Given earth's history, should we be more prepared for climate change, man made or not?

Question

Given earth's history, should we be more prepared for climate change, man made or not?

Answer 1

How would you prepare for something you have no control of?

Answer 2

VERY GOOD OBSERVATION! Everyone keeps forgetting about Entropy - the main reason everything goes the way it does. The Laws of Thermodynamics reign supreme over the Universe.  We are already using 20% more energy than the Earth can provide. If all greenhouse causing agents are stopped being used today, it would take at least 100 years to get the global warming momentum to settle. While the masses wait for the Engineers and Scientists to save the world with a “by the time I get cancer there will be a cure for it” attitude, this is an example of what is;

Nobel chemist Frederick Soddy pointed out over 70 years ago: “Debts are subject to the laws of mathematics rather than physics. Unlike wealth, which is subject to the laws of thermodynamics, debts do not rot away with old age and are not consumed in the process of living. On the contrary, they grow at so much per cent per annum, by the well known mathematical laws of simple and compound interest”

Economist Herman Daly explains the inevitable consequences that result when society pits the mathematical notions of compound interest against the physical reality of thermodynamics. He says that while debt can grow at compound interest forever, real physical wealth cannot continue to grow at the same speed “because its physical dimension is subject to the destructive forces of entropy.” He concludes: “Since wealth cannot continually grow as fast as debt, the one to one relation between the two will at some point in time be broken- i.e. there must be some repudiation or cancellation of debt. The positive feedback of compound interest must be offset by counter acting forces of debt repudiation, such as inflation, bankruptcy, or confiscatory taxation, all of which breed violence.”

At every step in the entire production and exchange process, work is done; namely, energy is expended by both humans and machines. Part of that energy is absorbed into the product and part is wasted. This means that the more stages in the economic process, the more energy is lost. The same principle is at work in the production process as in the simple food chain. In highly industrial societies the stages of the economic process continue to proliferate, meaning more and more energy is dissipated all along the line; and the resultant disorders create even greater long-range problems for society.

If the Entropy Law were fully acknowledged, society would have to face up to the notion that every time we use part of the stock of available matter and energy it means two things: first, that one way or another, the individual, the institutions, the community, or the society ends up paying more for the disorder created in making the product than the value derived from the use of the product; second, less energy is available to be used by other people and creatures sometime in the future. This reality flies in the face of the way we have viewed the world for the past several hundred years. The entire Enlightenment world view is inspired by the principles of Newtonian mechanics, Cartesian mathematics and Baconian scientific methodology. Capitalist and socialist systems attempt to organize the physical world on the basis of these basic conceptualizations. Central to all three ideas is the notion of absolute repeatability of observation (the scientific method) and the absolute reversibility of all processes (universal mathematics and mechanical processes). In the real world, however, nothing is observable in the same manner twice and no occurrence is reversible. The Entropy Law tells us that all physical reality unfolds in only one direction and that while there must be a -X for every +X in math, there is no such reversibility in the physical sojourn of the world around us. It is indeed bewildering that we have been attempting to organize the world for these past few centuries on the basis of mechanics, mathematics and the scientific method, when the real world simply does not conform to the central assumptions of reversibility and absolute repeatability. The reality is that when we leave this world, we leave it less well endowed as a result of our presence. When we glorify high energy production, then, what we are really promoting is an ever greater consumption of the finite store of resources of the planet. Seen in this way, the gross national product is more accurately the gross national cost, since every time resources are consumed they become unavailable for future use.

Answer 3

It is easy to adapt to heat.  If the sun is the primary driver of climate and we are heading into a period of low sun activity, then we are heading for cooling.  The is something most northern countries are not preparing for.  We can genetically modify crops to withstand the cold, but the environmentalist movement is against that as well.

Answer 4

Absolutely, one thing ice core data shows is that the Earth's temperature is never constant for very long.

Answer 5

My point exactly! It didn't take everyone to agree on the "Theory of Gravity" to prove it exists. And just because many religious people don't believe in the "Theory of Evolution" doesn't make the evidence disappear! But in order to have a positive effect on global climate change,caused by globalwarming ,from our history of human's use of fossil fuels,we will need to change our way of producing energy. So ultimately ,we did it,it's up to us to stop it!!

Answer 6

As humans, no, we should not be prepared for climate change. One must remember that Earth's history covers billions of years...a human lifespan is rarely more than 70 years.  So in reality, humans wouldn't notice climate change because it occurs on time scales (100,000s of years to millions of years) much larger than human lifespans.  Similarly, we have nothing to prepare for because evolution has already prepared humans: human beings have evolved to survive in the various climate conditions that have existed on Earth in the most recent 1-2 million years (which, one should note, DOES NOT include an extreme greenhouse climate).  

However, what we are experiencing today is not natural climate change...it is human induced climate change.  As such, the timescale of this climate change is MUCH MORE RAPID than it has ever been in the past.  

Lastly, one answer here needs a quick correction: the Sun is not entering a period of low solar activity.  It's on the cusp of entering a new 11-year solar cycle of high activity which means more solar storms, more solar flares, and more intense auroras in the south and northern latitudes on Earth.  This change is caused by a switch in the Sun's magnetic field and the first sign of this change is a 'backward' sunspot - that is a sunspot whose magnetic orientation is reversed.

Answer 7

yes the ice age we are in now will end someday.

this will mean that the temperatures will rise about 5 to10 degrees.

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

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

we may be getting close to the end of the ice age.

if so the temperatures world wide will start to do 10 to 30 years cycles of warming to cooling with the averages of the cycles going warmer.

this has nothing to do with AGW it is a natural phenomenon.

if the temperatures turn cold for about 10 years then raise again it will be a sign that this is happening.

then it will be a cyclic phenomenon for the next 500 to 1000 years of slowly raising  cycles of warming

Answer 8

Exactly, stop trying to control the weather. We will do what we always do, adapt.

If sea levels do rise (like they have in the earth's past) we will move inland. Given that the seas rise at a slow rate (3 mm per year at the highest so far), I think we can adjust. No need to run screaming from the shore.

Actually, I think the seas will swamp the shores within 1 year or so. If you or your parents own a house along the Outer Banks of North Carolina, please contact me. You are in grave danger. I will purchase the house at a drastically reduced price (pennies on the dollar), but save your life (you can thank me later).  I prefer a nice 4 bedroom house with in ground pool and hot tub, and it must be on the water (other wise it may seem I am trying to rip someone off) and easily accessible from Raleigh area. I will consider other beach houses further from Raleigh, but you may have to pay me something for the effort (I may need to helicopter you out for your own safety or something).

Remember, I am only doing this for your safety. We all know I will not be able to sit on the beach drinking my beer (I am of age) while watching my kids learn to surf (because of the 20 foot sea rise).