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

Friends: If I may chime in as well. I do not know how likely it is that global
warming will be catastrophic - for humans or for other populations- so far it
seems to be good for West Michigan; our summers are pleasant- no hurricanes, no
tornados, no wild-fires, no catastrophic flooding - and winters are warmer -
always a good thing for bicyclists!. But, at the same time, it seems that
warming, so far, has not been good for the southern coastal areas of the US and
probably also not for the southwestern parts of the US. In fact this winter
again we have a remarkably surprising distribution of weather across the US.
For not a small number of people what has been happening must already seem
quite catastrophic and we are in the very early stages of the warming regime.
A very big problem with the warming of the globe is that the warming is not
uniformly distributed but seems to be most strongly expressed in the polar
regions. So an average increase of 2 or 3 degrees globally might mean an
increase of 1 degree or less at the equator with much stronger warming at the
high latitudes. If this happens melting of the polar ice caps (and Greenland)
will be accelerated - and climatologists are already thoroughly startled at the
rate of melting occurring in Greenland. Such warming could very well lead to
melting of the permafrost in northern latitudes with a potential release to the
atmosphere of a huge amount of methane - now sequestered in the permafrost. If
this happens I think no one knows what sort of warming may occur - but it might
well be "runaway" warming - no amount of human remediation will be able to
offset it. And that would likely result in substantial melting of the polar
icecaps - and attendant rise in Ocean levels - the melting of the Greenland ice
sheet alone will lead to a rise of over 20 ft in average ocean levels - and
that would be truly catastrophic since about 80% of the world's population
lives within 20 miles of and ocean coast.
Moreover, I don't think that making an orderly but fast transition away from
fossil fuel use to sustainable and carbon-neutral energy sources needs to be
economically ruinous for the developed world. It will be challenging and will
require a firm commitment to change the way we now operate and may well mean
that we consume at a lower rate. But it need not be ruinous if we adopt good
policies and practices that protect the poorest among us.
In my view, the risk of not beginning the transition now is too great.
respectfully
ken piers

Ken Piers

"We are by nature creatures of faith, as perhaps all creatures are; we live by
counting on things that cannot be proved. As creatures of faith, we must choose
either to be religious or superstitious, to believe in things that cannot be
proved or to believe in things that can be disproved."
Wendell Berry

>>> "Al Koop" <koopa@gvsu.edu> 1/18/2007 12:20 PM >>>
>>> "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.

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Received on Thu Jan 18 13:50:34 2007