What's so bad about global warming?

Question

What's so bad about global warming?

Answer 1

i did a practice AST test along the lines of this...

throughout the entire thing i was saying why global warming should really be called global COMFORTING

reasons:

1)rising water level = no more cuba (nobody liked those cubans anyway...caused wayyyyy too much trouble)

2) rising water levels = bigger ocean surface level = more evaporation = more rain

3) apart from "destroying" nature enviroments, it's also creating nature enviroments -  a coral reef off the west coast of South America is growing at an exponetial rate due to a slight increase in water temperatures allowing it to thrive

4) colder countries like Russia will be able to farm much more land than perviously because the previously constantly frozen land (permafrost) will melt allowing it to be farmed

5) "Life will find a way" - Dr. Ian Malcom (Jurrasic Park)

i had a bunch more other reasons but can't remember them right now...

in short there are bad things about global warming...but there's acctually alot more good things than bad things attached to them, just nobody bothers to mention them (people like to run around screaming "It's the end of the world")

note: would people pls stop saying it's man's fault?

approx. 2% of ALL carbon emissions is caused by man, so it's not really that big...

note2: a fully grown forest doesn't acctually absorb any net carbon dioxide, during the day it absorbs some, but at night it emits it back into the atmosphere - it is the growing forests that acctually absorb some carbon dioxide in net, and then it is an insignificant amount

Answer 2

It won't be a Hollywood movie style disaster. Gradually coastal areas will flood and agriculture will be damaged. But it will be very bad. Rich countries will cope, but it will take huge amounts of money. In poor countries many people will die of starvation, but not all of them.

Most scientists say, in 20-50 years. But we need to start right now to fix it, fixing it will take even longer than that.

Really good website for more information here:

http://www.nrdc.org/globalWarming/f101.a...

Lots of numerical scientific data proving it real here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Image:Clima...

http://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report...

Proof that most scientists think it's real and mostly caused by us here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_...

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/fu...

Answer 3

glaciers 'll melt out and one day 'll come when there be no more perinnial rivers

Answer 4

wow. that was pretty stupid. uhm..its only killing the polar bears. but thats okay for you..right?

Answer 5

It's destroying the Earth!!!!!!

Answer 6

Try watching :Day after Tomorrow

Answer 7

Nobody truly knows, what a warmer earth would be like, even though so many have said they do. The only way we can speculate  is to look at fossil evidence that shows us what it was like in the time of dinosaurs. To my knowledge, everything was on a much larger scale. We can be pretty sure we would be better off in this scenario than another ice age. Regardless what we may think, we will always be forced to adapt to change.

Answer 8

Changing environmental conditions have devastated human societies in the past.

Even short interruptions in food supply can cause desperate times:

"...we could suffer any one of several catastrophes, such as a volcanic eruption no more severe than Tamboura in 1815 or Laki in Iceland in 1783. These two volcanoes put so much dust into the air that the sun's rays were enfeebled, the earth grew cool and there were two years without harvest. There were then far fewer people in the world, so there were famines, but not enough to destroy civilisation. Just imagine what would happen now. It is said that we have no more than 15-50 days' grain stocks in store at any one time. Two years makes this seem a very short time."

http://www.ecolo.org/lovelock/lovelock-o...

With climate change however we're talking about conditions that would not impact us for a year or two, conditions would get progressively worse, for hundreds of years.  We've seen what that does to human societies:

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"

So human societies have collapsed due to environmantal change in the past, but it's reasonable to consider whether  agriculture is more reliable now.  Here's a detailed analysis of the likely effects on agriculture, water supplies and quality, and electrical demand in America's Midwest in this report to Congress:

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 yeild 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.

Randall told The Observer that the potential ramifications of rapid climate change would create global chaos. 'This is depressing stuff,' he said. 'It is a national security threat that is unique because there is no enemy to point your guns at and we have no control over the threat.'

Randall added that it was already possibly too late to prevent a disaster happening. 'We don't know exactly where we are in the process. It could start tomorrow and we would not know for another five years,' he said.

'The consequences for some nations of the climate change are unbelievable. It seems obvious that cutting the use of fossil fuels would be worthwhile.'

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The Pentagon isn't saying that it's the most likely scenario for 2020, but we have no firm plan for reducing the greenhouse gas emissions of the two largest sources, China and the U.S., so we do seem to have a very bleak outlook for the future, whether it's 2020 or some other date.

"The bottom line is that recent observations and research make clear the planet almost certainly faces a greater and more imminent threat than is laid out in the IPCC reports. That's why climate scientists are so desperate. That's why they keep begging for immediate action. "

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2008/0...

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Answer 9

Um..Everything.

Answer 10

there is global warming because the atmosphere has (1) a hole through it and (2) getting thinner by the minute. which means we're all exposed to the sun's deadly UV rays, which can lead to our doom, which is something that's bad.

end of the world.

the question should be: what's NOT bad about global warming.

Answer 11

Changing climates =

displaced animal life =

some stupid apes extinct (yes, i am verbing that) all the better animals (better in that they aren't ruining the planet, like the stupid apes)

Answer 12

it destroys habitats, natural resources, and completely reverses all natural cycles. The water levels will rise, and with the population increasing, there will be no space. Also, it is quickening the earths death cycle... so theres a lot of bad things about it.

Answer 13

people's destroying trees. so that every day increasing

global worming. our atmosphere is not clear then our countries.

Answer 14

because it warms the earth

Answer 15

It destroys islands, the arctic, millions of species of plants and animals, um.... it is going to destroy the earth? The only good thing about it is that is will end the reign on the moronic human race, like you.

Answer 16

Hope you don't like maple syrup or lobsters, or have anything to do with the tens of thousands of jobs that will be lost due to the changing weather that is destroying those industries.   The maple trees are dieing because they can't take the changes in temperature and bugs that are coming with it.    Lobsters are dieing off in their southern ranges because of warming water allowing their shells to soften and disease to enter their bodies.