The Upside of Climate Change

[puppypower]

I want to do something that nobody seems to do; look at the upside of climate change and global warming. I live in NE USA and this fall has been beautiful in terms of mild weather and sunny skies. Normally it will be cooler and drearier. This data is not doom and gloom and therefore might seem alien, since climate change is usually pitched with only doom and gloom in mind. Why is that, since a climate shift will redistribute who will be the new winners and new losers.

 

If you look at the media news, did you ever wonder why the news tends to present more bad news than good news? This can make some people can lose a sense of natural data proportion; don't think there is any good news. One plane crash can make it appear like flying has become the most dangerous thing to do, since the crash is not pitched in the context of all the on time flights, so the audience can maintain a rational sense of data proportion. Why is this?

 

Bad news sells more commercials and products and creates jobs for expert analysis. If you saw a news story of a child with a lemonade stand, this will make you feel good, when you ago about your business. If that same child was hit by a car, there is no sense of closure, so you will stay tuned longer to learn what happened; rubber necker. Bad news has been found to allow the media to maintain a larger audience, longer, so they can pitch mores products by selling more commercials. It also means they can parade a legion of experts saying a lot about nothing, often extrapolating into other doom and gloom, for a multiplier effect.

 

If I discuss the good side of climate change, this may not be how most people are conditioned to address news. It may make people feel good and they go their own way causing the discussion to stop. Or some will try to move the discussion back to doom and gloom since this feels more natural.

 

This was also a good summer. We didn't get any 100 plus degree days and had very few severe storms, instead there were plenty of sunny warm days. I could learn to live with this new normal. The only real negative side was the large amount of winter snow due to a polar vortex effect; cooling affect. Who else has been the beneficiary of the good side of climate change?

 

 

[John Cuthber]

Thanks for clarifying your position that your opinion of the weather in one small part of the world is what matters.

[overtone]

So we know where to send the climate refugees - the flooded out, the salted out, the droughted out, the heat-stricken and water short and food deprived:

 

Puppypower's neighborhood - NE USA ftw!

 

We can start with those made homeless by the extraordinary drought and consequent war in Syria. Plenty of room for them in the northern woods, and I hear the weather's taken a turn for the better.

Edited November 11, 2015 by overtone

[Phi for All]

I plan to invest in third world funeral services, since I anticipate some real growth there. I might add your lemonade stand idea, for the many attendees. Thanks for the extra income! It should work if anyplace can still grow lemons.

 

I'm sure climate change is the most elaborate conspiracy ever perpetrated by science. I mean, 99.9% consensus that it's man-made causes?! That requires some serious conspiratorial clout. No doubt they get their money by lobbying politicians to change the laws and loosen regulations so they can continue their greedy plans to take over the economy and create a better world, completely against the wishes of so many deniers.

 

Oooh, I just thought of something else. With all the dead people, there will be more stuff for me! Maybe the El Hierro volcanic landslide will wipe out the NE USA and I'll get your stuff too (when it dries out).

[Endy0816]

Several governments have drawn up or are already implementing plans for taking advantage of the opening up of the Arctic ocean. Trade routes, prospecting, militarization.

[Ophiolite]

John, Phi and Overtone: the observations you have made are accurate. They also have the appearance of emotional, knee jerk reactions. You disappoint me.

 

It seems clear to me - and Endy has provided a good example - that there will be some benefits of global warming. Noting those benefits does not mean any of the following:

• We don't believe in global warming
• We don't believe there are any significant negative effects
• We don't care that some people will lose out

It simply means that we have noted the benefits and set them down alongside the problems. I always thought that kind of objective observation, rather than one sided emotional attacks, was what science was about.

[StringJunky]

French vineyards have been having bumper harvests because of the reduced risk of frosts.

[geordief]

An upside to the "climate change"/global warming issue is that it brings all communities around the world together in a common enterprise.

 

This is similar to the risk of global self destruction which was felt even more keenly before the USSR broke up.

 

Of course the obstacles to working together are so huge that the cure is almost worse than the disease (and in fact working in splendid isolation has its upsides too except for the fact that it no longer seems to be an option)

 

The upsides such as grape harvests in France are real but beg the question whether we would be better off if they did not exist like a fly in the ointment to distract us from the pressing and urgent (time limited) task in hand.

[DrP]

Russia could benefit greatly as the large Siberian wastes and forests that are too cold to in habit may become farmable land at higher temperatures... I read that somewhere recently. They could become the worlds dominant provider of food if temperature keep rising. There's a happy thought.

[StringJunky]

Russia could benefit greatly as the large Siberian wastes and forests that are too cold to in habit may become farmable land at higher temperatures... I read that somewhere recently. They could become the worlds dominant provider of food if temperature keep rising. There's a happy thought.

There's a lot of methane in the ground waiting to come out to get into the atmosphere with the warming climate there, apparently.

[Phi for All]

John, Phi and Overtone: the observations you have made are accurate. They also have the appearance of emotional, knee jerk reactions. You disappoint me.

And you disappoint me, sir, for not recognizing my response was aimed at the callous, "Others may be suffering, but I'm doing just fine with this" attitude of the OP. There are bound to be those who prosper from any horrible event, I just thought it was in extremely poor taste to try spinning it positively. Seems fairly hypocritical, looking at the accusations of media manipulation.

 

Is it an emotional, knee-jerk response that tells me, but not you, it's a losing proposition to tell some people climate change will turn out well for them?

[zapatos]

If there are positive effects to climate change and recognition of those changes are ignored, this will simply give the doubters ammunition that climate change is either a hoax or that its negative effects are being overstated.

 

If a farmer must relocate due to climate change, surely they will offset the cost of moving with the income generated by selling off their unproductive farm. Similarly, good politics and good science demands we study all effects, not just those that we personally wish to emphasize.

[dimreepr]

John, Phi and Overtone: the observations you have made are accurate. They also have the appearance of emotional, knee jerk reactions. You disappoint me.

 

It seems clear to me - and Endy has provided a good example - that there will be some benefits of global warming. Noting those benefits does not mean any of the following:

• We don't believe in global warming
• We don't believe there are any significant negative effects
• We don't care that some people will lose out

It simply means that we have noted the benefits and set them down alongside the problems. I always thought that kind of objective observation, rather than one sided emotional attacks, was what science was about.

 

And you disappoint me, sir, for not recognizing my response was aimed at the callous, "Others may be suffering, but I'm doing just fine with this" attitude of the OP. There are bound to be those who prosper from any horrible event, I just thought it was in extremely poor taste to try spinning it positively. Seems fairly hypocritical, looking at the accusations of media manipulation.

 

Is it an emotional, knee-jerk response that tells me, but not you, it's a losing proposition to tell some people climate change will turn out well for them?

 

 

John Steinbeck had a similar view; ‘The grapes of wrath’.

Edited November 12, 2015 by dimreepr

[CharonY]

Well, if one want to spread optimism one should also mention that tornadoes and earthquake have their positive sides. Including e.g. boom in construction jobs, for example. The general issue with the climate, however, is that the effects are happening on a global level. There may be localized advantages, but the question is the total effects.

For example, warmer temperatures could open up Siberia for agriculture. But I would guess the soil quality is not particularly high so I am not sure whether it would be very useful (something that requires a bit more research). Benefits of milder winters vs heat waves would be another example. For certain aspects, rise of sea levels and ocean acidification I cannot see any kind of benefits. Higher CO2 levels could mean increased plant growth, but potentially also increased algae blooms. I do agree that a complete discussion would include as many aspects as possible. But discussing global climate from the only localized viewpoints would be rather limiting.

[overtone]

 

 

It simply means that we have noted the benefits and set them down alongside the problems. I always thought that kind of objective observation, rather than one sided emotional attacks, was what science was about.

Sure. But I wasn't responding to objective observation of potential benefits, I was responding to puppypower's post.

 

The use of disingenuous "objective" discussion of supposed benefits of climate change to frame the issue as one of local weather, simplistic "getting warmer", and so forth, is by now - years into this discussion - just something to be slapped.

 

Yes, the planet is in general colder than would be ideal for human beings. We are semi-amphibious beach apes with no fur, after all. But that doesn't mean rapidly warming some locale will prove beneficial. And no, one cannot simply pick up and move a farming operation, or a fishing industry, or a city for that matter - there isn't going to be a black loam prairie mollosoil 120 day growing season Iowa style corn belt in Canada, just because the winter nights got warmer in Canada, and there are already people and farms and productive forests and so forth in Canada - as there are in almost all fertile regions of China, Indonesia, etc.

 

Let's start with this: as the only possible projections of beneficial changes in some locality's weather would have to be based on one or more of these model projections that have been so denigrated by the denialists, acceptance of their usefulness and validity is a requirement and presumption of anyone participating in such a discussion.

[iNow]

Well, if one want to spread optimism one should also mention that tornadoes and earthquake have their positive sides. Including e.g. boom in construction jobs, for example. The general issue with the climate, however, is that the effects are happening on a global level. There may be localized advantages, but the question is the total effects.

This is pretty close to where I land with this. Strikes me a bit like arguing that the upside of an obese person getting stage 3 or 4 colorectal cancer is that weight loss will be made easier for them.

[zapatos]

This is pretty close to where I land with this. Strikes me a bit like arguing that the upside of an obese person getting stage 3 or 4 colorectal cancer is that weight loss will be made easier for them.

What would be the benefit of not telling someone with stage 3 colorectal cancer that they are going to lose weight in the coming weeks and months?

 

I imagine that businesses and governments are not simply going to throw in the towel and shut down due to the problems that will be caused by climate change. In order to make the best plans for the future you need to mitigate the risk of climate change. Leaving out of the discussion information that can help mitigate the downside of climate change seems short sighted to me.

 

If the US government (or ConAgra) is going to address decreased food production in the corn belt, it would be helpful to know if there are other areas of the country that can be utilized to fill the food gap. If honeybees are going to decrease in number in areas of the country, it would be nice to know if that area of the country is now fit for a different type of pollinator.

 

The more information we gather about climate change, the better off we will be. Data is data. We shouldn't ignore some of it simply because we find one type of data distasteful.

 

I'd be surprised if people were not already making future plans for business endeavors that were once considered untenable due to current climate conditions.

[iNow]

What would be the benefit of not telling someone with stage 3 colorectal cancer that they are going to lose weight in the coming weeks and months?

I don't know, but I'm also not arguing that there would be benefit in not telling people. My position is one of perspective and my focus one of relative scale.

 

If one is about to lose their multi-million dollar mansion, telling them they might pick a few pennies out of the couch cushions when the movers come seems to me to miss the point.

[puppypower]

If the earth is getting warmer due to CO2, that means more water will be in the earth's atmosphere at any time (water concentration increases with temperature) and therefore there will be more rain and more CO2 available to help grow more plants for food, while providing more fresh water for the bulging world population that is anticipated.

 

 

This is for those who still doubt manmade global warming. If we assume manmade global warming was real, this would be the first time in the history of the earth that man has caused the earth's temperature to rise. This time in the earth's history is an unique event that lacks all precedent in the history of the earth. In spite of a unique events, this is the first time I have ever heard of science forming a consensus, with one unique data point. Can anyone think of another time or area of science this is done?

 

Maybe the good news is, science has found a way to use a singular unique data event to draw universal conclusions thereby saving ton's of money and time when doing research. With this new science, they might be able to test a new unprecedented drugs, on one subject, and then go right to market.

 

The reason old fashion science did not, as a rule, trust a curve through one data point of a unique event, was any curve that touches that point can be pitched as valid, if you have a good angle. This would make old fashion science, dirty, since some angles will benefit by recruiting political types who know how to pitch angles with conviction to the masses.

 

Maybe the new way of one data occurrence science has found a way to get good results for cheap while eliminating all politics from science.

Edited November 13, 2015 by puppypower

[zapatos]

I don't know, but I'm also not arguing that there would be benefit in not telling people. My position is one of perspective and my focus one of relative scale.

 

If one is about to lose their multi-million dollar mansion, telling them they might pick a few pennies out of the couch cushions when the movers come seems to me to miss the point.

And I am not arguing that focus on the upside of climate change should equal the focus on the downside of climate change. I am simply saying that no aspect of climate change should be dismissed or ignored, which is what a couple of earlier posts seemed to do.

[swansont]

If the earth is getting warmer due to CO2, that means more water will be in the earth's atmosphere at any time (water concentration increases with temperature) and therefore there will be more rain and more CO2 available to help grow more plants for food, while providing more fresh water for the bulging world population that is anticipated.

 

More rain can mean too much rain. Rain at the wrong time can be bad. And warming doesn't mean uniformily increase rainfall. It can also mean more droughts and floods.

 

This is for those who still doubt manmade global warming. If we assume manmade global warming was real, this would be the first time in the history of the earth that man has caused the earth's temperature to rise. This time in the earth's history is an unique event that lacks all precedent in the history of the earth. In spite of a unique events, this is the first time I have ever heard of science forming a consensus, with one unique data point. Can anyone think of another time or area of science this is done?

 

It's not a unique event. The earth doesn't know where the CO2 came from. It's not like anthropogenic greenhouse gases are different from natural ones. Climate forcings are climate forcings. If you can't study the last few hundred years, then you can't study climate at all.

[CharonY]

In addition, only a tiny amount of water is stored in the atmosphere (less than 0.05%). Thus the atmosphere cannot act as a significant reservoir to hold fresh water. One critical point is that large downpours can actually reduce the amount of fresh water that is available as the ability to retain it is lower and much is lost due to movement to the ocean.

[iNow]

I am simply saying that no aspect of climate change should be dismissed or ignored...

Except for the outright denial and willful ignorance, perhaps.

[overtone]

 

 

If the US government (or ConAgra) is going to address decreased food production in the corn belt, it would be helpful to know if there are other areas of the country that can be utilized to fill the food gap. If honeybees are going to decrease in number in areas of the country, it would be nice to know if that area of the country is now fit for a different type of pollinator.

Nobody is avoiding those issues. The reality is that there isn't much reliable upside to this kind of rapid dislocation in the weather, anywhere. We have had hundreds, even thousands, of years to adapt to local circumstances - and it took that long. We are in many places just getting the hang of things now. The learning curve involved hardship. It will again.

 

Some of us will enjoy some good fortune, brought by more clement weather that it turns out is easy to adjust to - but it's a crapshoot, not a promise.

[Strange]

If the earth is getting warmer due to CO2, that means more water will be in the earth's atmosphere at any time (water concentration increases with temperature) and therefore there will be more rain and more CO2 available to help grow more plants for food, while providing more fresh water for the bulging world population that is anticipated.

 

More CO2 is not good for all plants. It will reduce rice yields, for example. Which, in case you don't know, is a vital staple for billions of people.

 

 

this is the first time I have ever heard of science forming a consensus, with one unique data point.

 

Please stop repeating this false statement (aka lying). It is clearly not a single data point. We have millions of years of data from all parts of the world. And if you are just talking about the period where warming has been observed, we still have thousands, possibly millions, of data points. Thousands of researchers. Thousands of peer reviewed papers. Your opinions appear to be based on ignorance of the science.

 

Unless you would like to cite the paper where a single item of data is used?