American Cities and Climate Change: When is Enough, Enough?

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Gantz

Well I guess that is the deal breaker for human civilization. We are all doomed. Time to build my climate change bunker and stock up on MREs!

Extinction by mosquito isn't even the worst case scenario.

[bilbao58]

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[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

This is a joke, right?

No it's not a joke. The point of the post is that shorelines change, always have, always will and there's nothing we can do to preserve the shoreline of the year 2000 forever and ever and ever.

Now whether the shoreline was 100 miles away or 225, that's not the point. The ancient shoreline is what we call the continental shelf and that shoreline really wasn't that long ago -- it was a rapid, intense warm up that resulted in sea level rise in the order of hundreds of feet.

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by pj3000

Yeah, the doomsday stuff is silly. And it distracts from looking at the real issues through a measured lens to determine best paths forward.

We actually should be very optimistic about the predictions. Afterall, the worst case scenario would've been a rapid global cooling/next ice age. A 20 mile wall of ice descending from the poles would've been a much harder problem to deal with. Perhaps not human extinction (humans already survived previous ice ages), but a possible big population or even civilizational collapse. This global climate change phenomenon ensures that we will be fine for a solid 100+ years more.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by bilbao58

This is a joke, right?

Where Houston is today was much further inland, but also much of the northern latitudes were under miles of ice

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by pj3000

I get what you're saying, but we're not seeing insect migration, in the case of emerging viruses in certain areas, to be very slow right now. The Mediterranean as an example. And outbreaks are not a slow process at all unfortunately. I'm not an alarmist by any means, however the strong potential for infectious disease aspect of a warming planet is something that is often not considered.

RE: Outbreaks

Airplanes and the modern world are the reason why a pandemic will likely happen again.

[Gantz]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Where Houston is today was much further inland, but also much of the northern latitudes were under miles of ice

For ~99% of the time over the past 2 million years, New York was under 2 miles of ice.

[mhays]

I like this reasoning. Along the same lines...what's wrong with war, since people have always died?

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by mhays

I like this reasoning. Along the same lines...what's wrong with war, since people have always died?

True, peace is an anomaly, Mans natural state is war.

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by Gantz

For ~99% of the time over the past 2 million years, New York was under 2 miles of ice.

Yes we are in the inter-glacial of a very old ice age.

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by mhays

I like this reasoning. Along the same lines...what's wrong with war, since people have always died?

You complain, then offer no solutions -- because there are no solutions given the fact that the climate has rapidly changed long before mankind was heating soup on a gas stove.

[pj3000]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

RE: Outbreaks

Airplanes and the modern world are the reason why a pandemic will likely happen again.

Yes, most likely. That’s the part that can potentially be exacerbated by emerging diseases... since we’re already seeing some unexpected outbreaks in developed Mediterranean and middle eastern nations, where there’s obviously lots of travel to and from Europe and the US.

[jtown,man]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

No it's not a joke. The point of the post is that shorelines change, always have, always will and there's nothing we can do to preserve the shoreline of the year 2000 forever and ever and ever.

Now whether the shoreline was 100 miles away or 225, that's not the point. The ancient shoreline is what we call the continental shelf and that shoreline really wasn't that long ago -- it was a rapid, intense warm up that resulted in sea level rise in the order of hundreds of feet.

It seems some people think the world was created() as it currently is and it must always remain that way.

Hell, even in East Arkansas we used to be under the ocean...

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by jtown,man

It seems some people think the world was created() as it currently is and it must always remain that way.

Hell, even in East Arkansas we used to be under the ocean...

Just 20,000 years ago, most of the entire state of Utah was under water. The Great Salt Lake used to be incredibly massive.

But, Climate Change dried it all up.

--I'm going to go block traffic in SLC and demand for them to restore these wetlands, now!

E] One good thing about Climate Change is that Area 51 is now on a dry lake bed. Had the Climate not Changed, where would we store the recovered UFOs and dead Alien bodies?

[JManc]

Originally Posted by Gantz

We actually should be very optimistic about the predictions. Afterall, the worst case scenario would've been a rapid global cooling/next ice age. A 20 mile wall of ice descending from the poles would've been a much harder problem to deal with. Perhaps not human extinction (humans already survived previous ice ages), but a possible big population or even civilizational collapse. This global climate change phenomenon ensures that we will be fine for a solid 100+ years more.

Humans during previous Ice Ages and major climatic events were much hardier. I suspect a future Ice Age would thin the modern human population quite drastically.

[Obadno]

Never any love for Lake Missoula

[Obadno]

Originally Posted by JManc

Humans during previous Ice Ages and major climatic events were much hardier. I suspect a future Ice Age would thin the modern human population quite drastically.

I'd argue that a global cooling trend would be much more dire than a warming trend, overall warming weather tends to be better for humans and civilization, cooling trends typically cause mass starvation and civilization collapse.

Just based on the last couple times it's happened

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by Obadno

Never any love for Lake Missoula

The evidence for a flood of biblical proportions has been steadily gaining ground. Rapid melt, rapid climatic change.

[iheartthed]

Originally Posted by Sun Belt

RE: Outbreaks

Airplanes and the modern world are the reason why a pandemic will likely happen again.

In addition to airplanes being huge sources of greenhouse gases, maybe human mobility will also add to it. But we've got plenty of mosquitos here in North America to spread disease. There were no planes to blame back in the Dark Ages, but plenty of mosquitos, ticks, and rats.

Actually, civilization/urbanization is the easiest way to spread disease. We're more sanitary than we used to be, but we still constantly get each other sick. Then there are other potential sources of mass disease, like the water supply. The worst case scenarios could be really bad...

[Sun Belt]

Originally Posted by Obadno

I'd argue that a global cooling trend would be much more dire than a warming trend, overall warming weather tends to be better for humans and civilization, cooling trends typically cause mass starvation and civilization collapse.

Just based on the last couple times it's happened

Heck yeah. The evidence is out there as well. When we have cold hiccups, the world descends into starvation and chaos. Mankind has been around for a long time, yet it was only in a warm period that we flourished -- why is that?