Why Would Global Warming Be A Bad Thing For Mankind?

Question

Here's my favorite answer to this hysteria created by this question

"Global Warming means not enough oxygen for living things to breathe, like PLANTS and HUMANS?"


But seriously folks. Let's think about this. Plants generally grow better when it's warmer. Cold related deaths far outnumber heat related deaths. No one has ever died from water rising at a rate of 8 inches per 100 years. CO2 poses no immediate health risk. CO2 does not destroy the ozone.

Why is Global Warming a bad thing?

Answer 1

A BOILING OCEAN???

That's pretty funny man.

The Earth has been warmer in the past and we made out just fine. The Vikings used to farm Greenland.

Answer 2

The artic is actually ice and if we don't watch it it'll melt and then the animals there will have no land to live on. Carbon dioxide levels will go up making it hard for us to breathe. There will be an increase in tornadoes, hurricanes, and other natural disasters. A theory is that we will warm up and then the Earth will naturally cool down causing another ice age. Then a hundred years later the Earth will return to the state it is right now. Also note that global warming doesn't exactly mean the Earth will get warmer. It will get colder (now who wants that?) In my opinion however, global warming is a fast way for politicians to make money and is just a natural process for Earth to go through. If you've watched Al Gore's movie, he makes a lot of false accusations. They are published in the move "An Inconveinet Truth" Here there are: 1) Gore implies that the Aral Sea has been drying up due to global warming, but it's actually because the former Soviet Union diverted the rivers that once kept it full. 2) Gore says the ice caps on Mt. Kilimanjaro are disappearing due to global warming, but the British science journal Nature attributes this to the fact that humans have cut down forests, producing humidity around the volcano. So fact or fiction? That's the question and it's your job to figure out the answer.

Answer 3

The big reason is the rest of life isn't prepared or adaptive as us humans. We are the only species that can live almost anywhere on Earth; others are restricted to certain climates and regions. When global warming changes this, many plants and animals will die instead of just moving somewhere.

This means our food sources, from fishing lanes to wheat belts, will shrink. Plants don't grow better when it's warmer unless they evolved to live in warm climates; you don't need a greenhouse for wheat. Yes, increasing heat will shift the fertile areas north (and south) from where they are now. But that may take a while to develop--the soil won't have the same nutrients for years--and in the meantime people will panic.

There will be food shortages until the weather stabilizes, and as farm lands shift, people will be forced to move. The rising water, which could rise closer to a few inches per year, would flood cities and farmlands near the coast. (Most of US food is grown in Florida, Texas, and California, all of which will suffer from rising sea levels.)

Also, increased heat will lead to increased ocean evaporation. That means there's more moisture in the air, leading to more snow in winter and more thunderstorms & hurricanes in summer and fall. Weather will become much more chaotic.

Is that bad enough for you? :)

Answer 4

Your question may have more validity than you realize. See:
http://mls.jpl.nasa.gov/joe/Su_etal_2005GL025505.pdf
Under INTRODUCTION:
"Water vapor is one of the dominant greenhouse gases
in Earth’s atmosphere and can have strong feedbacks on
climate change."

A couple of sentences further down:
"The resulting exponential increase in water vapor with temperature, based on the Clausius-Clapeyron relation, would trap more longwave radiation and thus cause further increase in surface temperature."

Assertions have been made that the oceans would eventually boil. Important facts are being overlooked in this assertion.

As the temperature increases, more of the melting ice will turn into water vapor. Clouds will eventually turn into a solid water vapor canopy surrounding the entire world.

Once this happens the water vapor canopy will perform several functions:

Temperatures will be evenly distributed around the earth. The entire earth will be close to what we consider tropical, with increased humidity.

With temperatures evenly distributed, winds will be eliminated. Thus destructive storms dependent on wind movement such as hurricanes and tornadoes will be eliminated.

The elimination of wind combined with the effect of the solid water vapor cloud will hold air pollutants in the immediate vicinity of the cities producing them. The concentration of these pollutants will force the populations to abandon those areas and the people will move to populate the areas currently covered by ice. This concentration of pollutants will also force the inventive capabilities of man to immediately focus on designing equipment that will not pollute.

Moisture will be evenly distributed across the world. Plants will be watered by a heavy dew.

Vegetation will thus be growing worldwide. Since plants filter greenhouse gasses and produce oxygen, there would be a higher concentration of oxygen in the air that we breathe. Air currently contains about 21% oxygen, which could be increased to the mid or high 20s. The result would be increased health, reversal of disease, and longer life. If you question this, google OXYGEN THERAPY. While too much oxygen can be harmful, many healthy people benefit from moderate oxygen therapy.

A thick enough vapor canopy will deflect and/or filter much of the ultraviolet rays of the sun. The aging of man and animals is directly related to ultraviolet radiation. Our bodies are constantly being bombarded by tiny "bullets" of UV radiation. The tiny wounds produced by radiation must constantly be healed by the body, producing microscopic scars. Without this distructive process, some scientists believe that we would live much longer. Perhaps 500 years or more.

A scientist told me he believed the Earth was once covered by such a cloud canopy. He has several arguments supporting this theory. I can only remember a couple:

Samples of the mineral Amber (petrified tree sap) contain air pockets. When some of these air pockets have been analyzed high concentrations of oxygen were found, supporting the theory.

Additional support can be found in the animal community. Particularly, reptiles. Most reptiles continue to grow throughout their lifetime. With increased oxygen and without the damaging UV radiation, reptiles would also live much longer and healthier lives. If a crocodile, for example, lived to be 300 or 400 years old, how large would it become? That sounds like an animal that might be a new breed of dinosaur, doesn't it?

So global warming might not be so bad for mankind or the earth in the final analysis.

Answer 5

Global warming is rather climate change.
There are positive effects in some places but also negative, destructive ones, and the general consensus is that negative effects dominate. Also, negative effects are expected to be more severe in poor countries that wont be able to adapt as successfully as the developed world.
if you want to read more, and a scientific approach, www.ipcc.ch

Briefly, the problem with climate change are the following:
- melting of ice caps raises sea level, that will cause flooding, and some of the most densely populated areas like Shanghai, Bangladesh, NY, London etc are in danger of being flooded. Hundreds of millions of people might become homeless and start migrating. This can even lead to wars but at least a very severe humanitarian issue.
- change in precipitation patterns: desertification causes hunger and lack of drinking water in some places, abundance of rainfall causes floods in other places.
- possible change in the currents of the world ocean that carries heat. It is even possible that the Gulf-stream will carry less heat to the shores of europe where climate without the heating effect of the Gulf-stream would be rather like climate in Canada.
- more hot days cause human health problems, more death, drough causes destruction of food crops.
- an effect that can already been experienced: extreme and unusual weather conditions become more severe and more often. Stronger hurricanes, etc... what happened to New Orleans?
- warmer climate means excellent circumstances for pests, insects that destroy crops and forests, mosquitoes etc that spread disease, expansion of areas affected by malaria and other disease.

Answer 6

Lets see.....
1. next ice age would happen sooner and this time we may have 10 people left once it is over, maybe less
2. CO2 can kill people
3. It is colder in the winter so we will now freeze to death more quicker
4. plant and animal life will die do to climate change, meaning no more photosynthesis
5. If all the main bodies of ice (North, South pole and greenland) melt, water levels would be 50 feet higher
If you want to learn more about global warming, watch An Inconvenient Truth by Al Gore

Answer 7

The problem with global warming is that it keeps on getting warmer. When the oceans start to boil, maybe you can figure out why that would be a bad thing.

Edit: Yes, a boiling ocean. The surface temperature on Venus is 800 degrees because of runaway greenhouse effect. Water boils at 212 degrees. Maybe a little hotter for salt water.

Answer 8

It is true that some exaggerate global warmings' effects. "The oceans will boil". We're all gonna die". And so on.

But the reality is plenty bad enough. Coastal areas will flood. We've got hundreds of billions invested in stuff there. Changes in precipitation and temperature patterns will seriously disrupt agriculture. Everything doesn't simply get a little warmer. Some places get hot, others will actually get cooler. Drought will occur where there is now rain, and extra rain elsewhere.

Rich countries can cope, but it will cost them huge sums of money and lower their standard of living. In poor countries, which are already struggling to feed themselves, millions will die of starvation.

It's not the end of the world. It is the biggest disaster in human history. That's why these guys, who are neither environmentalists or liberals, think we need to reduce it.

"The science of global warming is clear. We know enough to act now. We must act now."

James Rogers, CEO of Charlotte-based Duke Energy.

"The overwhelming majority of atmospheric scientists around the world and our own National Academy of Sciences are in essential agreement on the facts of global warming and the significant contribution of human activity to that trend."

Russell E. Train, former environmental official under Presidents Nixon and Ford

"We simply must do everything we can in our power to slow down global warming before it is too late. The science is clear. The global warming debate is over."

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican, Governor, California

"Our nation has both an obligation and self-interest in facing head-on the serious environmental, economic and national security threat posed by global warming."

John McCain, Republican, Senator, Arizona

"These technologies will help us become better stewards of the environment - and they will help us to confront the serious challenge of global climate change."

President George Bush

Answer 9

Global warming is caused by CO2 forming an extra insulative barrier in the atmosphere. This causes the general climb in temperature worldwide.

Locations that are normally supposed to be frozen or semi-frozen for a majority of the year start melting as the average temperature increases. As the water level increases the distance that tides, storms and tsumnamis can come into shore increases dramaticly.

Higher temperatures year round mean even less rain in desert or semi-desert climates resulting in increases in drought conditions.

Long story short increasing average temperatures involves dryer hotter summers and wetter winters, which is NOT beneficial to ANYTHING.

Answer 10

No, Global Warming is not a bad thing.

~~~~

Global climate cycles of warming and cooling have been a natural phenomena for hundreds of thousands of years, and it is unlikely that these cycles of dramatic climate change will stop anytime soon. We currently enjoy a warm Earth. Can we count on a warm Earth forever? The answer is most likely... no.

Since the climate has always been changing and will likely continue of it's own accord to change in the future, instead of crippling the U.S. economy in order to achieve small reductions in global warming effects due to manmade additions to atmospheric carbon dioxide, our resources may be better spent making preparations to adapt to global cooling and global warming, and the inevitable consequences of fluctuating ocean levels, temperatures, and precipitation that accompany climatic change.

Supporting this view is British scientist Jane Francis, who maintains:

" What we are seeing really is just another interglacial phase within our big icehouse climate." Dismissing political calls for a global effort to reverse climate change, she said, " It's really farcical because the climate has been changing constantly... What we should do is be more aware of the fact that it is changing and that we should be ready to adapt to the change."

http://www.geocraft.com/WVFossils/ice_ages.html