Global Warming more dangerous than nuclear hollocaust?

Question

I was watching this thing on national geographic channel awile ago and it said the number one threat to human survival is global warming. Above a number 2 ranked supervirus and a number 2 ranked nulear hollocoust. I know global warming can be a bad thing. Stronger Storms, bad droughts, and costal cities flooded. But I highly doubt global warming will be the end of mankind. I think a supervirus or a nulear hollocaust will do a much better job at that. I think that episode was some sort of political statement. What do you think?

Answer 1

Look up the year 1348!

Answer 2

According to the United Nations report 3 years ago.. the NUMER 1 threat is HUMAN OVER POPULATION..

they placed a Maximum sustainable level at 5 Billion..

we are currently over 6.5 BILLION and growing and you can see the problems...

interestingly your threats all come from the threat of human overpopulation - which is the biggest contributor to Global Warming AND the biggest reason why a "super bug" can exist  AND the biggest reason why people would be stressed so bad to have a nuclear war...

Answer 3

Well, global warming is pretty much a sure thing.  And not much is being done to stop it or reverse its effects.  That makes it a higher percentage to happen than the other two, though not as quick to cause harm.

A full-out strategic nuclear exchange would create very severe conditions in a short time.  But its likelihood of occurance is considerably lest;  not at all a sure thing.  Thank goodness!

Same with the super-germ idea.  Possibility for very dramatic impacts on civilization over a relatively short period.  But again, less likely to occur.

Global Warming is the most serious current threat because its real, getting worse, and not much is being done to stop it.  The other two threats are just as catastrophic, but much more hypothetical and not nearly as high a probability.  I mean, 100% chance vs. what, 10% chance for strategic nuclear war in the next 50 years, 5% chance for super-germ?  Something like that I'm sure.

Answer 4

GW is very complex. But we can cleanup our mess. We have to be aware of what man is treating us with as well as what nature has done before. With high magnetic activity from the sun, we are going to have a deadly volcano again. Earthquakes are on the rise from the same forces. Look at Yellowstone, magma is only 5 miles down where the crust is 40 miles thick.

Live and learn

have fun

work to solve GW

Answer 5

true! If Global Warming doesn't stop now more insects can multiply longer throughout the year and can reach higher altitudes. Also the core of the earth would recieve too many UV rays from the sun due to holes in the O-Zone and will cause a meltdown similar but 1000x worse than a nuclear meltdown. Those are two of many horrible fates that could become of mother earth if we don't clean up our act and fight to stop pulltion and Global Warming. STOP GLOBAL WARMING! STOP GLOBAL WARMING! STOP GLOBAL WARMING!

NNNNNOOOOOWWWWW!

Answer 6

well...if you think about it...a nuclear bomb striking the earth is probably worse, since it happens in mere hours rather than years, plus with a nuclear bomb you have radiation that could last for up to a THOUSAND years!!! that is depending on how strong the bomb is.

Global warming would be slow and reverseable. It would probably take only about fifteen years for a near severe change at our rate...which is much slower than a few hours...even so global warming is simply a global change. and global change happens often for our planet if you think about it. The ice age, melting, warmth, present weather...eventually super warmth, and then another ice age...its the planets pattern.

and even if that still sounds bad, global warming can heal itself, and after several decades be normal again...but a nuclear radiation could last for several thousand decades

im sorry for the long answer..

your thirteen year old advisor

Answer 7

I read that National Geographic are putting out a new film called "6 Degrees..."  a film that will illustrate the potential impacts of GW (like it or hate it).

The basic conclusion is that 4 - to 6 deg C rise in average global temperature in 100 years is essentially a mass-extinction event in terms of the earths biota. The much quoted temperature rises do not usually mention the inevitable further rises that would occur after 2100 (a further doubling has been suggested by J. Hansen).

The worse-case scenario for GW is "uncontrolled run-away global heating": this scenario is considered a real risk by some scientists and like-minded commentators (and to the dismay of GW skeptics). But... in recent years atmospheric Greenhouse Gases have increased at the high-end of the IPCC uncertainty envelope, and this is accompaied by numerous reports of actual climate change (mostly warming) albeit in a non-uniform and non-linear manner.  The intractible problem of GW is that the process may reinforce itself (i.e. via feedbacks) thereby accelerating the warming - analogous to a ball being pushed over a hill and then rolling down the other-side. Although the Earth's climate system is complex, complex systems must follow thermodynamic laws which yield increased entropy and minimum enthalpy. The top of the hill is the called the "tipping point". It is claimed that once we pass a critical tipping point, no human effort can then control or limit runaway GW.

The increasingly unstable climate would be significantly warmer than what the Earth has historically experienced (in geologic time) except for some isolated events possibly associated with mass extinctions.

The Earth is usually colder than what it is now, and we are in currently an (unusually) stable Holocene warm period 10,000+ year in length - a period that is about to end as the Earth gets suddenly warmer (some people claim we are now in a period called the "Anthrocene Period"). The historic pattern is for the Earth to get cooler through the ice elbedo effect, but the opposite is now happening (driven by anthropogenic greenhouse gases). The Earth's ecosystems are not well adapted to hotter conditions because the Earths biota have evolved through colder conditions (e.g. this is why we have  polar bears for example). For the run-away climate scenario (i.e. +6 C and higher within 100 years) would severely degrade most of our life-supporting ecosystems and crops and play havoc with water resources and the built environment (sea level rise, floods, droughts, heat stress, fires). Major floods, storms, droughts etc generally do not kill lots of people - but rather it will be the dissolution of community and government instability that will drive people to mass migration and violence. Most likely, the biggest killer in a runaway GW scenario will be humans killing humans fighting for resources. Disease would also spread quickly. Note that the earth's biota is dominated by bacteria. Microbes, biology  and water chemistry are all very temperature dependent and so the consequences of runaway GW are unpredictable and likely to be extremely unpleasant. Nuclear war might be considered an option by remnant governments keen to prevent misery by wiping-out large populations of starving people (that could not be saved due to the lack of food, water, shelter and a breakdown in society). I think hydrogen bombs can do that without the long-term radiative damage. In any case, the effects of old-style nuclear war has been modelled and is predicted to cause "nuclear winter" followed by "nuclear summer" which is a warming with a negative impact something like GW but I do not have the details. Old-style nuclear war is not a viable option but might eventuate through political chaos. I think the supervirus scenario is a random possibility but not a present day concern.

Another important reality of runaway GW is that it seems unlikely to me that governments or communities will be able to honour treaties for limiting GW gases becuase our instinct for survival will drive us to use more (and not less) energy in order to adapt to a changing and volatile climate. Intuitively I expect that a temperature rise of 6 deg C (in 100 years) would only be survived by a small number of humans measured in the 1000's.

Answer 8

I think you need to look at them in perspective.

A nuclear holocaust is dangerous in that it would wipe out humans very quickly, but honestly, how likely is it? The answer is "not very". It would take some very conscious actions to perform by the major world powers, and we all know the consequences so I'd say there are not too many people who would want to start one.

Global Warming is very different. How it would affect us and how long it would take is less clear. To prevent it we would have to make pretty significant changes to our lifestyle, especially how we pollute the atmosphere. Humans are not inclined to want to do these things. They just put them in the "too hard basket" or lament that they'll be dead before it happens so it's not their problem. From that perspective, global warming is a real threat because it's the one we're least likely to do anything about stopping.

By the way, "gimpalom" above has recycled some of the classic global warming sceptic arguments which appear on common websites and have been disproven by climate scientists. Like volcanos - it's water vapour they produce in huge quantities, not CO2, and this cycles rapidly back out of the atmosphere. Volcanos account for about 3% of CO2 emissions with most of the rest man-made, and that figure is from vulcanologists at the University of Hawaii and University of North Dakota, but aww heck, what would they know?  And the "little ice age", which happened but is irrelevant to global warming. I suspect whoever they know is pretending to be a climatologist, not a real one!

Answer 9

Global warming will melt our face off,,,soon

Answer 10

I think "Global Warming" or more precisely, mans making of global warming is the political statement.  I know far too many scientists involved in Earth Sciences and Climatology to be overly concerned about global warming.  To the last person they are telling me two things.  Global warming is not man made and secondly its effect on mankind has been dramatized to the point of silliness.  Man produces less than 4% or the gasses associated with the problem, cattle produce more than 14% and neither of those come anywhere near the output of a volcano or two.  One told me that Mt. St. Helen's eruption put more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere than man has since the industrial revolution.

In addition, to the last person, they tell me that, yes, the planet is experiencing a warming trend but the climate goes through cycles.  One encouraged me to look into the "Little Ice Age" that occurred in about 400 A.D.  I encourage you to do likewise and pay particular attention to global temperatures.

A final note, 1939 was the warmest year on record for planet Earth...  And the planet has dropped a bit of heat in the last three years.  British reports have gone so far as to say the process of heating has stopped.  I don't know if I would go that far but they said it.

When anything like this raises its ugly head, just follow the money.  Al Gore is making money hand over fist with his nonsense.  Remember he invented the Internet and now he is a world renowned climatologist.  Where would the planet be without his infinite knowledge and wisdom???

Answer 11

So, now to Your fantasyworld, videogames, TV-c**p,UN-c**p,GW thay add nuclear hollocaust...how sad life is according to media...thay repeat this for many, many years- just to keep us in fear...

Answer 12

Somehow I doubt National Geographic has some sort of hidden political agenda.  If they stated their facts well, then I'd trust that Global Warming is more of a threat to human existence than the other two.

Answer 13

According to the piece quoted below, a nuclear exchange could have a serious cooling effect on the Earth's climate:

"Small Nuclear War Would Cause Global Environmental Catastrophe  By Jeanna Bryner, LiveScience Staff Writer

posted: 11 December 2006 08:12 am ET

SAN FRANCISCO—A small-scale, regional nuclear war could disrupt the global climate for a decade or more, with environmental effects that could be devastating for everyone on Earth, researchers have concluded.

"Considering the relatively small number and size of the weapons, the effects are surprisingly large," said one of the researchers, Richard Turco of the University of California, Los Angeles.  "The potential devastation would be catastrophic and long term."

The lingering effects could re-shape the environment in ways never conceived. In terms of climate, a nuclear blast could plunge temperatures across large swaths of the globe. "It would be the largest climate change in recorded human history," Alan Robock, associate director of the Center for Environmental Prediction at Rutgers' Cook College and another member of the research team."

Answer 14

They're factoring in likelihood. I saw that show too. I remember there were certain other events (like an asteroid hitting the earth, black hole sucking up the earth) that would surely result in the death of all mankind, but because they are unlikely scenarios, they were placed at the top of the list.