Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
2) Modern humans did evolve and do flourish today in the tropics where average temps are 11 degC higher than the planet's current over-all average of 15 degC.
Benefits of warmer temps:
- improved human health - increased ag yields
- increased biodiversity
Regarding increased agriculture yields with increased temperatures, I'm wondering if you're experienced as a farmer and whether or not you've given enough thought to that conclusion. Could you explain further about how you come to that conclusion? i.e. Increased yields of what kinds of plants, and in what locations? The plants that grow well on earth right now do not tolerate or adapt to heat and drought very well. With rapid increase of global temperatures there are more species of plants on earth that will decline and die than there are of species that will flourish and increase. And not all of those species that can tolerate increased temperatures are safe or suitable as food plants.
I think it would especially not go well for nations that are presently considered tropical or sub-tropical. For them, as the temperatures increase and the water decreases and their environment changes to more desert-like conditions their current agricultural production as well as their native wild plants will decline and disappear due to low tolerance and those people will have to attempt to change over to different food crops that are more tolerant of increased heat and drought. If there are any that can adapt to soil conditions that are different from what they are presently evolved for.
Higher temperatures won't help with increased agriculture yields in the northern hemisphere either, where most grain crops come from. Grain crops, root crops and brassicas that presently grow well in the northern hemisphere due to cooler temperatures won't survive increased temperatures and droughts. Likewise with most of the trees that presently flourish in the northern hemisphere. They are not adaptable.
Humans can change their habits. Humans can adapt to environmental changes. Even certain types of animals can change or adapt quickly to rapid environmental changes. But plants adapting to rapid changes in temperatures and water availability? Not very well, if at all. And everything else needs plants in order to survive. Everything will have to change and all the plants that can tough it out through the environmental changes will have to evolve into something new all over again and that takes time. That might take quite a bit more time than humans have at their disposal.
So, have you really thought carefully about the consequences of rising temperatures as it regards plants and agriculture? And please don't suggest that all agriculture can shift to the cooler very northernmost and southernmost polar regions of the planet because it won't work, there is no actual soil in those places, just rock.
Edited to add this. I'd like to direct your attention and that of other readers to a real disaster that is presently happening at this moment in British Columbia which is all agriculture, trees, water and mountains. And it's not just isolated places, it's happening from end to end of a province which is an immensely large area of North America. Several cities and towns are evacuating, some people are trapped in place with no egress, as I type this post and their world goes up in smoke as a consequence of increasing temperatures and changing climate conditions.
True, the people in BC and the US west have their hands full these days with fire, BUT: NASA: Global acreage burned by fire has dropped 24% since 1998
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/...24-since-1998/
I don't know about BC, but much of the problem in the US can be traced to unfortunate meddling in the natural fire cycles needed to keep the environment healthy during the 30s-60s. Smoky Bear did more harm than good and "GW" has nothing to do with it.
Re: ag yield & temps: I think I added "up to a point" in my original statement and mentioned corn doing better up to temps >94*F, then they start to slow down. True, there are "cold weather crops" like peas, beans, carrots, lettuce, radishes etc. Many of these are grown in s. CA now where it is much warmer than the rest of the ag nation. If temps were to keep on rising, not to worry, the boundaries of acceptable climate would simply move farther north. The Great Plains of Canada has plenty of soil. They only lack the heat (growing degree days) of their US counterpart.
Complex interaction of factors, but yield is up greatly over the past 40 yrs, so the "unprecedented" warming during that time certainly has not done any harm. (It's not unprecedented-- the warming from 1920 -35 was just as fast and co2 levels didn't change much during that period.)
Somewhere on the net there was a time-lapse picture of the Sahara Desert's margins expanding and contracting over time cyclically. It reminded one of a breathing lung. Life started on Earth 3.5B y/a and has always managed to keep on going despite a wide range of climate changes. Let's not fall into the trap of thinking H. sapiens is the Center of the Universe.
Re: rate of adaptation-- evolution takes place not because the changing environment causes mutations, but because mutations already in the population become favored by a changing environment. Couple that with the concept of ecological succession and the fact that Life has continued uninterrupted for 3.5 B yrs and I see no reason to worry that the planet will die anytime soon.`
This discussion is taking on the aspect of the "What If---" exercises that have little possibility of ever occurring. The Planet is cooling off in the long run, not warming up. We've just been thru an unusually cold spell (LIA) and re-warming to meet the general, less steep trend line of cooling for the last 8000 yrs.
Edited to add this. I'd like to direct your attention and that of other readers to a real disaster that is presently happening at this moment in British Columbia which is all agriculture, trees, water and mountains. And it's not just isolated places, it's happening from end to end of a province which is an immensely large area of North America. Several cities and towns are evacuating, some people are trapped in place with no egress, as I type this post and their world goes up in smoke as a consequence of increasing temperatures and changing climate conditions.
So sorry to hear this. Our area in the southeast went through this last year. And one of the reasons we left southern CA was because we were in a fire danger area and the environmentalists continued to block completion of the main highway connector, egress for tens of thousands of people, out of our area for over 20 years.
It's why I have tried to balance my views on the environment with not only wildlife and habitat but human life as well.
True, the people in BC and the US west have their hands full these days with fire, BUT: NASA: Global acreage burned by fire has dropped 24% since 1998
https://wattsupwiththat.com/2017/06/...24-since-1998/
I don't know about BC, but much of the problem in the US can be traced to unfortunate meddling in the natural fire cycles needed to keep the environment healthy during the 30s-60s. Smoky Bear did more harm than good and "GW" has nothing to do with it.
Re: ag yield & temps: I think I added "up to a point" in my original statement and mentioned corn doing better up to temps >94*F, then they start to slow down. True, there are "cold weather crops" like peas, beans, carrots, lettuce, radishes etc. Many of these are grown in s. CA now where it is much warmer than the rest of the ag nation. If temps were to keep on rising, not to worry, the boundaries of acceptable climate would simply move farther north. The Great Plains of Canada has plenty of soil. They only lack the heat (growing degree days) of their US counterpart...............
.
Did you read that article you quoted or did you only look at its title? It isn't relevant to this discussion plus you appear to have misunderstood or been misled by the title. The article says that global acreage burned has dropped 24% in developing countries because of more meddling from humans. Nomadic people are settling in place and instead of starting or allowing natural fires they are now preventing natural, helpful fires from happening.
"...... Shifting livelihoods across the tropical forest frontiers of South America, the Eurasian Steppe, and the savannas of Africa are altering landscapes and leading to a significant decline in the amount of land burned by fire ...... In traditional savanna cultures with common lands, people often set fires to keep grazing lands productive and free of shrubs. As many of these communities have shifted to cultivate more permanent fields and to build more houses, roads and villages, the use of fire declines. As economic development continues, the landscape becomes more fragmented, communities often enact legislation to control fires and the burned area declines even more......"
With regard to this statement of yours, again you seem to be not understanding something and you've missed my point about people not being able to grow plants in warmer temperatures in the north.
"...... If temps were to keep on rising, not to worry, the boundaries of acceptable climate would simply move farther north. The Great Plains of Canada has plenty of soil. They only lack the heat (growing degree days) of their US counterpart......."
The boundaries of acceptable climate CANNOT simply move farther north. Do you know what muskeg is? The so called Great Plains of Canada does not have plenty of soil - it is mostly inaccessible, uninhabitable boreal muskeg - that means the existing soil (it's actually rotted peat settled on glacier bulldozed and pulverized rock) is under many feet of acid water and there are peat rafts floating on the surface of the water. You can't even walk on the floating peat rafts, it's like quicksand that you fall through and drown trapped under the rafts.
Please look at the map shown to see what I'm talking about and how most of the north is not arable land, with most of it under water. All of that green area shown in the map is boreal muskeg and scrub, and those millions of blue areas within the green happen to be millions upon millions of acid lakes covering solid or pulverized rock. And it's not just Canada and Alaska that are like this, it's like this in northern Eurasia too.
And beyond the muskeg further north - that's all desert - called arctic tundra. Mostly pulverized rock over frozen methane. When temperatures warm up more all of that methane will be released and that methane is a much worse problem than CO2.
There is nowhere habitable or arable to move north to in order to grow crops. You know what lives there? Waterfowl and trillions of bloodsucking mosquitoes.
Why do you think that 90% of the population of Canada is settled along the southern regions? It's because that's the part that is habitable and accessible.
I get what you're saying, but you're exaggerating the issue. A couple degrees of warming won't push the limit of farming up to the arctic circle. A 2*C increase is equivalent to moving about 100 miles south of your present location now. That's not a change of climate nor a change of biome, just a lengthening of growing season by 2 or 3 weeks.
On your map, that lower tan area at the south of Canada now gets low yields compared to the US 500 miles further south. If temps were to increase 4*C, that area would become a better producer- not limited by temp or soil, but by day length.
I'm not quite sure what your argument is? If temps were to warm significantly, food production may change the crops it emphasizes in any given area, but not total production. The southern tier of US states are considerably warmer than the northern tier and they grow different crops than the north, but they all produce.
I get what you're saying, but you're exaggerating the issue. A couple degrees of warming won't push the limit of farming up to the arctic circle. A 2*C increase is equivalent to moving about 100 miles south of your present location now. That's not a change of climate nor a change of biome, just a lengthening of growing season by 2 or 3 weeks.
On your map, that lower tan area at the south of Canada now gets low yields compared to the US 500 miles further south. If temps were to increase 4*C, that area would become a better producer- not limited by temp or soil, but by day length.
I'm not quite sure what your argument is? If temps were to warm significantly, food production may change the crops it emphasizes in any given area, but not total production. The southern tier of US states are considerably warmer than the northern tier and they grow different crops than the north, but they all produce.
I'm just making my case for why I don't agree with your optimistic beliefs that the benefits of warmer temps will be improved human health, increased agriculture yields and increased biodiversity. I never said anything about how it will adversely effect human health because I could write a book about that so I won't do that here and bore you to death.
As for increased biodiversity - no way. Warmer temps or not, the extreme exact opposite is happening already and with increasing temps altering the environment and displacing people, hence causing further displacement of flora and fauna, that warming is just going to exacerbate the decimation of biodiversity that is already well underway to a mass extinction event. Here's a report about that subject that was released last Monday from the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America that I feel backs up my observations about that.
....... At the conclusion of the study, the authors write that "the resulting biological annihilation obviously will have serious ecological, economic and social consequences. Humanity will eventually pay a very high price for the decimation of the only assemblage of life that we know of in the universe. All signs point to ever more powerful assaults on biodiversity in the next two decades, painting a dismal picture of the future of life, including human life," the researchers said.....
We can agree to disagree and I'm cool with that. I don't consider it an argument, just a difference of opinions. We're all going to find out soon enough what all the greatest pros and cons of increased temperatures and climate change is going to be anyway and I suspect my pessimism makes me better prepared than you are for the harder times we all have ahead of us.
Biodiversity vis-a-vis temps: how biodiverse are the tropics vs the temperate zone vs the tundra vs the polar region?
Extinction: the fate of all species is to go extinct. Species seem to endure on the order of 10^6 yrs, so one in a million are expected to go extinct every year. How many species are there? How many should we then expect to go extinct every year? How many do go extinct every year? Identity. The concept of The Sixth Extinction has been debunked by serious scientists.
(In fact, we find more new species every year than go extinct. Finding new species is an obvious proof of Creationism, no? )
Almost all recent warming can be accounted for by "adjustments" made by NASA< NOAA & the Met Office to the actual thermometer readings. I guess Global Warming is man made.
Scientists get grant monies for potential tragedies
Not consistencies
Follow the money
Al gore the father of modern day alarmists
Blaming people and excesses and greed on global warming
All the while building a 15000 sq ft house
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
)
