physicsnut42 wrote:
eric76 wrote:
physicsnut42 wrote:
Global warming. Because if we don't do anything about it, the climate's gonna go nuts, we'll all drown/starve/suffocate, and the whole world will get screwed over if we don't do something about it now.
Just look at Hurricane Sandy. It was only the beginning.
I'm in favor of Global Warming. Global Warming means abundance and life.
The best thing that could happen is if it ends the current ice age; otherwise, there will be another glaciation that could destroy more than 90% of the Earth's population.
True enough, but in this case I'm referring to the abnormal weather patterns that will continue to pop up if we humans persist to muck up the atmosphere with CO2 and other such gases. Also, the ozone layer will deplete, leaving some places uninhabitable due to enormous amounts of UV radiation (ok, not a direct result of climate change, but of the same root cause). Rising sea level could cause widespread, devastating floods, and the general amount of pollution could make it impossible to breathe outdoors without a gas mask. Even if there is a coming Ice Age, and global warming deflects it, we'll still be in deep trouble.
We've been in an ice age for about the last couple of million years or so (not sure about the elapsed time). We are currently in a warm period between glaciations. The last glaciation ended an estimated 11,700 to 12,000 years ago. The previous interglacial warm period was something like 12,000 years ago and I understand that the two or three prior to that were significantly shorter than 12,000 years.
Rising sea level is not a problem. Let it rise. For one thing, the rise will be slow enough that we can deal with it. One thing for sure, climates are not static and the sea level is not going to stay as it is now. If the next period of glaciation begins it is going to drop by quite a bit. If it warms up and more ice melts from the Greenland ice cap, then it will rise. For what it's worth, the Antarctic ice cap appears to be growing, not shrinking.
11 Nov 2012, 11:54 pm
