Should politicians highlight Global Warming as the biggest threat to Humanity?

[Travis]

If temperatures continue to rise at the current rate--and they won't, by the way, since they're rising faster every year--it's only a matter of time before we start seriously losing permafrost. Who here has ever taken into account what that means?
If you haven't, allow me to spell it out: Siberia alone contains a vast, frozen swamp the size of Texas, and locked inside that frozen peat is over 70 billion tons of methane. If that stuff is released into the atmosphere, it will set in motion an irreversible chain of catastrophes that will--not could, will--destroy mankind and nearly every other living creature on the face of the Earth.
Human industry isn't the first event to trigger a massive release of greenhouse gases--something very similar to what we're seeing now occurred 400 million years ago, when the Siberian Traps supervolcano erupted. The crud released into the atmosphere probably darkened the sky for a time--but when the dust cleared, tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide and methane remained, raising global temperatures enough to trigger vast permafrost melts, which in turn raised the temperature further and melted still more, and so forth.
As the world's temperature went haywire, the oceanic currents followed suit--but then they slowed, and finally they stopped altogether. The oceans of the world literally went stagnant, becoming an anoxic, bacteria-ridden soup. By the time the water cleared up, between 75% and 90% of all life on Earth had died. This event is now known as the Permian Extinction.
Scared yet?

The PT extinction was actually 250 million years ago. What made it so deadly was the one-two punch of first a cold winter (while the dust blocked the sun) then the run-a-way heating that pushed the global average temperature over 23^oC. However there have been other periods of warming that have also induced extinction events, though not nearly as severe, which puts them, along with glaciations and impact events, as part of the trifecta of species liquidators.

 

[Jontg]

Ack, sorry about that--I think the 400M figure was from a story I'm writing about a team of paleontologists who dig up a talking ostracoderm. He makes a killing on the stock market and gets accused of being the Antichrist.

 

[Travis]

Ack, sorry about that--I think the 400M figure was from a story I'm writing about a team of paleontologists who dig up a talking ostracoderm. He makes a killing on the stock market and gets accused of being the Antichrist.

Well if they play the stock market that goes without saying.

 

[Policenaut]

Who invented the industrialization that leads to Global Warming anyway?

Yea lets all live in mud huts and revert to hunter gatherers. I'm sure you'll be the first to give up your computer, house, clothes, car, books, store bought food and anything else that industrialization has created.

 

[DC]

Global Warming? Islamic Terrorists?
no, the USA is the biggest threat to Humanity.

 

[Darth Rotor]

Global Warming? Islamic Terrorists?
no, the USA is the biggest threat to Humanity.

If that is so, why do people keep coming here? Why would people come to something so dangerous, of their own volition?

DR

 

[Cuddles]

No. Global warming exists and may present a problem in the future, but it will not cause the apocalypse all by itself. I think power is going to be the most serious problem we face in the near future. Fossil fuels are going to run out, and they are likely to do so before climate change or pollution become the limiting factors. In the absence of a sudden breakthrough in renewable and nuclear energy, people are not going to change their habbits until they are absolutely forced to by the lack of available energy. By this point I think it will probably be too late to avoid, at the least, major wars over the remaining fuel supplies. This may not happen for another century or two, but it will happen eventually. Until then, global warming may screw over people in some places and make the problems poor areas face even worse, but I don't think it will do more than cause inconvenience to the rich and accentuate the existing problems of the poor.

 

[Darth Rotor]

No. Global warming exists and may present a problem in the future, but it will not cause the apocalypse all by itself. I think power is going to be the most serious problem we face in the near future. Fossil fuels are going to run out, and they are likely to do so before climate change or pollution become the limiting factors. In the absence of a sudden breakthrough in renewable and nuclear energy, people are not going to change their habbits until they are absolutely forced to by the lack of available energy. By this point I think it will probably be too late to avoid, at the least, major wars over the remaining fuel supplies. This may not happen for another century or two, but it will happen eventually.

Those wars have already begun. See Operation Desert Storm, 1991, and the Iran Iraq war 1980-1988, as the openers in a sustained series that will not wait a few centuries to replicate in varied forms. There were some skirmishes some years back over the Spratley Islands (near Viet Nam, South China Sea) over access to the oil reserves there.

Until then, global warming may screw over people in some places and make the problems poor areas face even worse, but I don't think it will do more than cause inconvenience to the rich and accentuate the existing problems of the poor.

It's the same
The whole world over
It's the poor
That get the blame
It's the rich
Get all the pleasure
Ain't it all
A ______ing shame!
(part of an old Rugby song)

DR

 

[Jontg]

Mispost.

 

[mhaze]

If temperatures continue to rise at the current rate--and they won't, by the way, since they're rising faster every year--it's only a matter of time before we start seriously losing permafrost. Who here has ever taken into account what that means?
If you haven't, allow me to spell it out: Siberia alone contains a vast, frozen swamp the size of Texas, and locked inside that frozen peat is over 70 billion tons of methane. If that stuff is released into the atmosphere, it will set in motion an irreversible chain of catastrophes that will--not could, will--destroy mankind and nearly every other living creature on the face of the Earth.
Human industry isn't the first event to trigger a massive release of greenhouse gases--something very similar to what we're seeing now occurred 400 million years ago, when the Siberian Traps supervolcano erupted. The crud released into the atmosphere probably darkened the sky for a time--but when the dust cleared, tremendous amounts of carbon dioxide and methane remained, raising global temperatures enough to trigger vast permafrost melts, which in turn raised the temperature further and melted still more, and so forth.
As the world's temperature went haywire, the oceanic currents followed suit--but then they slowed, and finally they stopped altogether. The oceans of the world literally went stagnant, becoming an anoxic, bacteria-ridden soup. By the time the water cleared up, between 75% and 90% of all life on Earth had died. This event is now known as the Permian Extinction.
Scared yet?

Scared? No, fraid not. But you would apparently would like to use little stories to try to scare people.

You've taken an event from the geologic past and alluded to it happening again due to man's activities causing tiny increases in a trace gas, CO2.

What you've just quoted is not a scientific projection, and does not deserve consideration.....oh, wait, you were just trying scare people....I get it.