CONSEQUENCES OF GLOBAL WARMING

By now we all know that, if global climate change is real, three of the primary consequences are:

• Heat will alter ice, weather and the oceans.
• Human life and prosperity will suffer.
• Natural habitats will become hostile.

But is climate change real?  S. Fred Singer wrote Hot Talk, Cold Science.  Here is PBS interviewing him.  Open Source Systems, Science and Solutions says:

S. Fred Singer's early career includes a string of respected positions in the progress and advancement of science. Somewhere along the line, it seems something changed. His efforts apparently turned to advocacy of the agenda of the tobacco and fossil fuel industries. The latter part of his career seems to fall in the vein of what might be called a sort of serial denialism with respect to his positions on second hand smoke and human caused global warming.

Fred Singer has been arguing that global warming is 'all bunk'. To give some perspective on whether or not you should trust what he is saying, one should know that he has also argued that second hand smoke is not unhealthy. His perspectives and related connections are well illustrated in 'The Denial Machine'.

Then, of course, there is PUS (President of the United States) Donald Trump.

What he has done in a little more than three years is abominable.  However, the 2020 Presidential Election is coming, and he will be coaxed to tone down his negativism and tout his true environmentalism.  Amazingly enough, a whole lot of Americans will believe him.

Above, from NASA.  More specifically:

• global temperature rise
• warming oceans, spawning more damaging hurricanes
• shrinking ice sheets, reducing reflection of sunlight
• glacial retreat
• decreased snow cover
• sea level rise
• extreme weather events
• ocean acidification

Yesterday the local paper had a headline:  World's beaches at risk, study concludes. Rising sea levels and coastal erosion place half the world's sandy beaches at risk by the end of this century.  For Australia, this means 7,500 miles of beaches.  For Hawaii, there would go tourism, our only real money-generating industry.  The study, according to researchers, was a bit conservative.  It could be a lot worse.

Big deal, you say, for the Netherlands has done well with dikes.  Countries are seriously considering dams, stretching hundreds of miles.  One project could cost half a trillion dollars.  Here is a short article on potential costs.  

I again cite the lesson of iron lungs and polio.  We could have built more and better treatment devices, but along came Salk (right) and Sabin with their vaccines.  The solution to sea level rise is not walls, but a vaccine, like reduction of greenhouse gas emission into the atmosphere.

Finally, climate change deniers like Donald Trump keep making fun of extremely cold periods.  Which brings up a good question.  Why are cold records still being set?  In a stable climate, the ratio of new record highs to new record lows is one.  However, in our warming climate, record highs are approaching a 2:1 ratio over record lows, and growing.

-