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IF Global Warming were completely natural, would it still be “catastrophic”?

In this question I am *NOT* trying to suggest that Global Warming actually *is* natural (is that sufficiently clear to everyone?) I’m asking whether, if we *pretend* for a moment that it is completely natural, would we still think that it would be a catastrophe for the planet?

I have a sneaking suspicion that, if the warming were natural, people would be saying “Oh good, I like warmer whether!”

Thus I believe that the warming is irrelevant to most people. What’s important is the “man is causing it” part.

Is the Global Warming Alarmism, therefore, more about being anti-human, anti-technology, anti-development, etc?

18 Answers

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  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago
    Favourite answer

    Warmer climates are a very good thing as historically life and civilisation have increased and flourished in histories warmer climes.

    The agw lie is particularly cruel as it plays on peoples good intentions

    EDIT oh dear some people are lacking basic science knowledge, if all the sea ice melted sea levels would hardly rise as the water fills the gap left by the ice (Archimedes principle)

    Co2 stays in atmosphere for between 5 to 15 years so lets call it 7 and 1/2 years, Is it worth dismantling the world's industry for something that would be gone in 10 years anyway.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Yes it would be catastrophic:

    1. Sea levels will rise due to melting snow above land (the melting of the North Pole would not have an effect as the majority of the ice is below the water line and this would shrink when melting) Sea level rises will destroy the worlds low lying archipegalos, and ruin the marine ecosystems, because the increase in water will reduce light and temperature thus destroying the already crippled coral.

    2. Rainforests would be burnt to the ground as it would be too warm and there would be a lack of water, which in turn will release more CO2 worsening the already catastrophic problem. The lack or rainforests will mean that there will be less chance of finding existing cures for life threatening diseases. The areas where there were rainforests will become deserts like the Sahara and Kalahari deserts, which will probably destroy cities like Sao Paulo, which are bordering rainforests.

    3. The world's biodiversity will be practically non-existant, as animals in cooler climates will not be able to cope with the warmer weather, so will die off, which will cause a massive imbalance in the food chain.

    I don't believe that when people see these results of global warming they will think that it's nice to have warmer weather when cities in the tropics are being swamped by the desert.

    Source(s): New Scientist
  • Nata T
    Lv 6
    1 decade ago

    It would be catastrophic because man would have to adapt over a relatively short geologic time, say 50 to 100 years. People would lose money, lives would not be lost at any great rate than the flu panademic in the early 1900's. Loss of property and life would not be like in the movies, that's Hollywood scare tatics to get you to buy more tickets.

    Yes, AGW promoters are in it for the money. They are typically losers in life and give themselves fancy titles, like, peace prizes in catagories that are nonscientific, or "masters of ???" or self appointed organization with lots of lettes as an acronim.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Hello,

    (ANS) No.1 The earths climate has be changing for millions of years, there is hard proof of this in the fossil record and in the layers of rock & soil and ice. There have been numerous phases of warming & cooling that produced desertification conditions and ice ages.

    No.2 In my opinion there are really x2 processes going on within the earths climate. a) natural climate change which is unstopable and would have happened even without humans being present on earth and b) pollution produced by humans as a consiquence of human activity ever since the industrial revolution i.e. humans have been polluting the earth intensively for the last 150-200 years. Both of these influences lead to climate change anyway, its only that human activity has speeded up the process of warming.

    No.3 Natural climate change that took place in the past didn't inflict catastrophic damage on human beings as a species. Now that humans have completely covered the earth (populated almost every place) obviously climate change is going to have dire consiquences on human kind. Even to the point that humans as a species survival in future is looking increasingly insecure & uncertain assuming climate change increases at the resent rate.

    No.4 Even if human beings were able to stop ALL CO2 emmissions from every single polluting source in the next 1hour. It would still take the earth many decades to recover from the pollution. Its just like trying to stop a super tanker on the ocean, it takes x5 miles to slow down and another 5miles to come to a full stop.

    No.5 Is climatic change & global warming alarmist? in my opinion No! its just the reality no matter how much human beings bury their heads in the sand and hope it all goes away. We are totally niave & we are also really still in denial that we are the cause of the problem.

    Kind Regards Ivan

  • 1 decade ago

    "Catastrophe" actually typically refers to things that are natural. From Merriam-Webster's online dictionary :

    3 a: a violent and sudden change in a feature of the earth b: a violent usually destructive natural event (as a supernova

    If a few degrees of warming were the only consequence, you would be right, it would be irrelevant to most people. However, if it means things like crop failures, droughts, flooding, fires, etc., then it is relevant to almost everyone.

    It has nothing to do with being anti-human, anti-technology and anti-development. That is the clap-trap of people that don't want to clean up after themselves.

    If I didn't want toxic pollutants dumped in a river or nuclear waste left in my neighborhood would you consider me anti-technology?

  • Ozzy D
    Lv 4
    1 decade ago

    Yes it would be catastrophic indeed. If the ice melted completely from the north and south pole this would raise the sea level by a very large amount.

    This would be a very serious problem for us people.

    Unless we build much bigger dams around the world we would see a large amount of county's and states submerged under water.

    The whole of the south east for example would be gone including some of London!

    The weather does change every 100 years or so.

    Regarding what I said about the Pole's melting don't worry too much as this is only the worst scenario possible and it would not happen in our lifetime. So don't panic and rush out and buy a boat yet!

  • J S
    Lv 5
    1 decade ago

    Sure it would. In fact, genetic scientists tell us that mankind has been challenged for survival at least twice in the past:

    "Genetic evidence suggests that all humans alive today, despite their apparent variety, are descended from a very small population, perhaps between 1,000 to 10,000 breeding pairs about 70,000 years ago.

    Using the average rates of genetic mutation, some geneticists have estimated that this population lived at a time coinciding with the Toba event. These estimates do not contradict the consensus estimates that Y-chromosomal Adam lived some 60,000 years ago, and that Mitochondrial Eve is estimated to have lived 140,000 years ago, because Toba is not conjectured to be an extreme bottleneck event, where the population is reduced to a small number of breeding pairs."

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toba_catastrophe_theo...

    It is entirely plausible that a dramatic departure from normal weather could once again challenge our survival, especially now that we are dependent upon a complex social and financial system (which has not been tested under extreme conditions), in addition to the fact that we can't adequately feed billions of people already under relatively moderate and consistent climatic conditions today.

    So what's your scientific basis for believing otherwise? As far as I can tell, you haven't presented any evidence whatsoever for your optimism yet, but I'd like to see some.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Environmentalism is about accepting that we are just one part of the natural world.

    The conceit is that we are special, different, above and outside the system.

    No matter how much you believe it's not so, that someone on-high is watching and looking out for us, that we will find some magic technology that allows us to circumvent the limits, every bit of objective science we have tells us that we are bound to and by the environment in which we live.

    Not anti-human, anti reckless procreation.

    Not anti-technology, anti reckless proliferation of synthetic technologies that have no place in the natural world, toxic, can't be metabolized and can't be undone.

    Not anti-development, anti reckless unsustainable growth oriented development that turns irreplaceable resources into permanent waste.

    If you (apparently) had a more broad range of understanding you would know what anthropologists have discovered: It’s possible every major civilization collapse in human history to date was driven by climate change. A familiar and predictable pattern of drought, famine and collapse.

    Except this time it’s not just drought. It’s a confluence of over-population, over-development, overuse of resources, massive contamination of the entire biosphere, global collapse of species and global climate change.

    It’s not just regional drought, which is a very likely outcome of climate change due to carbon pollution (enough on its own to cause a major shift in our civilization), this time its global ecosystem collapse. It’s happening now.

    I suggest it’s the cornucopian theists who are actually the anti-human zealots, clinging to their ancient superstitions of endless plenty while simultaneously ignoring the science that tells us that there are limits.

    Things are not going well and this is apparent to many people. Whether enough people will awake from their stupor in time is the real question.

    Carbon dioxide stays in the atmosphere for 100 years. Plutonium, an entirely synthetic material that only exists because man created it, is one of the most toxic substances known and essentially lasts forever. The list of “problematic” human interventions goes on and on.

    We’ve set in motion a chain of events that will lead to a complex interaction unpredictable feedback mechanisms that work on scales well beyond a single human lifetime. We may have already passed a point of no return. It may already be too late.

    I’m not anti-human, I’m anti-stupidity. There’s no reason for this other than our own hubris.

  • ?
    Lv 4
    4 years ago

    definite it has exchange right into a faith and Al Gore is the pope of the cult.think of of ways lots funds particular communities will make off of the hype.think of of all that government funds going to "examine".to boot there is in trouble-free terms lots you're able to do ,regardless of each little thing whoever controls the climate controls the international.concern is the final political motivator. climate exchange is a factor of the character of the planet.person-friendly experience is to have sparkling capacity yet till there's a greenback in all of it that occurs is communicate,communicate and greater communicate.government regulations,fines and consequences(gotta get that bailout funds someplace) We incredibly decide for sparkling air and water .i'm the unique recycler and that i do no longer waste capacity basically like many different persons.i exploit capacity and don't decide for the "guilt" trip of doing so. I surely have a situation with Gore the guru who flies around a gasoline guzzling jet.So does Queen Pelosi who opted for a much bigger one to fly back and forth to California.undergo in innovations her asserting she desires to maintain the planet,yeah she flies we stroll.we are able to all start up by potential of utilising the hot capacity saving gentle bulbs. Oh I forgot they are those with mercury in them.Oh,nicely appears like a good concept on the time. i think you all heard that some genius flesh presser had to tax cow farmers for any that own greater beneficial than a hundred for emitting "methane gas" yeah that is actual.will we bottle it fairly?Or on 2nd concept deliver some from the bull to that flesh presser as he's conscious the B.S. whilst he sees or smells it.

  • Anonymous
    1 decade ago

    Over the millennia, we've had periods of global warming interspersed by ice ages. They were all catastrophic, usually wiping out the dominant species. The chances are that if we had never burnt any fossil fuels, we'd still get wiped out by global warming. We've just accelerated the problem by a few thousand years.

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