The bright side of Global warming

[HydrogenBond]

I'm an optimist and like to see the bright side of things. So I thought a post about the bright side of global warming would be useful.

Most people like summers better than winters. Most vacations are planeed in the summer, Global warming will allow more people to get what they want from the seasons.

Global warming means longer growing seasons to produce more food for the worlds growing populations. It alos means more bio-mass and therefore a faster rate of natural soil renewal via bio-mass.

Global warming will increase the amount of habitable land on the earth by thawing out some of the tundra land. This may allow Greenland to get green. Someday it will be like Canada.

Global warming means more solar evaporation and therefore more fresh water for the thirsty world.

Since heating burns more fossil fuel than AC (in developed countries), this will lower our dependacy on foreign oil. For example, if we keep the thermostat at 70F, summer may average 90 for a 20F difference. In the winter it may average 20F for a 50F difference. Higher thermal gradient in winter means more energy requirements, i.e., double in winter.

Global warrming means the evolution of new species. Old species may go but a changing or the guard is usually progressive. The global warming from the last ice age brought us human civilization. That alone was avery good thing.

So the ocean levels rise. This will save fuel. Transport by ship will be able to reach more places on the earth.

The rising ocean levels will cause people to evacute the coast and go further inland to avoid buying swampland. This will lower the impact of hurricanes. It will also allow former land bounded people to waste less fuel driving to the ocean.

Does anyone have any other bright sides of global warming?

[HydrogenBond]

You guys have been brainwashed with doom and gloom. It is like culture is in the middle of the fable of the emporer's new clothes. A quick talking salesman comes to the kingdom and convinces the emporer that the clothes he is selling are so special that only a person with highly refined sensibilites would be able to appreciate them. The emperor doesn't see anything on the hanger, but because of vanity, ignors his common sense, and buys the invisible clothes. The word goes out to the kingdom of the emporers new clothes, how they are so exquiste that only the most refined person can appreciate them. Everyone wishing to be considered refined, ooh and aah over the naked emporer, as he proudly shows off his invisible clothes. Until, a little child, who doesn't understand social eddiquette, says "Look Mom, the Emperor is naked".

[Boerseun]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

I'm an optimist and like to see the bright side of things. So I thought a post about the bright side of global warming would be useful.

I like the premise, but that, of course, doesn't guarantee that you're right!

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Most people like summers better than winters. Most vacations are planeed in the summer, Global warming will allow more people to get what they want from the seasons.

Unfortunately, with the increase in energy in the atmosphere, the natural processes employed to shed that energy will increase in violence and scope. In other words, hurricanes will become much, much bigger. More tornadoes, etc., all of these mechanisms solely to shed an excess of energy. So, enjoying your perpetual summer will kinda suck if everything is constantly blown away or flooded. Many species of plants are also terminally dependent on the variations in seasons in order to procreate, in an endless summer they'll die off.

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Global warming means longer growing seasons to produce more food for the worlds growing populations. It alos means more bio-mass and therefore a faster rate of natural soil renewal via bio-mass.

With increased rainfall comes increased erosion. You can't plant anything in naked rock - once the topsoil is gone, it's gone. It will take millions of years to regenerate itself.

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Global warming will increase the amount of habitable land on the earth by thawing out some of the tundra land. This may allow Greenland to get green. Someday it will be like Canada.

Whilst this might be true, I can hardly see it as a benefit. If you thaw tundra or permafrost, you end up with an incredibly unstable medium. Loads of broken rock and general detritus which will take many thousands of years to completely settle to become stable enough to build houses and roads on.

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Global warming means more solar evaporation and therefore more fresh water for the thirsty world.

Higher rainfall will come at a price that I'm not sure the thirsty world can afford. Things like increased erosion and more often and worse flooding will turn a thirsty world into a hungry world.

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Since heating burns more fossil fuel than AC (in developed countries), this will lower our dependacy on foreign oil. For example, if we keep the thermostat at 70F, summer may average 90 for a 20F difference. In the winter it may average 20F for a 50F difference. Higher thermal gradient in winter means more energy requirements, i.e., double in winter.

As far as I understand the issue, Global Warming won't simply heat the planet. What it boils down to is an increase in extremes on both sides of the thermometer, as the atmosphere gets completely out of whack. In other words, hot places will become hotter, cold places might experience worse cold than ever before as the atmosphere loads and sheds energy. Dry places will become drier, and wet places much, much wetter - which, of course, isn't a good thing at all.

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Global warrming means the evolution of new species. Old species may go but a changing or the guard is usually progressive. The global warming from the last ice age brought us human civilization. That alone was avery good thing.

That's a bit of a whimsical speculation, won't you say? Increased heat and increased swampland will almost certainly increase the ranging areas of such nasties as malarial mosquitos. We'll probably reciprocate by bombing the swamps with DDT again, and end up screwing some more with the ecosystem - a system which, I dare say, we don't completely understand. We've learned more from the ecosystem by screwing with it, than by actually trying to understand it through conservation.

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

So the ocean levels rise. This will save fuel. Transport by ship will be able to reach more places on the earth.

HB! Did you just say that rising ocean levels will save fuel because of flooding making it possible for ships to reach more places? TKeep in mind that rising sea levels will actually increase the distance between ports, so I don't quite see how you'll save fuel. This is besides the fact that if the ice caps were to melt completely, sea levels will only rise about 100ft. Most of the structures built in cities close to the shore are higher than 100ft in any case - think power pylons, dock cranes, buildings, etc. So, if the ships had to go deeper inland, they'll be quite lucky to make it without sinking first from a ripped-out keel from the pre-flood detritus scattered about.

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

The rising ocean levels will cause people to evacute the coast and go further inland to avoid buying swampland. This will lower the impact of hurricanes. It will also allow former land bounded people to waste less fuel driving to the ocean.

You can't be serious? If you are, then you're really scraping the bottom of the barrel with this particular justification. People wanting to go further inland will find farmland and such already owned by farmers not too keen on allowing squatters on their land. To what 'ocean' will landbound people go? To a shore of mud (no sea sand) rendered completely inaccessible by the flotsam of the flooded cities and coastal plains? Imagine you go to the shore only to find rotting trees, and debris from the drowned cities? Doesn't sound like a seaside vacation to me.[/quote]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Does anyone have any other bright sides of global warming?

Yes... whether it's real or not or whether it's gonna happen or not, the mere threat of it is bound to make people, countries and corporations act more ecologically responsible. It also serves as an agent to disseminate knowledge of planet Earth to a largely ignorant and indifferent populace.

[hallenrm]

Dear HB, seems you have never experienced the hot weather in places like Delhi. Hotter summer also means much more load shedding by the power distributing companies, which means increase in time of suffering with sweats and increased demand of electricity for air cooling. That will invariably result in higher demand for oil and hence higher energy costs

Have you considered these factors too?

[Michaelangelica]

The brigh side are the new earth friendly technologies like pyrolysis emerging and being embraced
In oz Sydney) we have had the 10 hottest days on record in the last 12 years.. Not too many plants or people can stand more than one day of 40+C

Al Gore summed up the dinosaur view in "An Inconvenient Truth." On one side of a balance, there are some gold bars.
On the other side, there's the entire planet. This picture is as inaccurate as it is ridiculous. As the Tesla Roadster shows, economic and environmental progress aren't mutually exclusive but complementary.

For an example of what this could mean for the energy business, consider GreenFuels. This tech start-up produces bio-fuel from algae at a rate 40 times greater than the manufacture of corn-based ethanol.
The algae itself feeds on exhaust from fossil-fuel power plants, reducing those plants' carbon emissions by 40 percent. GreenFuels already has $11 million in venture capital, but future profits from green energy will make that figure look like chump change.

More ambitious schemes are in development.
The Solar Chimney channels hot air from a huge desert greenhouse through a mile-high concrete tower, driving a 200-megawatt turbine at a total cost only somewhat greater than coal.
Even nuclear power has a green side: Thorium reactors can burn plutonium waste left over from Cold War-era weapons programs, turning a long-standing problem into a source of power.
They have political advantages as well, because they can be engineered to work without uranium or plutonium.
That means Iran could pursue this technology all it wanted and never be able to build a bomb - removing any opportunity to use nuclear power as an excuse to develop nuclear weapons.

Now that even the U.S. Army is researching hybrid electric tanks, it may finally be time to admit that so-called alternative energy has gone mainstream.
Supplies of solar panels can't keep up with demand. Wind turbines now pay for themselves within a few years in many states. There's a lot of money to be made in green energy - it'll just be different people making it.

Oil companies have seen the writing on the wall. They've poured millions into propaganda outfits like the Competitive Enterprise Institute, an Exxon-Mobil-funded think-tank whose manufactured experts appear in the media to denounce alternative energy as a wasteful government subsidy. This is pure hypocrisy - there never was a free market for energy.

The entire nuclear industry was literally engineered by the government, and the oil companies' primary market was created by the largest continuing federal subsidy in history - the interstate highway system.
The real debate isn't over whether or not to subsidize, but whether to keep subsidizing the status quo and face. . .

Toby Mitchell: Green goes green - Columns

[Zythryn]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

You guys have been brainwashed with doom and gloom.

I am curious what needs to happen in order for you to consider global warming a threat? Would you continue to repeat this if your house was burning down around you?

Positive side of global warming? I agree with Michaelangelica, that the advances in alternative fuel technology is a benifit.

I was going to offer that this is one area that mankind is still subject to evolution. If mankind can't create technology to get out of this issue or minimize it. However that isn't really correct, as this won't weed out those that refuse to see, but it will punish those that are poor or in the wrong place.

[Michaelangelica]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

Does anyone have any other bright sides of global warming?

[QUOTE]
Here is an unexpected one

Revealed: new species now exposed. . .
"Until now scientists have glimpsed life under Antarctica's ice shelves only through drill holes."
They found lots of sea lilies and their relatives, sea cucumbers and sea urchins, in the shallower waters. Another find was a sea anemone that lives on the back of a snail.

Revealed: new species now exposed by collapse of Antarctic ice shelves - Science

[sciencerox]

Yes, you may tell us to long at the bright side. But the disadvantages outweigh the advantages. Yes, we have to look at the bright side, but we also have to help to slow down global warming... not just "look at the bright side"

[HydrogenBond]

What most people forget about is that the sun is what makes the earth habitable, instead of a frozen planet. Even though the sun is responsible for heating the earth it is not considered an important part of the equation when it comes to global warming. There have been other warming spells, that had nothing to do with CO2, as recent as 1000 years ago. These short term spikes are not new. Back then it led to an improvement of life on earth, at least for Europe and north Atalntic. I am not sure of the data in other parts of the world. I yet to hear of records or evidence from that time substantiating all the doom and gloom expected. The records seem to indicate the opposite.

For the sake of argument, let us assume current global warming is due to green house gases. The time period around 1000AD was 1-3 degrees warmer than today, and would be a geological good litmus test of the affect of global heating another 1-3 degrees. What happened back then should parallel what may happen in the near future. It should be a better guess than only worse case scenarios.

Don't get me wrong, I believe we need alternate energy and when need to keep the world clean, but I don't need a fantasy to manipulate me to do the right thing, i.e., ends justify the means. I am fighting against the fantasy manipulation not the ends.

[Zythryn]

Originally Posted by HydrogenBond

The time period around 1000AD was 1-3 degrees warmer than today,

It was? Can you show me where this information came from? Was it warmer in London, or globally?

I also don't believe that anyone has 'forgotten' that the sun is what makes our planet habitable. To suggest that GW proponents are suggesting otherwise seems like a stawman fallicy at best and dishonest at worst (unless you have a source?).