Global Warming, Michael Crichton and the small penis rule

The most convincing proof that we should take climate change seriously is that both the pentagon and the insurance/re-insurance industry are concerned about it. What organizations could be more conservative, anti-tree hugger/free spirit/granola cruncher than those two?

The pentagon has performed a detailed study on how to cope with the social fall out of climate change (i.e. war, which there will be a lot of) and the insurance industry has actuaries dedicated to assessing risk so that they can deny coverage to those who will suffer from climate change before the global insurance market is bankrupted by Katrina like events.

Pentagon Climate Report Link
http://techpolicy.typepad.com/tpp/pentagon-on-climate-change.pdf

Another note.

Short term weather anamolies should not be attributed to climate change. Cliamte change is a long term process where the average weather shifts. This is why it is wrong to say things like Katrina was caused by global warming. It is fair to say that climate change will cause an increase in atlantic hurricanes but stronger statements than that cannot be proven and deniers jump all over overreaching. The same can be said about the warm weather we are seeing in southern Ontario. Climate change may introduce warmer winters on average but a particular warm winter may have happened without it.

Also, global warming is a misnomer. The name indicates that the whole planet will be getting warmer. In fact, climate change will result in different weather patterns than we are historically used too. It will also introduce more extreme weather events in both directions. Freezing colds and sweltering heats. It is only on average that the Earth will warm. Many areas will be cooler (i.e. Europe when the Gulf Stream shuts down).

My problem with the hysteria around global warming is this: we know for a fact that the Earth’s climate is not stable, with or without man’s contribution. We’re currently biding our time in an interglacial period (the time between ice ages). Conventional thinking says that interglacials last 11,000 years before climate changes. In other words, we could be on the verge of another ice age, of which we have absolutely no control, and will have profound impact on our civilization. So, even if we magically eliminate this threat of global warming, how are we going to address the natural occurance of an ice age?
At the end of the day, we’re all just along for the ride on this big, spinning ball folks. Nothing we can really do but hang on as best we can.

Agnostic is correct, climate does change and always have. The issue is that our civilization is established and functioning within our current climate regime. Forestry, agriculture, ocean levels, everything we do is based on what has existed for the last few hundred years (much shorter than 11,000 years).

Frankly, we are a very brittle civilization. We farm the areas we do for food, if suddenly none of those areas are arable because of climate change, we will die in vast numbers before we adjust and get agriculture back on track in the new arable land.

I disagree vehemently with the ‘just along for the ride’ theme. We have engineered this planet for millenia, ever since we started lighting brush on fire to flush out animals for hunting. We are an engineering species and the truth is we need to engineer a solution to stop climate change, both man made and natural. We have a succesful system based on the current climate, we need to sustain that. ‘Hanging on the best we can’ involves engineering projects that will manage the earth.

The problem I have is that we dont study these problems, we deny them. We deny that climate is changing. Humanities fault or not we need to find a way to tune the climate of the Earth. The technology and progress that would help us abate human made climate change will help us understand and prevent ice ages as well. We just need to spend the money on research and admit that the problem exists at all.

This “hanging on for the ride” argument is insane. Sure, the climate has always been changing and an asteroid could fall from the sky and kill us all. But let’s face it; we are responsible for the current changes in our global climate. Therefore, we have a responsibility to minimize the damage. Arguing that we should do nothing about climate change because an ice age MAY be coming, is like trying to justify murdering someone on the grounds that he or she MAY be a hit by a car in the near future. Yes, we all will die someday, and I agree that we need to “hang on” to the earth “as best we can”. But if the full predicted effects of global warming are realized, we (western society) will be responsible for the greatest human and ecological genocide in history.