What can be done to adapt to global climate change?

Question

Al Gore has his question up on the board that assumes we can reverse the effects of global climate change. I sincerely hope we can turn things around. But so much lifestyle change is required that I think climate change will overtake us before we can make an impact. So lets imagine that more coastal cities around the world get drowned by walls of water, and more inland places basically get parched. Add to that the possible global cooling if the gulf stream gets shut down by the increased rate of melting ice caps. Possible proposals for human adaptation: GM modified crops, more efficient transportation of needed supplies (and communication of where such support is needed), communal societies. ..

Global warming doesn't simply mean that your back yard will get warmer. I came across an article in a TIME magazine from earlier this year how rapidly the arctic ice cap is receding. The question isn't whether global warming is happening - if there's any question, it's whether we're contributing to it or not. I'm sold on the answer that we are. I'm not sold that we can do something about it, but we should try. (Basically translate that as kicking the oil addiction - it's giving us headaches besides the unquantifiable environmental impact)

There's been a lot posted to this board that doesn't answer my original question. A number of posts here have been trying to answer different questions (like 'Is Global Warming real?' and 'How can we conserve energy', and 'What can we do to stop and reverse the effects of global climate change'.)
To restate the assumption behind my question - things are happening. Assume more things are going to happen. We aren't going to like them. If we are to survive cities being flooded / turned into swamps, droughts etc, then we need to be prepared. I think focus would necessarily switch back to basics - simply obtaining food will become a day's work!
And here's the question in brief: How can we prepare for the changes and adapt to them when they happen? Can we retain some semblance of economy, government and infrastructure?

Answer 1

I'd love to answer his question, but I can't seem to ask Yahoo's search engine the right question. If someone knows how to get my answer to him please cut & paste my answer.

Since no one seems willing to live at a much lower life style than fossil fuels allow, we have to change the economics of Renewable Energy. I've written to both governments that are going to be required to facilitate changing the economics of a replacement energy resource. Their replies have simply been to say they have done exactly what I wrote was in adequate. Their actions did nothing more than guaranty that the cost of energy will rise dramatically.

With possibly the start of the space program the government was made aware of the need of energy to support our life style. Governments were aware of need for energy to be economically viable. With the space part of energy the economics were the cost of transporting energy source/generators.
They saw the need for a replacement of fossil fuel because the supply dwindling. The government obviously realized that the economics of Renewable Energy wasn’t directly economically viable at the power grid level. Combining the economics, need, and people’s love for the utilities, they advanced the backyard collectors of energy. They hoped the ones that could afford to pay for their energy bill 30 years in advance would subsidize the energy needs of the rest.
My solution starts out with the presumption the energy utilities are both intelligent & self-serving. (Self-serving is a positive in this discussion.) If the solution to the energy crisis on the horizon that the environmentalists say of Renewable Energy & The Hydrogen Economy is directly economically viable why is it the exception? After the energy crisis in California one would expect the new power plants to be Renewable Energy based. The new power plants were natural gas based. These new power plants will have to be fully depreciated before they are replaced.
The economics of Renewable Energy & The Hydrogen Economy appear to be the reason. The “Fuel” of solar & wind technology are free, but the cost of the infrastructure isn’t. For at least solar, the engineers are trying to use less of the solar cells because of their cost. The cost of solar cells is directly related the cost of energy used to purify & crystallize the cell.
Volume of energy consumption follows population densely. To help get the quantity of Renewable Energy required to keep the economy supplied with energy the government initiated a rebate program. The individuals that were in remote areas quickly made use of the rebates. If one combines the cost of bringing the power grid with the rebate to them made the up front cost of Renewable Energy infrastructure almost awash. In the area that was already served by the power grid even with the rebates didn’t adequately change the economics for those that could afford to pay for their energy bill 30 years in advance. These people are looking for a return on their investment not a return of their investment. With time value of money for the ones that could afford it were even less likely to invest in Renewable Energy. The government appears to feel that the Renewable Energy can’t create sellable spin-off benefits by design; that is why they went after encouraging backyard solar collectors.
The energy cost of isolation of hydrogen conforms to the laws of thermodynamics. The wire-to-wire efficiency is only 40%, or another way to look at it is return of investment. This 40% doesn’t include the energy required to store the hydrogen either by compression or liquefaction. I’ve been told compression consumes up to 12% while liquefaction requires 40% of the energy of hydrogen.
Hydrogen like electricity isn’t a source of energy, but a conveyor of energy. The source of energy to isolate hydrogen has to come from somewhere. Hydrogen isn’t naturally available. The volatility of hydrogen is a double edge sword. It is what makes it a courier of energy, but also the reason it isn’t in its isolated form normally.
This paper may appear that it is throwing in the towel with Renewable Energy. This solution to make Renewable Energy economically viable is based on changing the value of land to subsidize the cost of infrastructure. Mulholland may have had the technology to bring water to Los Angeles. The documentary The Cadillac Desert hints at the way to pay for infrastructure. The movie implies the taxing the areas land paid the bill for bring the water to Los Angeles. This is only ½ right. The head of the chamber of commerce, Frank P. Wiggins, marketed Los Angeles worldwide. By populating the area he upped the quantity of water that would be consumed and increased the value of land. The increase value of land increased the tax collected. Renewable Energy infrastructure is so expensive that taxes collected will not be enough to adequately subsidize to cost alone. To keep our energy bill from skyrocketing sellable spin-off benefits have to be designed in. The utility has to participate in the increase land value that its design/vision creates. No new technology is being offered, but if it does come, its not precluded!
The government has a place in the solution. Being an authority figures they need to indicate the need is real & that they believe that a return on investment is possible & they back it. By having a lively debate with press coverage they do many valuable services, acknowledge the need is real, the due diligence for the investors & advertise the solution. The solution will need both the investors and the businesses to locate in the area to change property values. This place also includes investing/donating the land in the right area.
According to environmentalist 5% of continental USA would be required to supply our energy needs. The amount of land I’m asking the governments to donate is large, yet it is much less than 5%.
The change over will not be a flip of the switch. The .com era showed the problem to of building capacity too fast. Expensive infrastructure requires paying customers at an intense level. The .com caused the bankrupting of Global Crossing & Enron.
The change over will have to start before the energy crisis collides with the retirement bill of the baby-boomers. Without the change over starting well before this collision the 1st World’s economy will not recover. The 1st World’s economy is based on energy consumption. Energy makes us more efficient & our products require energy to be used.
Many say show on a small scale that this solution will change the economics on a small scale. It will not, because of the way one gets sellable spin-off requires a threshold level.

Answer 2

Hmmm, is there really a right answer? The earth goes through natural cooling and warming trends such as the big one at the end of the Pleistocene and the Little Ice Age just a few hundred years ago. That means regardless of human interference or acceleration the phenomenon will occur again and again. If we really are melting the ice caps will we have that awful K. Costner movie "Waterworld" to look forward to? Although, his boat was pretty sweet! Even that wouldn't destroy all life and probably not even humankind. I agree that pollution is a bad thing and that we are contributing negatively to the environment. However, I can't help but wonder if whether or not we are simply freaking out the same way we do about comets and aliens and the apocalypse. Humanity seems to have this twisted need to forecast its own doom, soon, very soon. It seems like rather than freak out and argue back and forth it might be more productive to start colonizing outer space. That way, if one planet goes BOOM at least we have a few more to mess up. Sounds crazy but we can already travel there so why not start taking some of our stuff as well. This time we take a couch, next time we take a lamp, then we take a nuclear power plant etc. etc. Think about it, we could spread out through the galaxy like some weird intergalactic locusts, consuming planets, raw materials. Eventually we would probably come into contact with other species which we could bend to our will or give them some pretty flowers. I guess it just depends who gets there first, hippies or Republicans. Either way, God help us. So . . . I guess the point is cheer up, we aren't dead yet. Have a beverage, buy a hammock, pretend you are in one of those Corona commercials at least until its under water, but hey it was fun while it lasted, right? It was one heck uva party.

Answer 3

Changes have happened in the past, which is how we are recognizing the potential for differences in the way we live. But then we we really have no consensus. I've heard that some are concluded that in about three years things will undergo some cooling for a while. You must also remember that while parts of Antarctica are melting, other parts are piling up more snow and ice at previously unprecedented levels in recent history. The same in Greenland. Siberia has had some incredibly cold winters recently. Just as some places dry up, others get flooded like they haven't in centuries. The same weather is taking place for the same reasons as always before, but that the place where it happens is different. I'm not worried. If we were to affect climate change to undo change than instead of warming, would you rather an ice age? That is what some of the same prognosticators of doom were saying 30 years ago.

Answer 4

Hey Warped, Thank you for asking and taking an unpolitical stance with your question. To answer your question I have to say the first thing we need to do is de-politicise this issue. Because the US is the most divided that it's ever been and everything is looked at as a Republican issue or a Democratic issue, I think that we need to just say "WAIT< THERE ARE SOMETHINGS THAT SHOULD BE BI PARTISAN!" and this is one of them. It angers me that we are willing to argue when no matter who the messenger is, whether it's Gore or the top Scientists who clearly feel this way, all that really needs to happen is some responsibility. So really I would like to say again what can be done before we get to the "doomsday" "no turning back" era. Humor me for a minute (anyone who's ready to go off on me) Is it so hard to recycle? Is it so hard to use recycled stuff? Could you drive a hybrid car? Could you actually not turn on lights during the day? or not turn lights on at night when you're not in a certain room? If we ALL took 5 simple steps at a minimum, it wouldn't impact our life and would have a great affect on consumption of gas, electricity, paper. A great example is lights in a classroom...I'm not advocating blinding our students, but the reality is that teachers that have been environmentally aware turn off their lights during much of the day. The lights aren't needed, it's light outside! Raise the blinds!
Couldn't you easily replace lightbulds with energy efficient bulbs? I guarantee you that people that won't put in energy friendly bulbs will be really bad roommates in this communal fantasy! It's frustrating to me that I've been preaching thhis for 20 years, and every 5 years or so, the public gets interested and then it goes away and I'm left with trying to explain to my kids why we as a family do what we do. And please don't get me wrong, I am not some hippie chick living off the land, I work for a fortune 100 company and yes I drive all over the place (in a socially responsible car though)

Answer 5

I think the American lifestyle will have to change in order to reverse the damage that has been done. I think one of the best ways to solve this problem is to get Congress to make a law that makes corporations accountable for polluting our water supplies and soil. Secondly, we have to find other means of energy such as wind, solar, etc. In fact, Willie Nelson started an energy company that produces oil for cars. Check him out!!! His products may be in your area. Another idea I think would help if we all start to recycle. I recycle because it's right and it's manatory to do so.

We are in serious trouble. Something needs to be done soon because natural disasters are happening much more frequently. I am afraid that something could happen in the northeast. Not much has happened yet but it's possible. Our climate is not like it was five years ago. Last fall, it took a long time for the leaves to change color and fall. Then when they started to fall, they didn't change color. The leaves just fell. That was the first time I noticed that around my area.

Okay Al Gore comes out with a movie about global warming. I commend him for addressing the problem. However, I remember a time when Gore didn't care about the environment. Some people asked Al Gore to remove the electrical towers from their area. The people said that they were getting symptoms of radiation poisioning in the water supply and different types of cancer. I can't remember the state (it could be Kentucky or Tennessee) these people lived in but I couldn't get this off my mind. Gore claims he wants to solve the global warming crisis but he didn't help those people when he was in office. He's a real phony in my book.

Answer 6

First it would be naive of us to think that we are going to kick the oil addiction even if the USA stopped immediately all oil consummation there would still be a mass of other places that could not afford to do the same plus the damage has already started and it will not be possible to refreeze the ice caps etc. So how do we deal. First of all it will be on a individual basis by making sure that you are inland .We will have to eventually give up the coastal areas , also you need to make sure you have food batteries etc for at least a year to give you the time to adapt. then you need to figure out a food and water source. Buy a gun or several as people as they get more desperate will get more ugly in their actions. We cant spend Billions on each Katrina that comes along as they will increase exponentially in the coming years.

Answer 7

While global warming is a serious concern, there are certain natural temperature changes that occur on Earth without any help from the inhabitants. The Earth has gone through several warming and cooling cycles before people ever existed (the ice age). Although, it does seem that the group that has been here the shortest period of time has had the greatest impact. We all should make an effort to limit our impact on the Earth in any way possible but, in the end Mother Nature will supersede all that we have done.

Answer 8

The greatest impact of global warming is not that the world will get hotter, it will for a time, but the cooling that it will produce in the long run. As the average world temperature increases the polar ice caps and glacial masses of the earth will start to melt. This will have catastophic effects on the earths climate. The gulf stream, also known as the great conveyer, transports warm water from the Gulf of Mexico to the waters of the western coast of England keeping the climate there relatively moderate considering that England has roughly the same latitude as Newfoundland (sp) in southern Canada. As the temperature goes up the ice caps melt pumping in large amounts of fresh water, no salt, this would disrupt the alkalinity of the oceans causing the Gulf Stream to stop working, in essence plummitting the world in to an Ice Age. Many scientist think that this could happen rather rapidly, once the gulf stream stops streaming the world could be a ball of ice in 20 to 30 years. So I would sugest that if adaptation is the goal then move to warmer climates or invest in arctic gear. If prevention is more your style than by a hybid car and donate money to organizations dedicated to energy conservation as well don't by products that are eco-unfriendly, It probably wouldn't hurt to write a letter to your congressman relating your concerns.

Answer 9

No extra effort is needed to get adapted to global climate change, as thousands of years would be required when the global warming may bring impact on the living of the human beings. Propagating adversely is the way the politicians create terror in the minds of public.

The human body or the bodies of the animals are attuned to adjust to the the changes in the climate or the atmosphere. Slow change cannot have any impact on the lives of the human beings. If there is a sudden and drastic change for that only human bodies will be failing, but that isituation is quite impossible.

Further, when the sources of fossil fuel deples, the human beings would have developed another natural source of non-polluting energy. By and by the impact of the global warming will end the same way it started, as the nature has the capacity to mak balance.

So nothing is so alrming, as has been brought in to minds of many.

Answer 10

Global climate change is a cyclical condition of the growth of the planet. Think of the planet as a living entity with the jet stream and the gulf stream as the various circulatory systems of the body in constant flux states of aspiration and respiration. Would humanity then be considered a virulent strain infecting the planet to be wiped clean in a forced fever or as the white antibodies protecting the body?
This analogy would, of course, cover all the gray areas in between these two divergent spectra.
En Extremis, humanity would be wiped out save those individuals hardy enough to survive annihilation; need to exodus offworld; or revert to a less industrialized culture to continue growth without overburdening the planet. On the other hand, humanity as a whole would adopt a more GREEN attitude and work intentionally upon healing the planet or adapt as a bio-organism to the more excessive weather patterns.
This is working under an ideology of holistic thought...not very popular. Through satellite microwave pinpoint irradiation of specific areas of the atmosphere and oceans, could we not induce our control over the weather and the respiration of the planet? Or perhaps "mine" space ice from passing comets and increase cold areas of the planet or increase the surface water area?

Answer 11

The solution to problems that industry and technology have created is not more of the same. No genetically modified crops, please: use only evolution certified open-pollenated crops.

Improving the efficiency of transportation isn't really a solution. When efficiency rises, the use of whatever technology was involved also rises. The increased usage more than accounts for the increase in efficiency, so in effect the result is the opposite of what was intended.

Actually, we need LESS motorized transportation. Walk. Ride a horse. Carry your stuff in a backpack or in saddlebags. Use nothing that requires non-renewable fuels. Every time you burn, or cause to be burned, another ounce of oil or cubic inch of natural gas, you put more greenhouse gas into the atmosphere and increase the change in the world's climate.

Actually, there is one kind of improvement that works: eugenics. Eugenics is a speeded up approximation to natural selection. When a kind of animal, whether horses or humans, is bred for strength, intelligence, stamina, or some other form of fitness, the heritable qualties that were bred for become more pronounced, more likely to repeat, later in the line of descent. An improved animal (of a given kind) eats no more than his predecessors did, but he can perform better than they did.

So one way to adapt to global climate change is to breed people who are more suited to the changed environment.