The planet is getting warmer so surely there will be physical changes to the human race as we naturally evolve to cope with this? What are these changes likely to be though?
2007-09-21 07:25:52 · 22 answers · asked by Shirt-n-Tie-Boy 2 in Environment ➔ Global Warming
The human race stopped physically evolving when we lessened the effect of natural selection with modern medicine... that's not to say that random mutations don't occur on occasion... but they don't give the person a benefit for breading and survival anymore.
Our social values still evolve though... and those are what will evolve if there are large scale changes due to GW.
Plus.. we are arguably already the most adaptive species on the planet.. that evolutionary gift is already enough
2007-09-21 08:45:40 · answer #1 · answered by pip 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Our type of human has existed through many climate changes without any special adaptation. We were the same during the Ice Age as we are now. We were the same during the much warmer period, 7,500 years long, after the Ice Age. There will be no adaptation needed for the perhaps 5 degree rise in AVERAGE temperatures worldwide. A sea level rise of 15-25 feet will take time and everyone can walk or take a boat to higher ground, just as our ancestors did at the end of the last Ice Age. No one will drown or have to swim.
Shirt-n-Tie Boy - join Chicken Little in running in circles while flapping your arms and hysterically screaming, "The sky is falling! The Earth is warming! We are going to be baked chicken!"
2007-09-22 18:37:51 · answer #2 · answered by Taganan 3 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Humans are pretty adaptable physically, already living everywhere on the planet before the advent of civilization. It is hard to see what physical changes would be required to deal with anthropogenic climate change. Given that, humans will adapt and evolve in ways that will increase survivability although these might not be external physical changes. A good example of this would be how sickle-cell anemia evolved to cope with malaria mortality.
So perhaps some emergent disease will devastate human populations. The survivors might develop an immune response that would provide some protection from the disease, but might not be so pleasant in its absence.
2007-09-21 08:03:05 · answer #3 · answered by gcnp58 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Global warming is a fast change throughout the Earth.
It has been going on since the Earths ecosystems became established.
We have Years which have 4 seasons, as well as Galactic years which have influences on our climate.
Humans wont evolve because of the changes, because evolution is a long, long process and the changes attributed to Global Warming are not with us long enough.
2007-09-21 07:36:41 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋
No changes would be need because the temperature will not change enough for people to even notice. Scientists are talking about 1 or 2 (or maybe 5) degrees warmer, not 50 or 100 degrees warmer.
2007-09-21 07:30:10 · answer #5 · answered by campbelp2002 7 · 1⤊ 0⤋
We will not. Global warming is Bullshit , we have steadily been coming out of a ice age for the last thousand years .We were tropical in the beginning and are just reverting back to where we started from. Don't fall for the Hipe its just another way of goverments taxing you.Before you mention the ice caps , under all that it has been proved the it was a green before the first ice age and every thing was water!
2007-09-21 09:12:11 · answer #6 · answered by DARREN W 2 · 1⤊ 0⤋
Humans haven't changed significantly in the last 10,000 years due to evolution. The time frame of Global Warming is much shorter than 10,000 years. Whatever happens, we'll be dealing with it the way we are now.
2007-09-21 07:57:44 · answer #7 · answered by Anonymous · 1⤊ 0⤋
Any temperature change we experience will never be a threat to us physically. We're talking fractions of or 1 -2 degrees, nothing we couldn't handle.
As far as evolving goes, it will never be natural again, we will soon be in control of that.
2007-09-24 17:36:39 · answer #8 · answered by fyzer 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋
We won't really evolve much just because of global warming, which will likely happen too quickly for evolution to take hold.
Noticeable evolution takes place over the course of hundreds of thousands or millions of years.
Water levels will rise and we will all just have to start swimming a lot more.
2007-09-21 09:35:53 · answer #9 · answered by Mark F 5 · 0⤊ 1⤋
We'll proberly see a slight tendency towards taller, skinnier body types, as they give of more heat. There is actually a difference in body types, depending on where people live in the world, in accordance with this already.
The key is creating more surface area to be able to vent of more heat.
2007-09-21 07:45:42 · answer #10 · answered by Anders 4 · 0⤊ 0⤋