Climate change: no Eden, no apocalypse

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Shirleypal
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Climate change: no Eden, no apocalypse

Post by Shirleypal » 09-09-2009 02:43 PM

September 9, 2009
CLIMATE change is everywhere. Not only is the physical climate changing, but the idea of climate change is now active across the full range of human endeavours. Climate change has moved from being a predominantly physical phenomenon to being a social one, in the process reshaping the way we think about ourselves, our societies and humanity's place on Earth.

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Riddick
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Post by Riddick » 04-25-2015 11:57 PM

Over the past half century, none of our threatened eco-pocalypses have played out as predicted. Some came partly true; some were averted by action; some were wholly chimerical. This raises a question that many find discomforting: With a track record like this, why should people accept the cataclysmic claims now being made about climate change? After all, 2012 marks the apocalyptic deadline of not just the Mayans but also a prominent figure in our own time: Rajendra Pachauri, head of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, who said in 2007 that “if there’s no action before 2012, that’s too late … This is the defining moment.”

So, should we worry or not about the warming climate? It is far too binary a question. The lesson of failed past predictions of ecological apocalypse is not that nothing was happening but that the middle-ground possibilities were too frequently excluded from consideration. In the climate debate, we hear a lot from those who think disaster is inexorable if not inevitable, and a lot from those who think it is all a hoax. We hardly ever allow the moderate “lukewarmers” a voice: those who suspect that the net positive feedbacks from water vapor in the atmosphere are low, so that we face only 1 to 2 degrees Celsius of warming this century; that the Greenland ice sheet may melt but no faster than its current rate of less than 1 percent per century; that net increases in rainfall (and carbon dioxide concentration) may improve agricultural productivity; that ecosystems have survived sudden temperature lurches before; and that adaptation to gradual change may be both cheaper and less ecologically damaging than a rapid and brutal decision to give up fossil fuels cold turkey.

We’ve already seen some evidence that humans can forestall warming-related catastrophes. A good example is malaria, which was once widely predicted to get worse as a result of climate change. Yet in the 20th century, malaria retreated from large parts of the world, including North America and Russia, even as the world warmed. Malaria-specific mortality plummeted in the first decade of the current century by an astonishing 25 percent. The weather may well have grown more hospitable to mosquitoes during that time. But any effects of warming were more than counteracted by pesticides, new antimalarial drugs, better drainage, and economic development. Experts such as Peter Gething at Oxford argue that these trends will continue, whatever the weather.

Just as policy can make the climate crisis worse—mandating biofuels has not only encouraged rain forest destruction, releasing carbon, but driven millions into poverty and hunger—technology can make it better. If plant breeders boost rice yields, then people may get richer and afford better protection against extreme weather. If nuclear engineers make fusion (or thorium fission) cost-effective, then carbon emissions may suddenly fall. If gas replaces coal because of horizontal drilling, then carbon emissions may rise more slowly. Humanity is a fast-moving target. We will combat our ecological threats in the future by innovating to meet them as they arise, not through the mass fear stoked by worst-case scenarios.

- Excerpted from
Apocalypse Not: Here’s Why You Shouldn’t Worry About End Times
by Matt Ridley

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fos
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Post by fos » 04-26-2015 09:04 PM

Very reasoned.

The Earth and its climate is changing, it always has and will continue.

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Riddick
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Re: Climate change: no Eden, no apocalypse

Post by Riddick » 04-20-2016 04:53 PM

A mind should not be so open that the brains fall out; however, it should not be so closed that whatever gray matter which does reside may not be reached. ART BELL

Everything Woke turns to Image
-Donald Trump Image

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Doka
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Re: Climate change: no Eden, no apocalypse

Post by Doka » 04-21-2016 06:45 PM

Shirleypal wrote:September 9, 2009
CLIMATE change is everywhere. Not only is the physical climate changing, but the idea of climate change is now active across the full range of human endeavours. Climate change has moved from being a predominantly physical phenomenon to being a social one, in the process reshaping the way we think about ourselves, our societies and humanity's place on Earth.

Think about it. Shirleypal, wherever you are, your words are very profound. Especially in the 7 years since you said them. In 7 short years humans have been demonized, filled with fear and guilt and manipulated, and induced to their own mental illness. Climate Change has been on going since the earth was created millions , if not billions of years ago. BUT, Civilizations (the people) come and go, many many times.
KARMA RULES

Those Who Can Make You Believe Absurdities, Can Make You Commit Atrocities': Voltaire

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