Re: [asa] Global Warming, Ethics, and Social Sciences

>>> "David Opderbeck" <dopderbeck@gmail.com> 01/18/07 9:56 AM >>>
*My thinking concerning the consequences of global warming is that there is
about a 99.99% chance that it will be an unmitigated disaster if the
temperature of the earth goes up a few degrees Centigrade in the next
several decades*.

Al, what's the basis for that statement? What studies support this kind of
claim?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_global_warming

Look at the figure in the upper right corner. By that assessment, if the temperature increases 6 degrees C in the next hundred years, there will severe impacts across the globe--many extinctions, many extreme climatic events, negative impacts almost everywhere, extensivel negative economic and ecological impacts, and some significant chance of abrupt and irreversible large scale transitions. If significant amounts of Greenland ice and Antarctic ice melt, I understand that the ocean levels will rise meters, and I cannot imagine that could be good for most coastal areas. From what I know about ecology, ecosystems cannot adapt to such large temperature changes over such short times, and the balance that now exists will be thrown off and the results can hardly be anything but bad.

It all depends on the amount of temperature increase; the worst impacts won't be felt by today's older generations no matter what happens. Any changes will be a gradual over decades and the visual evidence won't be convincing to anyone who wants to see something obvious happening now.

I really don't think the question is whether a 6 degree temperature increase will be catastrophic; it will be. The question is whether there will be that much of a temperature increase.

To unsubscribe, send a message to majordomo@calvin.edu with
"unsubscribe asa" (no quotes) as the body of the message.
Received on Thu Jan 18 12:22:32 2007