What is the impact of climate change on life as we know it?

Answer 1

The impact is Global warming mostly. Lookin in the news. Everywhere you see (this lake is warming that lake is warming) Its all over.

Answer 2

Are you referring to Politically or Physical effects? They are still hashing out the political effects and so far here in the US we are all going to have to switch over to fluorescent light bulbs.

As for physical effects, they will be gradual, no matter what the media is trying to make people believe, since they figure by doing that they will scare people into doing something. But they forget about people like my honey who truly does have his head in the sand and has taken the ignore it all together approach. So either one of two things will bite him in the tush. Major legislation or Major Climatic changes that show up worst than even the media predicted. I expect it will be the first one. Then he'll ask me "What happened?"

Answer 3

This year we got 50 in of rain but that is number 5 as records go . The heat was less than normal .
When we start breaking records of over `100 years then we may have something.

Answer 4

If you went back in time 50 years, you would not notice any difference at all. Remember this global warming scare is about just a one degree increase over the last 100 years.

Answer 5

For the amount of warming we will see in our lifetimes it will be almost no change. the oceans may rise an inch or maybe even two. some air and ocean currents may change a little. People may have to adjust to their new levels of rainfall, but for the most part the change will be so slow and gradual that no one will have to change instead they will slowly adjust.

Answer 6

Here's one scientists's opinion.

(Note that since the article below was published in August, the Arctic ice sheet melting has been accelerated to as soon as 2012.)

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/16956300/the_prophet_of_climate_change_james_lovelock

The Prophet of Climate Change: James Lovelock

One of the most eminent scientists of our time says that global warming is irreversible — and that more than 6 billion people will perish by the end of the century

By 2100, Lovelock believes, the Earth's population will be culled from today's 6.6 billion to as few as 500 million, with most of the survivors living in the far latitudes -- Canada, Iceland, Scandinavia, the Arctic Basin.

In Lovelock's view, the flaws in computer climate models are painfully apparent. Take the uncertainty around projected sea levels: The IPCC, the U.N. panel on climate change, estimates that global warming will cause Earth's average temperature to rise as much as 11.5 degrees by 2100. This will cause inland glaciers to melt and seas to expand, triggering a maximum sea level rise of only twenty-three inches. Greenland, according to the IPCC's models, will take 1,000 years to melt.

But evidence from the real world suggests that the IPCC is far too conservative. For one thing, scientists know from the geological record that 3 million years ago, when temperatures increased to five degrees above today's level, the seas rose not by twenty-three inches but by more than eighty feet. What's more, recent satellite measurements indicate that Arctic ice is melting so rapidly that the region could be ice-free by 2030.

In Lovelock's view, modest cuts in greenhouse-gas emissions won't help us -- it's too late to stop global warming by swapping our SUVs for hybrids. What about capturing carbon-dioxide pollution from coal plants and pumping it underground? "We can't possibly bury enough to make any difference." Biofuels? "A monumentally stupid idea." Renewables? "Nice, but won't make a dent." To Lovelock, the whole idea of sustainable development is wrongheaded: "We should be thinking about sustainable retreat."

"I wish I could say that wind turbines and solar panels will save us," Lovelock responds. "But I can't. There isn't any kind of solution possible. There are nearly 7 billion people on the planet now, not to mention livestock and pets. If you just take the CO2 of everything breathing, it's twenty-five percent of the total --four times as much CO2 as all the airlines in the world. So if you want to improve your carbon footprint, just hold your breath. It's terrifying. We have just exceeded all reasonable bounds in numbers. And from a purely biological view, any species that does that has a crash."

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Here's a climate model with a range of predictions extending beyond 2100:

- Global and regional warming could more than quadruple after 2100
- Sea level will still be rising at the end of the millennium (3000)
- Ocean pH will fall dramatically for all but the minimum emission scenario
- Business-as-usual could lead to abrupt climate changes
- Abrupt climate changes could occur long after emissions cease
- The ocean carbon sink becomes less effective the more CO2 is emitted
- The land could be a net carbon source on the millennial timescale

"Potential sea level rise on the millennial timescale (excluding the contribution of Antarctica), is 0.5-11.4m in GENIE-1 and 1.0-8.5m in MoBidiC. Collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet, if it occurs, could add up to 4-6m on the millennial timescale [Oppenheimer and Alley, 2004]"

“…our relatively conservative assumptions, for example regarding climate sensitivity or the exclusion of the Antarctic ice sheets, still produce the result that only by starting to reduce CO2 emissions in the very near future, and continuing to reduce them such that they are zero by year 2200, can we avoid dangerous climate change on the millennial timescale.”
http://www.tyndall.ac.uk/research/theme1/final_reports/t3_18.pdf

Answer 7

Too many ways to list. And that's nothing compared to what it'll be like in a couple of decades.

Answer 8

With any luck at all the east coast and west coast cities will be wiped out, increasing the average I.Q. of the country.

Answer 9

Have you seen the price of bread jump lately? The price of a bushel of wheat has doubled over last years price. Due in large part in crop failures from unusual and severe weather. The food supply depends on a stable climate. One of the things that we are experiencing is wild swings in daily weather,and larger storms. Look at the story today in the Yahoo news from the AP wire. "2007,A year of weather records",it'll tell you everything that you need to know!

Answer 10

I have to see more of Al Gore on tv. It's worse than hell.