Do climate scientist believe there is any imminent harm to human kind?
This depends on how you define "imminent". In our lifetime; no probably not. In the first, second or third generations after us, more likely. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a group of scientists and policy makers who are trying to put the big picture together. basically, scientists are working in their different specialisms and so there is no one scientist who can answer any one of these questions. there is also a major problem that policy makers feel that because they aren't scientists they don't have the right or ability to make decisions.
We have already had something between 0.5 and 1 degree of climate change already as the result of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. the consensus is the about 2 degree by the end of this century is the upper limit which won't have major impacts on the planet and is within the level of tolerances. The two major variables in anticipating climate change are 1) climate sensativity and 2) what we do.
Scientists are basically trying to predict the weather; there are a huge number of variables and so they can't know exactly what is going to happen. Add on to this that we're not talking about what the weather will be like tommorow, but that we are studying the aggregeate of weather patterns (the climate) in the next 100 years, and you can see that any model produced is going to be uncertain.
At the moment we appear to be heading toward 4 degrees, which is catastrophic. We are already committed to about two to three hundred years of warming because of the gases aleready emitted working their way through the lags in the system. An additional factor is the possibility of feedback effects in which natural reserves of greenhouse gases, such as methane sinks in the siberian tundra are released and accelerate the process. Scientists are frightened of a 'butterly effect' in which the intial emissions then have magnified consequences as the ecological system responds to it. This is how people end up with worse case scenarios with runaway climate change.
There are (not suprisingly given the nature of the subject) very few studies which ask whether climate change poses an existential threat to the future of mankind. There was a study done which showed that the most likely problem is 'heat stress' (that average global tempratures rise to such an extent that it i) exceeds our biological tolerances and ii) exceeds our economic capacity to keep ourselves cool.
However, the more immediate threat is the climate change will have knock on effects on ecological systems which affect agriculture, fresh water supplies and fisheries. it these are threatened the total human population on the planet will exceed it's "carrying capacity" and 'contract'. the threat of extinction is unlikely, but depending on the time frame, the likelhood of the deaths of a very large number of people IS a problem we could face as a species over the next few generations depending on the severity of the warming. How many we don't know, but it will depend who you ask. the most alarmist will put it up in the hundreds of millions or billions.
Most models work study the next 100 years, but climate change will continueto unfold over the next couple of centuries. Nor can we reliably know how bad things would be before it happens. hence we have an ethical obligation to reduce emissions now. The problem is that the division of the world into nation-states and free markets emphasising corporate and individual inaitive can plasuibly work against such co-ordinated action. There are many climate change deniers who are libertarians but the irony is that by trying to stop action of climate change now, they actually make more extreme measures more probable further down the road.
Are the statistics shown in a fear mongering way just to sell newspapers?
To some extent yes. The most sensationalised fears of climate change get more airtime and that actually hinders the process of implimenting policies as people become fatalistic about the prospects of preventing it.
This depends on how you define "imminent". In our lifetime; no probably not. In the first, second or third generations after us, more likely. The International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) is a group of scientists and policy makers who are trying to put the big picture together. basically, scientists are working in their different specialisms and so there is no one scientist who can answer any one of these questions. there is also a major problem that policy makers feel that because they aren't scientists they don't have the right or ability to make decisions.
We have already had something between 0.5 and 1 degree of climate change already as the result of man-made greenhouse gas emissions. the consensus is the about 2 degree by the end of this century is the upper limit which won't have major impacts on the planet and is within the level of tolerances. The two major variables in anticipating climate change are 1) climate sensativity and 2) what we do.
Scientists are basically trying to predict the weather; there are a huge number of variables and so they can't know exactly what is going to happen. Add on to this that we're not talking about what the weather will be like tommorow, but that we are studying the aggregeate of weather patterns (the climate) in the next 100 years, and you can see that any model produced is going to be uncertain.
At the moment we appear to be heading toward 4 degrees, which is catastrophic. We are already committed to about two to three hundred years of warming because of the gases aleready emitted working their way through the lags in the system. An additional factor is the possibility of feedback effects in which natural reserves of greenhouse gases, such as methane sinks in the siberian tundra are released and accelerate the process. Scientists are frightened of a 'butterly effect' in which the intial emissions then have magnified consequences as the ecological system responds to it. This is how people end up with worse case scenarios with runaway climate change.
There are (not suprisingly given the nature of the subject) very few studies which ask whether climate change poses an existential threat to the future of mankind. There was a study done which showed that the most likely problem is 'heat stress' (that average global tempratures rise to such an extent that it i) exceeds our biological tolerances and ii) exceeds our economic capacity to keep ourselves cool.
However, the more immediate threat is the climate change will have knock on effects on ecological systems which affect agriculture, fresh water supplies and fisheries. it these are threatened the total human population on the planet will exceed it's "carrying capacity" and 'contract'. the threat of extinction is unlikely, but depending on the time frame, the likelhood of the deaths of a very large number of people IS a problem we could face as a species over the next few generations depending on the severity of the warming. How many we don't know, but it will depend who you ask. the most alarmist will put it up in the hundreds of millions or billions.
Most models work study the next 100 years, but climate change will continueto unfold over the next couple of centuries. Nor can we reliably know how bad things would be before it happens. hence we have an ethical obligation to reduce emissions now. The problem is that the division of the world into nation-states and free markets emphasising corporate and individual inaitive can plasuibly work against such co-ordinated action. There are many climate change deniers who are libertarians but the irony is that by trying to stop action of climate change now, they actually make more extreme measures more probable further down the road.
Are the statistics shown in a fear mongering way just to sell newspapers?
To some extent yes. The most sensationalised fears of climate change get more airtime and that actually hinders the process of implimenting policies as people become fatalistic about the prospects of preventing it.
