What if we gain control of "global warming"?

Question

And then the Earth becomes increasingly colder? In the last 50 years since man is believed to have been responsible for causing global warming, the population of the Earth has swelled, at least partly due to the improving warming conditions of the planet-
So what if an artic tern becomes extinct in the next 50 years, mankind is doing better than ever.
Isn't it a strange idea to try and make our planet colder? Arguablye can tolerate a slight rise in the Earths temperature better than we can a drop in temperature.

Answer 1

That is a really good question. If we really had the ability to control the climate at will, the whole world would have to agree on what climate we wanted; and when was the last time the whole world agreed on anything!

For example, there is an idea floating around to put large sun shades in space to reduce the amount of sunlight that reaches Earth. That is not as crazy an idea as you might think, it could really work. Let us assume that the U.S. does it. Now who is to say we put up the right number of shades? If we actually did something like that, half the world would be mad at us for not doing enough (countries with warm climates) and half would be mad because we did too much (countries with cold climates). It would be a political nightmare.

For another example, the sun shade idea is a variation on an older idea, from the 1960s when global cooling was the fear, which was to put large mirrors in space to direct more sunlight to Earth and warm it up. For example, the Russians wanted to shine extra light on Murmansk to keep the port ice free in winter. If we deliberately made the climate cooler, the people of Murmansk would definitely me mad!

Answer 2

Right now the hard scientific data says we're in for some warming no matter what we do. The question is how much.

http://www.theworldlink.com/articles/2007/02/03/news/news10020307.txt

http://www.ipcc.ch/SPM2feb07.pdf

The problem is not that the arctic tern can't handle it. One problem is that hundreds of billions of dollars of stuff we've built will be lost to coastal flooding. The big one is that changing patterns of precipitation and temperature will severely damage agriculture. Rich countries can cope with all this but it will cost them huge sums of money and lower standards of living. In poor countries, where they already struggle to feed themselves, millions will die of starvation.

The bottom lines are that it would be impossible to overdo it and get to actual cooling (in the next 100 years, anyway) and that it's definitely something we want to reduce.

We can't run away from this, we need to work on it. Very hard.

These discussions always attract people who think global warming is not real, but that's an argument for another place.

Answer 3

Don't you have to ask yourselves, if we can cause the earth to warm, can't we cause it to cool? I'm talking about cause, not reversal. If we're powerful enough to this stop warming we're supposedly causing, why don't we just make it go the other way with technology, and here again, I'm not saying to quit what we've been doing, but make something to cool the planet? Sounds like we could do that, right? I don't think so either. Just like I don't think man caused global warming. There's a sucker born every minute.