Everything Old Is New Again

[socksey]

Here's an article on polar bears re:  global warming:

http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/8087845/global_warming_affecting_polar_bears.html?cat=58

A quote from this article:

"Is Global Warming as dangerous and fast-approaching as the public is lead to believe? Are polar bears in danger? My guess is that the rise in temperature will hurt them and us, but we'll all adapt over time. Rises in temperature are natural parts of earth's cycles. The earth is simply entering a stage of warming and will one day cool down."


socksey



"The thing about Reggie (Jackson) is that you know he's going to produce. And if he doesn't, he's going to talk enough to make people think he's going to produce." Catfish Hunter, American baseball player, born in 1946

[Zorba]

I'm not sure how much value one should put in the "guess" of that article's author "DesiGirl4111". Might as well ask the 8-ball then.

I prefer to hear from experts on the subject, people that actually know what they're talking about: academically schooled and using facts and logic to arrive at their conclusions.

[inim]

Rises in temperature are natural parts of earth's cycles. The earth is simply entering a stage of warming and will one day cool down."

We live in an ice age, and the warming mankind produces will not create a new jurassic. That's not the point anyway, earth has been both a lot warmer and a lot cooler in the past. The problem is the speed of the change. Courtesy of man-made factors, the warming takes place in what in geological terms is "blindlingly fast", means within centuries. We are only at the beginning of a process of which nobody of us will live to see the results. And to work around such a process also takes more than one generation. Earth-scale processes are beyond what is readily grasped. Same trap as the exponential growth or random, which fool common sense as easily.

The consequences of global warming are complex, and not limited to spectacular natural desaster pictures. That probably is the exception even, desertification does not yield spectacular images and is painfully slow a process.

For example a draught, which could make millions of people want to move an already conflicted area, leading to a war. Or a sharp rise in wheat prices which will cause a revolution on the other side of the planet. A river drying up leading to the overuse of ground water, eventually leading to losing a whole city to the desert.

Global warming is like dice, you can not predict the actual event. But you know that each roll contributes to moving forward. Just because the complexity is too overwhelming to grasp easily doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

Will it be your ass suffering the consequences? Probably not. You live in a rich country with a powerful army. The western countries will do whatever it is required to stay in the comfort zone despite the changes and desasters elsewhere. Thus I am so glad that for you personally earth "simply entering a stage of warming". Just as on the other side of the planet a few million "simply enter a stage of war", "a stage of starvation" or a "stage of being refugees". So glad it is not your ass.

Will mankind cease to exist, or polar bears die out? Probably neither. Will earth be able to feed less people? Probably. Will the changes cause major migrations and wars? Almost certainly. Is this something we want? Probably not. Do we need to change our behaviour sooner or later anyway? Yes, the current resource consumption is unmaintainable. So why not just end debating and start changing? Beyond me what this whole climate change denial and downplaying is good for. Unless, of course, you want to procastinate the problem and hand it over to your children, along with a few trillion debt to make it harder to solve.

P.S. The polar bears better adapt within 100 years by growing gills. That is the latest when the north pole will be completely ice free in the winter. Maybe they also learn to hibernate while swimming 6 months. We will see how evolution reacts, 100 years are plenty of time ... not.