in you opinion how long do we have to live until global warming has a severe effect on us all?

Question

Your opinion.

where I live (undisclosed location) I have not seen any severe effects of global warming except for hot summers and eratic winter weather.

Answer 1

Next Tuesday then it's all over. Start saying good-buy to your family, sell your home, your stocks, empth your retirement plan, get rid of everything. You won't need any of it after Tuesday.

The world is ending, man is to blame, we're DOOMED! DOOMED I SAY!!!

Answer 2

Many decades or more. Your hot summers are not the result of global warming. Any additional heat of summer due to global warming is only 1 or 2 degrees at the most, and probably much less. Personally I don't feel much better at 98F compared to 100F. And I do not believe that we are having significantly more erratic weather now than in the past. Certainly hurricane Katrina was bad, but not worse than many previous storms. The great hurricane of 1900 that destroyed Galveston was worse; that was a category 4 while Katrina was only a 3. The only reason Katrina gets so much press is that the levees broke, flooding New Orleans. The day after the hurricane, the news was full of stories about how the destruction was much less than expected and the city had escaped almost totally unharmed (there was more damage to small towns in Mississippi). The flooding took several days to fill up the city through the breaks in the levees. That was a problem of levee design and city growth in the a location below sea level and not weather or rising sea level.

Answer 3

It really depends on where you live. In alot of places around the world, our impact on natural systems (global warming related or not) is already having severe effects on the people living there. The post industrial western world will likely feel the harshest effects last, as we have the resources to deal with the slight changes in weather patterns, as well as some systems in place to deal with pollution.

You want a real severe impact, just wait for peak oil to happen.

Answer 4

I don't know about where you live, but it's ALREADY having a serious affect on a lot of the world. This has been one of the hottest summers on record here in the United States, putting a terrible strain on the ability of our infrastructure to cope; old folks without air conditioning dying in the heat, powerful storms all across the country causing flooding where there hasn't been any floods in over a hundred years, tornadoes in places that just don't GET tornadoes, the polar ice cap is the smallest it's ever been on record, drought in Minnesota - that has over 30,000 lakes! They say the heat may have contributed to the freeway bridge collapse in Minneapolis. Hurricane in Hawaii - hurricanes are supposed to happen in the Atlantic, not the Pacific ocean. Severe storms in Europe at a time of year that isn't usually as bad, disappearing glaciers which used to provide much of the fresh water down stream, but don't anymore, rising ocean levels, we are in DEEP DOO-DOO RIGHT NOW!

Answer 5

There is certainly evidence for hysteria in some of the previous answers. People who don't think rationally speak in superlatives. This the worst, this the hottest it has ever been, this is the most storms, etc. These people need to get a grip on reality. Campbel got it right. I am quite confident that these people cannot detect a degree or two. It has been warming generally for thousands of years. Should it be a surprise to anyone that we are warmer by a degree in the last century? Should it cause them to panic? Apparently

Answer 6

mh It is self evident, even to the most casual observer, that the Earth has never experienced a change in average temperature and/or a nasty weather event, such as severe rain, earthquake, tsunami, tornado, hurricane, drought, cyclone, sea level change, locust swarm, drought, foot fungus, or dust storm prior to the160 year history of recorded temperatures. It can only be a result of Henry Ford and his invention and mass production of the Volkswagen (because they were built with an internal combustion 1300 cc air cooled engine and this was a direct order from Der Führer).

Now then, to answer your question using the modern qualitative and quantitative techniques in meteorology, I would say 3 years, and then we will all run out of fresh water.

Answer 7

You don't think Katrina's destruction of New Orleans was a severe effect?

Less than 20 years if ice melting continues to accelerate at the current rate. A lot of land will be flooded in those 20 years. New Orleans was just the first coastal city to be mostly destroyed.

Answer 8

Natalie...one of the "hottest summers..." Really. New York just went through one of the lowest High temps for the summer in years. I guess global warming is really selective as to who it affects.

Answer 9

it already effects many people severe today and before if death is classified as severe
150.000 people die each year related to global warming and this is expected to be much more this year

Answer 10

It already has had a severe effect and it's only going to get worse from here.