From: Damien Broderick (damienb@unimelb.edu.au)
Date: Tue Apr 08 2003 - 00:56:33 MDT
At 09:39 PM 4/7/03 -0700, Spike wrote:
>this is something that has puzzled me. Why is there
>fear of warmth?
Aw come on Spike. Let's treat the topic with a bit more nuance than that,
buddy.
>Do we not have an inexhaustible supply
>of species preadapted to warmer climates? What is
>the big deal if this planet gets warmer?
What's so puzzling? If we're really undergoing a < coff > spike of
startling proportions in temperature, whether anthropogenic or solar or due
to divine punishment, the world's typical climate (it's argued) might well
go haywire. Hotter here, colder there, but overall more turbulent,
customary patterns thrown into chaos outside their historic stochastic
ranges. If you're a wee animal, too bad--this is the state of nature. If
you're a human with Vastly expensive, delicate infrastructure in place,
ranging from coastal ports and cities to enormous established
agricultural/pastoral/transport systems, you might be shit out of luck.
Now this could be abstractly beneficial, in the way that having legacy
industrial plant bombed out of existence can give the next generation a
quick leg up. But people don't usually welcome the kinds of droughts and
floods that are currently afflicting Australia, for example, no matter how
bracing for their character and how much it unsettles the encrusted order
of things.
Damien Broderick
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