Too many conflicts concerning climate change...

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In one AP poll, 86% of those polled said that they believed in Santa Claus as a child.

Looked at it from that perspective, that 97% "consensus" for Global Warming doesn't look so great.

^ And the award for the most ridiculous logical fallacy in the history of WP goes to .................................

Well, it was meant to be humerous.

If it's already dry there, what if climate change makes that even worse? Regions could become completely uninhabitable. I heard that a while ago the government asked people to be careful not to waste water in some region in Australia.
I'm the kind of person that likes to leave the water running when shaving, but then there's too much water here anyway.

Don't forget that warmer air can carry more moisture.

During the Holocene Climatic Optimum with temperatures as much as 2 C higher than today, the Sahara Desert was green, the Gobi Desert was forested, and northern Mexico was much wetter than today.

If I wanted to know what should happen in Australia with Global Warming, I'd look back to see what happened previously when temperatures were significantly higher than today instead of just imagining the worst.

That is a possibility too. The regions of South Asia, like India and Indonesia have a rain reasons. If the Australians are lucky the monsoon stuff might go a bit farther south if the earth warms. Or maybe people living in dry places like the dryness?

According to Wikipedia, the American midwest was drier and Australia was much wetter. I think that I'm probably close to the transition zone between dryer in the American midwest and wetter in the American southwest so I expect it to be about the same here.

Vaccines do cause global warming, and a general weakening of the species.

The only answer to human caused global warming is less humans.

Public Health, Antibiotics, Vaccines, have altered the natural balance.

Much more than CO2 is a threat, maybe, the lets play god anti death faction has doubled the population, which is the problem.

Famine is caused by too many people to feed. There is only so much land, the weak dying kept the balance.

Now you make everyone weak, so they can all die at once.

If you could get food, next it would be water, then air.

All biological systems have limiting factors, and when they reach them they fail.

Nigeria will have more people than the US in fifty years.

Most of the growth is among the poorest and least educated.

Global warming is the least of your worries.

You have tipped the balance of evolution.

I think you will find that the disaster scenario is agreed upon if nothing is done. Which is precisely what is happening IE virtually nothing is being done. The magic number is 2 deg c of warming. Stay below this and we partially dodge a bullet, go above this and we potentially face catastrophic have major i.changes. The debate within rational science is whether or not we will exceed 2 deg c. Recent studies are pointing to a 5 deg c rise by the end of this century.

Huh?

Actually, not. If we really needed to cut Global Warming dramatically, we could start aggressively replacing coal and gas fired power plants with nuclear plants and push electric cars like crazy. There is, as yet, no rational reason to move that aggressively.

I find it nearly incomprehensible that so many Global Warming Panickers are against nuclear power. The only way it make sense is to consider that it isn't Global Warming but some naive notion of a Green Earth Agenda.



There never has been a natural balance except temporary. Everything has always been in flux if you consider a longer time scale. These are having some effects on evolution by increasing the likelihood that people will reproduce.



No. At present, famine is caused by several factors, but too many people to feed is not one of them. One factor in some places is government policies that discourage farming and encourage foreign aid. A bigger factor is the transportation system necessary to transport food from where it is grown to where it is needed.

Malthus was wrong. If we do outstrip our production it is more likely to be because of cooling that dramatically limits our production, not because of increasing population. There is no sign, at present, that we are in any danger of not being able to produce more than enough food to feed everyone.



We have changed the goalposts of evolution. Are you still stuck on past goalposts that we have left behind?



We can handle that.

Cites?



That does present a problem in those countries.



I almost agree with this. Not entirely because there are worries that are of even less of a concern than Global Warming. Like some popular female movie star becoming irrationally obsessed and starting to stalk me. Trust me, I'm even less worried about that than about Global Warming.



There's nothing magic about evolution. What we have changed is the traits that are selected for in the evolutionary process. I see nothing wrong or dangerous about that.

There is no such agreement. The ONLY agreement is that man plays at least some part in Global Warming. There is no agreement at all among scientists that it will be a disaster.

A magic number of 2 C higher is extremely funny. If that is a disaster, then why are even we here considering that it was that much warmer than now during the Holocene Climatic Optimum less than 10,000 years ago? The reality is that when it was that much warmer, mankind made its first steps toward civilization -- that mankind was able to stop living a very rough hand to mouth resistance where survival depended on the amount of game in the area to hunt and kill and was able to finally settle down and farm. A period when it was warmer than now and wetter throughout many areas of the Earth. I truly hope that we bring the temperature up at least another 2 C.

Assuming everything the Global Warming Panickers worry about turns out to be true, we might go 5 C higher, but then we should be well on our way to that now and we are far from it.

I'm going to agree with Eric actually. I used to not to, but he makes a lot of sense. Man=Climate Change, Climate Change does not equal disaster. Catastrophism is like tumor on peoples thought processes. I know it can be on mine sometimes, paranoia is a strong thing. We're going to lose diversity of life no matter what we do over time, we're a growing species and we will continue to grow. Humanity is highly adaptable, we will deal with the slowly changing coast lines as they change. We might be out on some money from eventually lost infrastructure, but it wont destroy the world economy. The only real threat is to domesticated crops, which I don't know the specifics on, but if one crop stops working well in an area then you grow a new crop.

Well then how do you explain all the other times climates change when humans were not even here, at least, not in the way they exist today. There are so many variables affecting climate, has been since the beginning of atmospheres. Humans might affect climate, but what about all those other variables? Aren't we just one grain of sand on the beach? The problem is, it's just too vague. I think that's why some people aren't entirely convinced. Whenever they start talking about climate change, they just make very general, vague statements. For one thing, we do not share the same climate throughout earth so climate change in itself sounds a bit like nonsense. Which climate, exactly, are they referring to, because, if you study, you will discover just about every place on the planet has a different climate. There is no overall "climate" for the entire earth. A tropical climate is different from an arid one, for example. It's just very vague and general. Some places, like islands and coastal areas, could be more impacted than others but if the human population keeps expanding and pumping out any "greenhouse gasses" over time, well, anyone can figure it out, just like when a volcano pumps greenhouse gasses, it will change the atmosphere but what that means they have yet to really understand.
Someone, was it Al Gore (?) came up with the term "global warming" which is even worse that "climate change." Global warming sounds as if the earth is just going to fry and everything is going to get hotter and hotter until our blood is boiling and we are all burnt to a crisp. When you see snow storms and polar vortexes, people mock such a description because it doesn't seem like things are warming up at all. It especially looks really bad when you have record cold and snowfall totals. Just this bad choice of terms has done a lot to alienate people.

Vaccines are a totally different matter, it's like apples and oranges. Of course, we have seen concrete examples of what good vaccines provide and how they have helped billions of people live much better lives. They are one of the best things that ever happened to human beings, no doubt.

The thing that is so confusing about climate change is you hear all these other examples of it and how earth has had so many glacial periods in its history. It is considered the norm while warmth is the exception.

You're right. Humanity is highly adaptable. So the populations living in pacific region islands at sea level now and which will be fully under water in 50 years time can just build underwater cities to live in. That they don't have the money to build underwater cities is not your problem. That's their problem for deciding to live on islands which are at sea level. And the towns and cities lying in the semi-tropics that are subject to regular hurricanes and cyclones, that now and in the future face more severe flooding, cyclones and hurricanes due to climate change, will just have to grin and bear it because the residents decided to live there in the first place, so that's their problem as well. And people who decided to build their houses on the coast line and who now find their houses collapsing due to the rising tides. Well that's their problem as well.

Eric, the issue is the difference in speed between climate change and evolutionary change.

Evolutionary change is generally slow. When the climate changes quickly, we see extinctions and few speciations (which come later, filling vacant niches).

Our pollinators are, broadly speaking, not doing too well. Some lepidoptera are undergoing range expansion and increasing in numbers, but hymenoptera are more important and are not doing well. Throw in rapid climate change on top of factors like APVs and V. destructor and you're taking a big risk.

That's quite an anthropocentric view. If you're concerned about biodiversity more generally, then there's even more reason for concern and action.

I agree with you that "greenies" who oppose nuclear power and genetic engineering are scientifically illiterate and just as damaging as climate change deniers.

Not to mention, the acidification of the oceans by the additional CO2.