From: Damien Sullivan (phoenix@ugcs.caltech.edu)
Date: Wed Apr 09 2003 - 10:48:42 MDT
On Mon, Apr 07, 2003 at 09:39:23PM -0700, spike66 wrote:
> from melting icecaps? Is there genuine concern that
> mankind couldn't deal with a rising sea, given
> hundreds or thousands of years notice? Or is there
People aren't concerned about hundreds or thousands of years notice. They're
concerned about decades notice. Or sea levels rising now.
> something else Im not seeing? Is there concern about
> wild species? Do we not have an inexhaustible supply
> of species preadapted to warmer climates? What is
Yes, concern about wild species. The existence of warm-adapted species
doesn't change the extinction of cooler species, or local disruptions.
Species don't necessarily move that fast, and the warm-adapted ones can be in
trouble if the climate changes in other ways (rainfall.)
There's fear about malaria spreading. There's fear about drought in the
breadbaskets of the world. There's fear about shutting off the Gulf Stream
Above all there's fear not just of change to a system we've adapted fairly
well to but of unprecedentedly fast change. (And even if it's utterly
unprecedented, do we want to live through such a disruption if we can avoid
it?)
The way I put it is: we're burning all the CO2 sequestered in the
Carboniferous. Do you want to live in the Carboniferous? Do you want
tropical conditions everywhere? I sure don't. And the sun's output is higher
now than it was then, too.
Oh, there's also fear of a runaway greenhouse effect and turning into Venus.
The fear may or may not be misfounded, but it's a fear some people have.
Dismiss the people who have these fears as paranoid fools (or Lee's people
conspiring to destroy capitalism), and they'll just dismiss you as
short-sightedly blind fools who don't want to face unpleasant facts,
especially if those shake your market faith.
-xx- Damien X-)
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