In the broad scheme of things isn't warming a good thing?

Question

Hasn't our best interpretations of natural history made this indisputable?

I do not believe that CO2 is the cause of our current warming. I wish it were. That way we would have a greater amount of control over our future prosperity.

Answer 1

Not really other than the fact that here in North America we get longer summer seasons and longer harvesting seasons as well.

There is a lot of things happening like more floods, more hurricanes and melting polar ice caps, which in my opinion is normal because there is evidence were the earth has gone through cyclical changes in temperature throughout time, and as of now this is what is happening.

People see GW as an issue because it wasn't like that 100 years ago were temperatures were cooler. Humans are not used to the temperatures of now and the normal changes that the earth is going through is causing us a lot of trouble. As well since humans we were very separated because of the lack of communications; natural disasters and changes of weather and temperature were virtually unknown unlike today. Today you will know of a flood happening in Ecuador were before the closest you will know was a strong snowstorm that happened around Ottawa if you lived in Toronto.

That being said i don't think GW is a problem, but air water and earth pollution, deforestation. Over consumption and the huge growth on the human population and urban areas are problems that are harming our environment. These are issues that are very important and in my opinion they are completely separate of GW.

Answer 2

Global warming, if such a thing is going on, is not nor will ever be caused by man.  The Earth does what it wants and its weather systems are just too big and powerful to be affected by a couple of factories.  

It could be that global warming causes the weather to do things we don't recognize.  Global warming has been going on since the beginning of time.  We see draughts in places that used to have rain.  This is a natural dynamic.  It rain and rains in a certain place, then every 100 years or so, the weather patterns shift; cold fronts, warm fronts, el nino, la nina al play a part in how the Earth can balance itself out.  

We whine and complain about thunderstorms and the warnings come out.  We have to remember that we are the ones that plant crops in places that turn into dust bowls occasionally.  It's man, not God that puts neighborhoods of poorly built structures in an area called "tornado alley."  It's man that builds large cities in areas recognized as a flood plain.  

So whatever the planet does has neither effect our prosperity or not.  We simply have to adapt to a living and changing environment that will never ever be the same one day to the next.

Answer 3

it's better than global cooling, i don't like the heat, i prefer a bit of a chill but global cooling would make life quite difficult

Answer 4

No.  By that logic we should all go live on the Sun.  At a certain point, warmer is not better.   That's simply a grossly oversimplified argument.

We're adapted for the planet's current climate.  Any significant deviation is not a good thing.  It already appears that we've reached a point where more warming will have an adverse impact on plant life as a whole.

http://answers.yahoo.com/question/index;...

*edit* Yes CO2 was higher in the past, and yes some life (which was adapted to that climate, and which is now extinct) flourished.  All life is not equal.  Species alive today would not survive the global climate millions of years ago, and vice-versa.

Answer 5

Overall, warmer climates are a good thing but it's all about location.  In most of the Americas warming is a net positive because of the extended growing season.  Also, warmer climates produce fewer catastrophic storms.

Answer 6

GW didn't do the Neandertals much good, but then, we aren't Neandertals. The MWP melted enough ice to open up the North West Passage for the Vikings. Note that they had settlements in Nova Scotia and Newfoundland.

All we lost that time around were dragons, mermaids, elves, and fairies. lol.

Answer 7

You know what, I was just wondering that the other day, Mind Reader!!

But, if you think on it for a while, not really.

For example, think of bugs like mosquitos that live in hot-ish places like Africa and carry malaria and whatnot. Now people in say, Greenland, don't really need to worry too much about malaria for themselves because they don't have a climate that involves malaria-carrying mosquitos, but if their climate were to warm up due to Global Warming, then they would need to worry, because, in theory, the mosquitos would migrate to the warmer climate, or at least expand their areas, and then EVERYONE would need to worry.

I think...I'm not the most intelligent person, so I'm not sure if that would ACTUALLY happen, but suppose it did...

Not good.

And on your note about CO2 not being the cause, I understand that. I mean, during the Ice Age everything was ice and it melted because IT'S SUPPOSED TO MELT!! It's a cycle or something, it is just supposed to happen!!! So really it is not the fault of humans or CO2 really, completely. But we really aren't helping.

And you're right, if CO2 were the cause, we would be able to change things, but is isn't fully, so we can't.

Thanks for the brain-racking question though, you really got me thinking.

Answer 8

Yes, then no.

The global warming cycle has an unwelcome end game.

That is, the end game of the warming cycle has the heat being absorbed into the oceans. Better you may say than having it increase air temps that much. But when the ocean temperatures rise far enough, they  suddenly give us a lot of cloud cover, over the whole world. We cool off.

We have major rains and snows that will just not stop close to the poles. The oceans have to get warm to support that massive snowfall enough to cause a major ice age.

So this is why the no.. we might welcome some warming were it not that this brings on an ice age.

Answer 9

I suppose it is good if you like the hot weather, not for those of us who hate summer *lol*

Seriously though, the biggest problem with global warming is that it is happening at such a fast, unatural rate that history shows us has never happened before.

This causes the potential for mass problems for many species, not jus cold weather creatures like polar bears, penguins, seals, whales, ect buut many others. The flights and patterns of birds and beas for example.

And population increase of species that were eaten by those animals, and wiping out of the populations that were the food source of the species that increased.

In our lives we may float around in a bubble that no one can touch but in nature everything is conected, nature in itself is one giant symbiotic relationship.

It also means an even greater increase in water shortages, making it harder to grow crops all around the world.

Answer 10

No.

http://www.killerinourmidst.com/methane%...

A careful examination of a large number of species in numerous parts of the planet projects that a stunning portion of them will be "committed to extinction" in just 50 years, with only modest global warming (Thomas, 2004).

But with only this rather minimal amount of warming, and even with an assumed ability to disperse to more favorable environments, 11, 19, and 33 percent of total species (in minimal, mid-range, and maximal cases, respectively) will disappear. Mortality among those species with little or no ability to disperse will be considerably higher (34, 45, and 58 % in the respective no dispersal cases). Moreover, the "minimal" case (0.8 to 1.7 °C/1.4 to 3.0°F) represents the minimum expected warming by 2050: as the study's authors point out, this means that this level of extinction is inevitable (Thomas, 2004). In 50 years, more than 10% of terrestrial species -- at minimum -- will be on a one-way path to extinction; in 100 years, almost all those species will be gone.

The Potential Effects of Global Climate Change on the United States

http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/effects...

"The effects of a warmer climate alone would generally reduce wheat and corn yields. Yield changes range from + 15 to -90%."

Here's what happened in that region following crop yield drops of only ("as much as") 50% during the relatively minor warming of the 1930s:

"Dryland farmers in the Great Plains are particularly vulnerable to climate variability. The Great Plains States of Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Texas were the hardest hit during the Dust Bowl of the 1930s (Worster, 1979; Hurt, 1981). Yields of wheat and corn dropped as much as 50% below normal, causing the failure of about 200,000 farms and migration of more than 300,000 people from the region."

The report concludes that any small increase in crop yield due to increased CO2 will be overwhelmed by the negative effects of precipitation decreases and temperatures that are inadequately cool for crops such as wheat.

As a result of declining food production, here's one possible scenario that the Pentagon has studied for global riots and anarchy in about 12 years:

http://www.commondreams.org/headlines04/...

Already, according to Randall and Schwartz, the planet is carrying a higher population than it can sustain. By 2020 'catastrophic' shortages of water and energy supply will become increasingly harder to overcome, plunging the planet into war. They warn that 8,200 years ago climatic conditions brought widespread crop failure, famine, disease and mass migration of populations that could soon be repeated.

What Drives Societal Collapse?

http://www.heatisonline.org/contentserve...

"These climatic events were abrupt, involved new conditions that were unfamiliar to the inhabitants of the time, and persisted for decades to centuries. They were therefore highly disruptive, leading to societal collapse--an adaptive response to otherwise insurmountable stresses"

Warming may change the nature of the food we eat

http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/Science/Suzu...

If you do not believe that mankind's CO2, methane and black carbon are contributing to the current warming, then you must be smarter and better informed that the hundreds of scientists that developed the gradual advancement of science on CO2 over the past 100+ years (as summarized in detail by a physicist on this site:

http://www.aip.org/history/climate/co2.h... or you're simply in denial.  

Which is more likely, that nearly all scientists who have looked at this in the past several decades have been wrong, or that you are?

Answer 11

yes it is true that the earth has gone through several ice ages and then spontaneously started to warm up again. however that was a natural thing and since we came out of our last ice age man has sped up the process. it is undisputable that co2 is not the only problem with global warming, it also includes gases like carbon monoxide and methane ( both made by natural and human processes). thats why they are called green house gasses, it is implied that there are more than one. another thing is that year by year we are slowly being pulled toward the sun by its gravitational forces (just like all the other planets). it isn't enough to make that much of a difference but the earth should reach it sometime in the next 5 billion years (same as the black hole that is sucking in our galaxy). so maby man and its over creation of co2 isn't the only problem associated with global warming, but it is a big factor.

Answer 12

I think you are wrong in that you dont believe that CO2 is not the main cause of recent global warming if you look at recent historical correlations and timescales compared with geological timescales. However You may be right that global warming. Outside the veiwpoint of humans and most modern mammals perhaps the world would be more stable for life if temperatures were to return to figures usually ascociated with the reign of the dinosaurs. Humans however would have a hard time adjudsting to this and our numbers would massively decrease, but who knows, mabe reptiles once again will rule the world?