It’s a damned if you do and damned if you don’t scenario. We very well may be on the path to quick global peril, or it may just seem that way. Either way it triggers the ‘false positive’ response in humans. There might be a tiger in those reeds or it might be the wind blowing them… I think I’ll go over here away from those reeds. We naturally … Read Moreassume the worst for self-preservation. That being said, I don’t think we should be doing any ‘climate hacking’ I think we’ve proved enough times that we don’t really know what the hell we’re doing when we change things drastically. I remember where I used to live there was an aphid infestation, so they imported lady bugs, now there is a lady bug infestation and it’s illegal to kill them, lol. That was just on a local scale, imagine effin up the whole planet in a vain attempt to ‘fix’ things.

The “Read More” is an artifact from my FB copy and paste, lord knows how it got there, lol.

BRING IT ON.

I’d be curious to see what scientists have predicted about the climate in years past, what changes have been the result of “natural” conditions. (I’m writing this really knowing nothing about the history of climate change.)
I’d really be interested to hear more detailed explanations of the result of global warming. I wind up reading a lot of stuff like this that make vague statements (Granted I didn’t see the movie…..) But disrupt food supplies–where/how exactly? and as for the rising sea levels, this makes it sound like we’ll all be minding our own business and suddenly one day the ocean will overtake the coasts. Surely this rise will be gradual?
There was one line in the article, how some believe focusing on stemming greenhouse emissions takes away from “essential efforts to adapt to inevitable higher temperature rises in the coming decades.” (don’t know why both can’t be done at the same time but….)
Anyway, a line like that suggests changes wrought by global warming would not be apocalyptic. If, as the scientists cited in that article believe, global warming is inevitable, could we adapt? Sounds like it?

“are we screwed” depends on how you define “we”. is that the “royal we”, “we in Manhattan” or “all of us we”.
some of us are definitely going to be screwed. we’re just not sure who it’s gonna be yet. it will take a climate crisis of scary proportions in the internet-connected.Western world to get people to believe that their habits need to change.
some of us are already royally screwed, but due to brown skin and lack of internet access and funds, the extraordinary, deadly and mostly ignored climate related problem in sub-saharan South Africa has been ignored for decades. Nobody “chooses” to live in drought stricken places where you have to walk five miles to get a bit of water. what happens when water wars erupt over the colorado and vegas/los angeles/etc run dry.
so it seems that we’re on a path to climate fucklestuff by default, but smart folks like us already know that. so maybe compassion, doing what we can to mitigate it, hanging on to see what happens, and swimming are the best options.
if the IDP adds a swimming pool it will be the perfect ‘here comes really really bad weather, I mean really bad’ hangout.

I agree with Sharon that the world will adapt. Change is inevitable, whether or not we contributed to it. As much as I try doing my part to lessen my negative impact on our current status of existence, I accept that most likely over the years, coastal floodings will get worse, storms may get more severe in some places, deserts will grow, species will disappear and humanity will adapt.
Sometimes I wonder if our efforts to use up more of earth’s resources and our efforts to preserve earth’s resources don’t stem from a simple desire to maintain a kind of status quo. Meaning, we really don’t want to give up certain mentalities and standards of living.

Picture a cup of water that’s being heated, that has an ice cube floating in it. While the water-warms, the ice cube melts, as the temperatures between the two try to reach a kind of balance. Because of the ice cube, the temperature of the water doesn’t really change. But what happens when the ice cube completely melts? There is no longer a backstop preventing the waters temperature from rising, and the water will begin rapidly rising in temperature.
This is what is happening with the earths’ oceans in respect to it’s icecaps. The ice-caps have been acting like a cooling system, preventing the earth from warming from our dramatic increase in greenhouse gases. But at the current rate of loss, the icecaps will be completely gone throughout the summer months within a decade, and at that time their melt-water will no longer be able to cool the oceans.
Since the beginning of the industrial revolution about a century ago, we’ve nearly doubled the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. Lately, we’ve noticed the weather getting much weirder, with record floods and fires, but on average the earths temperature has only warmed about a degree (the poles have warmed about about 4-6 degrees). When the ice-caps are gone though, the weather’s going to be a lot more severe.

“The Earth does not belong to man, man belongs to the Earth.
All things are connected, like the blood that unites us all.
Man did not weave the web of life, he is a strand in it;
whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.”
- Chief Seattle
I am curious about how humanity and our understanding of our place in the world is going to change in response to this crisis. Are we going to realize that maybe some of the native cultures were right, that we can’t treat the planet as simply a resource to be exploited? Are we going to realize that this current incarnation of capitalism is completely unsustainable? What will humanity of the future evolve into once we realize that we’re killing the earth?

@Anon:
Yes the effects of climate change on the Southern Hemisphere and the darker-skinned parts of the planet are sure to be the worst. Which is frackin’ ironic and horrible.
Prepare for the climate change refugees y’all. In fact, some experts think Darfur is the world’s first Global-Warming based genocide (more to come?).

how is global warming killing the earth? seems like the concern around global warming is about how it will affect people. Doesn’t seem like scientists think the earth will perish as a result. I’m going to guess the earth has suffered through severe climate changes in the past, at least as severe as global warming is supposed to be.
I also wonder if there might be any possible positive affects of global warming? (don’t get me wrong though, I’m still absolutely for reducing consumption.) But, would there be any upside to global warming?

sharon: yeah, “killing the earth” was probably a poor choice of words, but we are under-going the worst mass extinction since the dinosaurs were wiped out, and the rate of species lose is going to get much worse.
Sure, seems like there could be a few upsides to climate change. Regions further from the equator may be a bit more inhabitable, possibly with warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons. Heat drives weather systems, so the increased heat will also cause more ocean evaporation, which may lead to much needed moisture in some regions (severe flooding in others). Hopefully the oregon beaches might become a bit more swimmable too

The hammer of climate change is already coming down on Australia, hard. Not a matter of waiting to see at all. A heatwave in southern Aus has killed 200 or so people and the wild fires this last season killed 150. There was an exstensive article in the Los Angeles Times several days ago detailing the impact climate change is having there, including a rising tide of suicides by those whose livelihoods have been destroyed.
Is that coffee being brewed I smell? Perhaps it’s time we woke up.

Re: Darfur. Again not an expert but I think an atrocity like that probably has complex origins that go way back, & that it isn’t simply global warming. But of course anything horrific like that has deep roots in long-standing economic disparity … so yeah, then global warming (disparity involving farm-able land, water…).
But then again horrific drought I think has affected sub-Saharan Africa, for a long, long, long time, pre-global warming. (or maybe it was global warming actually….)
But anyway, seems in that article, scientists think global warming is inevitable. So it’s here. Now what? Focusing on new technologies allowing arid land to be farmed, creating genetically modified strains of crops, etc.
Though of course as that’s what needed in parts of Africa (as opposed to the U.S.), doubt anyone’s rushing to do it….

About Australia–how is a heatwave evidence of global warming? I’ll bet if you look at the history of Australia (or anywhere) you’ll see deadly heat waves since the dawn of time. and I bet if you look back in time you’ll see even deadlier heat waves in the past.
I really question the logic of pointing at any bouts of extreme weather as evidence. if that IS evidence, then it what it suggests is that global warming will cause the same kinds of heatwaves that have been caused by other factors, previously. and in that case….so?
to assume heat waves might be preventable seems….I don’t know.
I think what one needs to look at is why did those people die? (and I bet that wasn’t even the deadliest heatwave in Australia’s history) They probably died because they had no money. Maybe they were elderly. No resources. Look at that, those factors, and figure out how to prevent future deaths.

Scientists also agree that 75-foot-tall crabs that shoot acid from their mouths pose no threat to humanity.
http://www.theonion.com/content/video/experts_agree_giant_razor_clawed