Planetary Demise

[Angrboda]

Global warming is happening. I don't think there is conclusive evidence that it's caused by humans, or that it will be of any danger to us in the long run.

I haven't studied the issue in any great amount, but from the one presentation I did attend, I was told that approximately half of the forces which might contribute to global warming are the result of human activity. This is probably why the term currently in vogue is anthropogenic global warming or AGW, which is basically Latin for "human caused warming." My minimal impression is that AGW is indeed a serious issue, the main contention being the great variability in the results of various prediction scenarios. However, even the most conservative of them seem to imply serious consequences for our planet and its inhabitants.

And what about the animals who live in the wild whose habitats are being destroyed by this? I feel sorry for the people who have to live in this world in the future if we are just going to pass this problem off as not our fault.

Climate change isn't something new. Go back several thousand years and the climate was very different to what it is today. Countless species have become extinct due to the perfectly normal climate change the Earth experiences. The beauty of evolution and nature is that when one species dies out, another almost always takes its place.

This is true to an extent, but only to an extent. Ecosystems tend to be stabilized by vast chains of inter-species and inter-environment dependencies. Changing the environment too quickly can lead to major links in those chains disappearing which can very easily lead to the entire ecosystem crashing. And then there are specific species which may warrant greater concern. I think most of us would be unhappy with any public policy which led to the extinction of the human race. Bee colony collapse disorder is of major concern because of the bee's role in pollinating, and thus perpetuating, many major food crops. And I'd have to look up the figures, but if memory serves, the majority of our atmosphere's oxygen is generated by phytoplankton of various kinds in the phototropic zone of our oceans (the top 200 feet); the bulk of these phytoplankton are sensitive to variations in temperature such that a significant change in the temperature in the phototropic zone could lead to that system's collapse, with the resultant end of production of oxygen critically impacting forms of life planet wide.

There's a big differences between casually sipping a beer and shot-gunning a six-pack. Deltas matter, as well as whom those deltas hit.