. Would you like to try again? Oh, that's right. In real life you can't re-load your save state.

If you argue that. "one of us has to die, or both of us will" and follow up that argument by killing me because you are unwilling to commit suicide, you have not protected a principle- or participated in a coldly logical act for a greater good, you have simply committed murder.

You have upheld a principle of keeping the human species alive. This is what we were discussing. Your emotional qualms about it are irrelevant if the deed is necessary -- and it is, since no one will kill themselves willingly except a few fringe true believers. If upholding other principles mean letting humanity die off, then I say those principles aren't as important as the one I'm discussing.

And no, this isn't off topic at all.

 

[Roboramma]

Not murdering people.
If you argue that. "one of us has to die, or both of us will" and follow up that argument by killing me because you are unwilling to commit suicide, you have not protected a principle- or participated in a coldly logical act for a greater good, you have simply committed murder.

There's another solution in that scenario: we get some poison and a placebo that looks like the poison. We shuffle them randomly so neither of us knows which is which. Then we each take one.

I suppose we could also just play Russian roulette until we reached a conclusion.

The point being that in that case we don't need someone to either be a murderer or nobly sacrifice himself. We just take the most rational action available.


ETA: But this is pointless anyway. If you are worried about overpopulation the solution isn't some sort of suicide lottery. On the scale of two people that might work, on the scale of billions it's impossible. And killing people isn't a solution either. War? That will lead to more environmental damage than you had with all those people and the outcome will just be more population growth after the war. The solution is economic growth, eduction and empowerment of women which leads to lower birth rates.

 

[Belz...]

There's another solution in that scenario: we get some poison and a placebo that looks like the poison. We shuffle them randomly so neither of us knows which is which. Then we each take one.

With an initial batch of exemptions for scientists and specialists and such. We're going to need some reorganising after all this.

 

[wobs]

The solution is economic growth, eduction and empowerment of women which leads to lower birth rates.

Surely economic growth is the problem. What we need is a steady state economy when a population has attained a certain standard of living.

 

[casebro]

Surely economic growth is the problem. What we need is a steady state economy when a population has attained a certain standard of living.

Bingo!

I suggest the USA be the first to start.

 

[casebro]

You know more about this than the climate scientists, right?

I know there has to be some positive changes to global warming. Doomsayers are those who ignore the pluses, and accentuate the minuses.

The Big Dog is the only one here besides me that has even mentioned rebutting that OP doom and gloom. \

C'mon, where is some Skepticism? You don't have to become a denier to see that the bigger view includes some pluses.

 

[Belz...]

I know there has to be some positive changes to global warming. Doomsayers are those who ignore the pluses, and accentuate the minuses.

The Big Dog is the only one here besides me that has even mentioned rebutting that OP doom and gloom. \

C'mon, where is some Skepticism?

I'm skeptical that there are going to be positives to global warming. Perhaps you can support that claim?

 

[casebro]

Permafrost not withstanding, You know, NONE of central Antarctica ice will even begin to melt until it warms to 0c.

When is that forecast to happen? Every December perhaps, I don't know how warm it gets there now. Are there rivers of melted ice there every summer, flowing to the sea? And slightly higher temps can shift the trend? Do you know?

My impression is that it is so cold there that another few degrees of AGW will melt NO icecap.

 

[casebro]

http://www.coolantarctica.com/Antarctica fact file/science/global_warming.php There is no unusual significant loss of ice of any kind from the larger 96% of Antarctica that is not the Peninsula.

And the chart shows that most of Antarctic is cooling.

Sorry, no huge sea level rise coming from there.

 

[Belz...]

Permafrost not withstanding, You know, NONE of central Antarctica ice will even begin to melt until it warms to 0c.

That doesn't answer my request. Was that meant to answer my post? I can't tell.

 

[jimbob]

I know there has to be some positive changes to global warming. Doomsayers are those who ignore the pluses, and accentuate the minuses.

The Big Dog is the only one here besides me that has even mentioned rebutting that OP doom and gloom. \

C'mon, where is some Skepticism? You don't have to become a denier to see that the bigger view includes some pluses.

The trouble with this is that globally it doesn't really matter to us that some areas might get more productive. Unlike in prehistory, we now live in countries with rigid political boundaries. If the water level rises and floods coastal regions, that would be costly for rich countries, but disastrous for many poor countries. What would happen to Bangladesh's neighbours in such a situation? India is not going to want a lot of Muslim refugees. What would happen with coastal China?

What would happen with the Middle East? We know that a lot of Southern Mesopotamia was below sea level before.

If you then add in that rainfall patterns will move, you face the prospect of cities losing their supporting agriculture, leading to mass migration across borders that are already tense.

You also face water shortages from retreating glaciers and the consequent loss of glacier-fed rivers

PDF from my first search here

http://meteora.ucsd.edu/cap/pdffiles/barnett_warmsnow.pdf

Potential impacts of a warming climate on
water availability in snow-dominated
regions
T. P. Barnett1
, J. C. Adam2 & D. P. Lettenmaier3
All currently available climate models predict a near-surface warming trend under the influence of rising levels of
greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. In addition to the direct effects on climate—for example, on the frequency of
heatwaves—this increase in surface temperatures has important consequences for the hydrological cycle, particularly in
regions where water supply is currently dominated by melting snow or ice. In a warmer world, less winter precipitation
falls as snow and the melting of winter snow occurs earlier in spring. Even without any changes in precipitation intensity,
both of these effects lead to a shift in peak river runoff to winter and early spring, away from summer and autumn when
demand is highest. Where storage capacities are not sufficient, much of the winter runoff will immediately be lost to the
oceans. With more than one-sixth of the Earth’s population relying on glaciers and seasonal snow packs for their water
supply, the consequences of these hydrological changes for future water availability—predicted with high confidence and
already diagnosed in some regions—are likely to be severe.

Resource wars are quite possible, including with some nuclear-armed protagonists (Israel, India, Pakistan, China).


So in general, I'd say the positives for any particular region would be outweighed by the global negatives, some of which would be due to the impact of the effects of global warming on the geopolitical situation.

 

[Oystein]

...
So lots of it is below sea levels. Same for Iceland?/Greenalnd. So all that which is below sea level will NOT raise sea level when it melts.

And yes, ice shelves and ice bergs are already displacing sea water, so will not raise sea level when they melt either. DIY experiment: fill a glass with ice water, let it melt. see if the level changes.
...

You seem to have a misconception here.
Only ice that melts while floating on the sea does not change sea level. Any ice that melts, and joins the ocean, that did not float on the sea increases absolutely the volume of sea water and contributes to rising sea levels.

If ice melts below sea level under an ice cover that extends far above sea level cannot carry the weight above it will try to find cracks and channels to be pressed upwards. If it finds the sea that way somehow, sea levels rise.

Now of course rising atmospheric temperatures will first affect the surface ice, not the ice 2 km below the surface. The surface ice does indeed flow towards the sea, where it melts and contributes to rising sea levels; this ice is called "glaciers". This happens all the time, and has been happening all the time evers since Antarctica had an ice sheet. This loss of ice is of course countered by snow that falls onto and adds to the ice - which had previously evaporated from the ocean and decreased sea level. There is, ideally, a dynamic equilibrium between snow falling on Antarctiva, and sweet water glaciers melting into the ocean.

The question then is: How does global warming affect both sides of this equilibrium? Do glaciers flow faster downhill when they warm up? Will more or less snow fall onto the continent? You have questioned a couple of times that the inland ice won't just melt, because it is still freezing cold. You are right - it doesn't matter so much if -15 °C or -10°C, both are freezing, not melting temperatures. But a) Some parts of Antarctica do see >0 °C some time of the year, and that might increase both in area and in days/year; and b) It's really the flow of sweet-water glaiciers that you need to look into.

All that equilibrium is pretty unaffected by how deep parts of the ice sheets reach under sea level, as long as they sit on rock rather than swim on sea water.

 

[applecorped]

Has it arrived yet?

 

[The Great Zaganza]

Change means increased volatility which makes it hard, even for those countries with the means, to adapt to whatever the new equilibrium will turn out to be.
Get your home insurance now while you still can (I just got a letter from mine recalculating the premium based on recent storms).

 

[casebro]

So in general, I'd say the positives for any particular region would be outweighed by the global negatives, some of which would be due to the impact of the effects of global warming on the geopolitical situation.

But you still list ZERO positives.

I'm not a denier saying it isn't warming, I'm a realist saying there are pluses to warming. You folks are Alarmists.

 

[Distracted1]

But you still list ZERO positives.

I'm not a denier saying it isn't warming, I'm a realist saying there are pluses to warming. You folks are Alarmists.

I am not really sure what the positives you are asserting are.
Are you saying that agricultural production will increase?
Assuming that northern climes with shorter days and insufficient soils will indeed become more productive agriculturally, do you think that increased production will offset massive decreases in production elsewhere? Even if it does, if it doesn't result in a net increase in food production it is at best a neutral result- not a benefit.

 

[Belz...]

But you still list ZERO positives.

I'm not a denier saying it isn't warming, I'm a realist saying there are pluses to warming.

And yet you can't name a single one of them.

You folks are Alarmists.

Ad hominem.

There is plenty of scientific literature about the effects of even 3-4 degrees of warming. None of it is good. The amount of land that _may_ become arable is insignificant compared to what's going to be lost. You've heard plenty of arguments but you haven't made one yourself.

So what do you have?

 

[casebro]

One is all I need to prove my point that doom sayers ignore the pluses of warmer climate. Off the top of my head, the Northwest Passage has been used already. Done.

Many if the rest that I mentioned up thread are givens, that basically the moderate climate zone will shift north. NOT just that the equatorial deserts will expand. There WILL be changes to ocean temps and currents. They can not be ALL bad.

At least Distracted1 admits in post 76 that there will be some pluses. Now it is a matter of degree, but nobody wants to discuss that.

And I have shown that all of the ice in Antarctica and Greenland is NOT going to melt and cause a biblical flood within the next few decades. Or ever maybe.

Exaggerators of Doom, the lot of you.

 

[Roboramma]

Did anyone suggest any of the things that you are objecting to? That all the consequences of climate change will be negative? That all the ice will melt and flow into the sea?

I think I missed that.

 

[a_unique_person]

I remember in high school debate, every proposal was going to cause nuclear war. If you did whatever it was that the affirmative team suggested, the end result would be nuclear war. We always had index cards with expert opinions that backed up the assertions. Professor so and so of someplace was always trying to warn us of the dire consequences of the actions, which would always lead to nuclear war.

Somehow, lots of things that were proposed in those debates actually were implemented, and yet no nuclear war happened.

I can't take seriously any article that talks about how human behavior will be affected by climate change.

I'm all for trying to do something about climate change, but I just can't take all this hype seriously. If that guy is only half right, then it means that his models are all wrong, so why should we worry about the possibility that he is half right?

Still plenty of nukes out there and the people who have access to them are getting more and more crazy.