Do we have the moral right to deny our decendents a warmer more productive planet?

Question

hypothetically assuming global warming is happening & we can stop it. should we try to doom future generations to live in the same cold dismal climate we do?

where at least a third of the dry land in the northern hemisphere is unproductive & virtually uninhabitable without the massive use of fossil fuel which will become less available in the near future.

think what life would be like for us if our ancestors had stopped global warming 5000 years ago.

arent we arrogant & narcissistic to try & limit them to the limited habitable zones that we currently are limited to without the fossil fuel reserves we have? just because its what WE are used to & some of us think its the most perfect of all possible worlds.

Answer 1

Your question is hard to follow. Global warming did not exist 5,000 years ago, to the extent it is happening today. We are limited in our habitable areas because the earth via nature needs certain things to exist, to exist.  We are arrogant and self involved when we waste and destroy, for instant gratification without consideration for anything else. Population is the problem.

Answer 2

This is one of the stupidest posts I have seen here.  Now that you can't argue that global warming isn't occurring, you are trying to turn it into a  good thing.

Answer 3

The problem is our modern society, with intensive agriculture and massive coastal development will be severely damaged by even a slight warming.

The real question is whether we have the moral right to saddle them with a huge bill for our fun.  See:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/6096...

Answer 4

We are lucky to be living at one of the warmer times. Charts showing temperatures over the last

hundred thousand years make it clear that it's often a lot colder.  I would think that increasing temperature would result in more evaporation ,increasing water vapor in the air, and more rain and snow. And that evaporation is a very effective way of absorbing heat, and moving it upward, until it condenses, giving up it's heat high in the atmosphere.

But that would be a negative feedback effect, and the Global warming THEORY says that all feedbacks are positive, Which implies that once it warms up, it can only get warmer.

     CO2 is 380 parts per million, that works out to 2 feet worth, per mile of atmosphere.

      water vapor varies, at a median value of 2%, there would be 105 feet per mile of this greenhouse gas

Answer 5

Prove a warmer planet is more productive.

The Earth has been cooling for the last 5000 years, what would your ancestors do?  Pick more leaves off the trees to eat?

At least you understand the concept of "limited habitable zones", or do you?

Answer 6

Nope, let the good times roll.

Answer 7

No...we should always leave something in better condition then when we first borrow it. My Dad taught me this with a few slaps on the backside.

The average person doesn't realize, this is really a old issue. We've had since the 70's to become less dependent on oil. Now our descendants are facing,a  Social Security crises, Outsourcing, Higher Education Cost, NAFTA agreements, higher tax's, and higher prices. One real dilemma is that alternative energy is going to be restricted to the rich and powerful. Where is this leaving the rest of the world? A government that serves the few instead of the many... may not be such a viable solution. Hey! let's just increase the foreign relief fund by another 50 billion and the problems are solved? You're so dead on with the unproductive land. It's not about having enough food, but appropriate utilization, without government mandates/subsidies.

Answer 8

just the opposite, we have a moral obligation to leave this planet better for our decendants

Answer 9

Global warming won't make the planet warmer!  It's called that because we're warming the planet with greenhouse gases and the warming will cause the glaciers to melt( they already are starting) and change the current of the ocean which will cause a cooling effect and may even start a second ice age.  If you don't believe me then watch An Inconvienient Truth.

Answer 10

if our ancestors stopped global warming 5000 years ago , ok our ancestors were to busy trying to survive other than think about  a theory. and what are you going to try to pinn them in contributing to this thoery ? they lived in the dark , and did not drive, there were not any industrial plants, or airplanes , nope all these things of being accused in this theory and they didn't do these things , yet you are saying they should haved changed things. the fact is everything is prone to change in life and the earth is one of them, we cannot stop the earth from naturally changing

Answer 11

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Ima...

what you see from this graph is ever greater swing from hot to cold and back.

this is not man made this is a natural cycle and has been going on for 100s of thousands of years.

there is know way that the environmentalist can "prove" this is man made there is know way to prove it is,

if you have documented historical cycles that this chart shows

and we are in one of those cycles.

how can it be a unnatural warming.

by the way this is one of the charts from a AGW site.

this is not from a anti global warming site.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Ima...

so if they want to claim this is not evidence against global warming. they are claiming that there own data is bad.

http://www.globalwarmingart.com/wiki/Ima...

this chart shows that .

one the temperatures are at the lowest they have been in 100s of millions of years.

two that we are in a ice age and what ever put us in this ice age could end at any time. meaning global warming.

the 3 previous ice ages ended

maybe this one is ending.

most people believe the propaganda the earth will get warmer and dryer.

the records show that as it gets warmer it will get wetter.

this will lead to there being more farm-able land      

http://anthropology.si.edu/humanorigins/...

http://anthropology.si.edu/humanorigins/...

http://anthropology.si.edu/humanorigins/...

http://anthropology.si.edu/humanorigins/...

http://anthropology.si.edu/humanorigins/...

http://anthropology.si.edu/humanorigins/...

Answer 12

REALLY awesome website supporting Anti Man Made Global warming.....

Answer 13

Are you high?

Answer 14

We had inherited better living conditions from our ancestors but due to our penchant to acquire more and more and to produce we have damaged our own environment. It is our moral obligation to restore the environment to its former semblance so our descendents may inherit it in same condition we had received it.

Answer 15

Global warming is BS, so I don't assume anything to do with it as useful information.

Answer 16

The earth will be fine.  I'm a little worried about humanity, though.  I doubt you have done much research about water quality, water quantity, and over-farming.  Industrial farms are in trouble because of the bee population drop.  Depending on how bad it is, we may be in for a wee famine.

It does look like we may be in for a tropical future.  Lets all study permaculture so we can be ready to make the best of it.     Turn suburbia into Eden this way.  It is exciting that in Austin, TX where I live, we can now have grapefruit and limes, possibly more.

If we do not learn to manage our food and water supply, though, we'll end up like Africa...

There are too many similarities between what is happening in the Mississipi Valley now and what long ago occured in the Nile Valley.

I for one, do not doubt that the weather patterns of the earth are changing.  Scientifically, there is no way around it.  I also do not read this as DOOOOM.  But I am going to learn to grow my own food, harvest rainwater, do greywater irrigating, and other handy stuff.

Answer 17

It is a good point and illustrates how this is nothing more than silly panic to assume that shorter growing seasons and famine is preferable.