Global Warming's Silver Lining For the Arctic Rim 582
Pickens writes "According to Laurence C. Smith, an Arctic scientist who has consistently sounded alarms about the approach of global warming, within 40 years the Arctic rim may be transformed by climate change into a new economic powerhouse. As the Arctic ice recedes, ecosystems extend, and minerals and fossil fuels are discovered and exploited, the Arctic will become a place of 'great human activity, strategic value and economic importance.' Sparsely populated areas like Canada, Scandinavia, Russia and the northern United States — the northern rim countries, or NORCs — will become formidable economic powers and migration magnets. Predictions in Smith's new book The Earth in 2050 include the following: New shipping lanes will open during the summer in the Arctic, allowing Europe to realize its 500-year-old dream of direct trade between the Atlantic and the Far East, and resulting in new economic development in the north; NORCs will be among the few place on Earth where crop production will likely increase due to climate change; and NORCs will become the envy of the world for their reserves of fresh water, which may be sold and transported to other regions."
Re:Deniers... (Score:3, Insightful)
I honestly wonder if people will still deny global warming when we have freighters traveling through the north pole in the summer. I mean, what's it going to take?
I wonder if people using the term "deniers" will ever stop setting up strawman and accept that people are questioning the causes of climate change, not whether the climate actually changes. Someone can criticise AGW theories without also saying that the world is ever unchanging and will always be so.
Re:Deniers... (Score:2, Insightful)
I honestly wonder if people will still deny global warming when we have freighters traveling through the north pole in the summer.
I don't.
I think you're being extremely generous towards the denial movement. The only thing I wonder about is what excuse they're going to use for that.
To summarize: (Score:2, Insightful)
Is it grant hunting season already?
Re:Gulf Stream (Score:1, Insightful)
It doesn't matter what it destroys or benefits it brings, the fact is, the world is changing, nobody is doing anything about it, and humans will do what they do best, adapt.
Oh, excellent... (Score:5, Insightful)
as long as you can get there and survive there due to the hurricanes.
Increasing the total energy in the atmosphere will not result in a well-behaved warming, but in more variable and extreme weather patterns, and there will be more hurricanes and storms at seas. This little game humanity is playing with the Earth may well end up in tears.
Re:Gulf Stream (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Deniers... (Score:0, Insightful)
Well it's the basis of the problem : climate change has become the strongest argument there is for a global all-encompassing world government. After all, any policy that hopes to do anything about it seems to need to regulate all energy expenditure world-wide. Now that's a LOT of power.
The only solution to global warming, in other words, is every communist's wet dream. The same is true for dictators, militarists, religious nuts, ... All are obviously supporting global warming, and it is VERY clear for what reason (hint : it's not that they're worried about the environment).
Needless to say, these forces have coopted the discussion. All technological solutions to global warming are instantly thrown out, because if not all support from socialist, communist, dictatorial, muslim and other undesirable governments would evaporate faster than you can say "stone that woman". And don't forget that one of those governments is China. Solutions like darkening the athmosphere, which could enable us to actively regulate the effects of global warming are about as welcome as the subtly-named "malthusian option".
That means that global warming is the number 1 "social justice" cause world-wide. And if you're wondering what's wrong with that, please remember that killing Jews was the number 1 social justice cause worldwide a mere 60 years ago.
While, yes, I agree that there are factions in what's called the "denier" camp : 95% is afraid of what the government will do with the power global warming demands of them, and 5% is actually denying (historical) global warming. As for the dispute on the predictions of the IPCC and effects of global warming : please remember that the IPCC's predictions have all proven false (first IPCC report is 20 years ago, and they made a "95% certain" prediction. We're outside of their 95% range. The same is true for all other IPCC reports. The IPCC's reports have been consistently wrong in their predictions, so exactly what is irrational about refusing to believe their new predictions ? Additionally, to add insult to injury, the IPCC has refused to give a concrete 95% confidence interval for their latest prediction. Coincidence ? Right ... they don't believe their own predictions). In the department of adding insult to injury you can add Al Gore's lifestyle choices [blogspot.com].
How about we solve global warming once and for all : ...
-> use planes to spread dust in the athmosphere
-> use ships to increase H2O in the athmosphere
-> make a huge solar panel and launch it, providing power and dark (preferably mostly over oceans)
Policies like that, 95% of the denyer camp will support. IF the earth is warming, these will help.
-> deliver full control over all energy expenditures, from social policy to gasoline taxes to an organization that stood by and did nothing against (or actually caused) all massacres since WWII
That policy WILL NOT improve climate, and will be fought until the dying breath of half of America.
Re:Deniers... (Score:1, Insightful)
Quote: Needless to say, these forces have coopted the discussion.
Nope, it's very NEEDFUL to say.
Firstly, what forces?
Secondly, are they coopting it?
Thirdly, is it wrong merely because someone has coopted it? If it is, why?
Quote: How about we solve global warming once and for all :
Why am I reminded of the Futurama episode with the comet running out of ice in "Crimes of the Hot"?
"This will solve the problem once and for all!"
"What about..."
"I SAID ONCE AND FOR ALL!!!!"
Quote: Policies like that, 95% of the denyer camp will support. IF the earth is warming, these will help.
Well, help, yes. It won't solve the problem once and for all, because dust would need to be continually being dropped out of the sky (who is going to organise this and deal with the expenditure [cf your earlier communist wet-dream fearmongering]?) and would have to be increased year-on-year if we don't also stop producing CO2.
Re:More alarmist bollocks. (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes of course I do. They are in the business of successfully transferring money from the Government to their institution, so naturally they must append, "because of man-made Global Warming" to each and every grant proposal. But anyway, that doesn't change the facts and the facts are what we're interested in, surely?
Re:They don't deny it! (Score:3, Insightful)
Even those who believe in human caused climate change will not reduce their standard of living to (possibly) make a difference in the rate of change.
"Tragedy of the Commons" where the Earth's atmosphere is the commons.
Re:Pity about the geometry... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:How consistently has he "sounded alarms"? (Score:5, Insightful)
As consistently as mean global temperatures have refused to rise for the past 20 years?
Seriously, how long are we going to keep funding Chicken Little to squawk that the sky is going to fall tomorrow, 4 REALZ TIHS TIEM!!!!!1!!?
What? I read in earlier (Score:5 Insightful) and (Score:5 Informative) posts by h4rm0ny (722443) and tygerstripes (832644) that nobody was denying that global warming was happening.
In any case, dear politically correctly attributed AGW sceptic, which facts are you basing your above assertion on?
Re:Gulf Stream (Score:4, Insightful)
"Given that increased temperatures on Earth are associated with increased biodiversity,"
Cite?
I think you'll find the most biologically diverse habitats are in the temperate zones, not , for example in the sahara. Same goes for the seas.
"Population and economic prosperity are somewhat correlated (the more wealthy the population, the fewer children couples have)"
Actually its more to do with education rather than prosperity.
"I don't think you'll be able to do that by replacing coal or gas fired power stations with a fucking windmill."
No , but you could replace them with nuclear.
"Where is this relentless warming? There's been no statistically significant warming since 1995"
Really? Funny then how 1998 is considered to be the hottest year on record by most climate researchers and its looking like 2010 may beat it. I suggest you learn to use google and educate yourself.
More to global warming than melting ice (Score:5, Insightful)
I find it amazing that people who report on climate change/global warming/armageddon fail to appreciate the nature of weather. Weather is *water moving in the air.* This simple understanding explains just about everything that happens with the weather.
Sure, warmer areas mean melted ice and areas that were before inaccessible or unusable. But there's more to it than that. There will be global weather pattern changes as well. Places that once got rain will dry up. Places that were arid will get wet. Conditions favorable to certain life and vegetation will change and that life and vegetation will simply die off and even become extinct. We have a global ecosystem that is being changed and upset in ways that simply cannot be predicted. Being able to reclaim some land is what I would characterize as some "short term gains."
Re:More alarmist bollocks. (Score:1, Insightful)
(really funny how the facts are facts for you only as long as they reaffirm what you want... to hell with all the rest of "facts" the messengers bring)
Funny how one side always trots that out to use against the other side without quite realizing that by doing so they're doing the exact same thing.
Sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. Two-way street. Double-edged sword. Etc., etc.
Re:Who is questioning it exactly? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Dutch disease (Score:2, Insightful)
Economics is not a scientific discipline. Those studies are not very credible.
On the other hand nobody would ever dispute a finding by a climatologist.
Re:Dutch disease (Score:1, Insightful)
Re:Deniers... (Score:4, Insightful)
We obviously need to do something, otherwise one day it WILL get real bad
Even that is alarmist, because the Earth has had much higher concentrations of CO2 in the past. The simple fact is our weather models aren't reliable enough for accurate predictions.
Re:Deniers... (Score:4, Insightful)
It's not alarmist, it's a logical progression. We can't keep pumping shit into the atmosphere and water supplies thinking it won't have some major cumulative effect down the road. Again, that day is far off (likely after everyone reading this is dead). We are still well within a window to do something about it, but eventually it will reach a point where we can't fix it. I don't know about you, but I'd much rather do something about it now rather than scramble to do something about it once it's almost too late/is too late.
Re:Who is questioning it exactly? (Score:2, Insightful)
Its a law of physics that CO2 is an infrared absorber - is someone questioning that?
Its a fact that CO2 levels are rising in our atmosphere - is someone questioning that?
It is also true that 500 mil years ago, Earth was a ball of ice despite the fact that atmospheric CO2 was ~4200ppm (about 12 times higher than today). Oh yeah, you guys always forget to include that 'law of physics.'
Re:Gulf Stream (Score:3, Insightful)
Well, you see that's the thing. You can argue the case from both sides. Scientific research shows that, for example, wearing a cycling helmet makes no difference. A helmet will not protect you in a serious accident and the slight increase in the risk taking behaviour you engage in by wearing one balances out the benefit you'd get from it, when compared to not wearing one when you're in a minor accident.
I was in a single-vehicle accident on my bike (I fell off it and hit my head on a rock) and if I hadn't been wearing a helmet I probably wouldn't be here to tell you about it. While from the standpoint of some that is a positive thing, I can tell you that I don't believe that bullshit for a tenth of a second (about how long it took to fall off my bike.)
As a child I went out on my bike and I dimly remember falling off it, then nothing until I got home and was walking my (perfectly ridable) bike up my driveway. That was the incident that caused me to helmet up.
Likewise unless you're a hyper-power, or have a nice stash of nukes, your strong military may be a threat to others and therefore you may be more likely to be attacked, not less.
Unless you have a strong military, your strong military may be an inducement to an attack? Please rethink this ridiculous comment.
To my mind even if the case is made that there is going to be warming, the economic "cure" is far, far, worse than the illness (cost of adaptation). So let us assume the scientific case is made (I don't believe it is); the economics of mitigation are truly from the mad-house.
Citation needed. Which mitigation strategies are you considering, and why don't they work? What makes you think that a loss of all coastal cities in the world is cheaper than actually doing something about the problem?
Oh wait, insanity. I see now.
Re:Dutch disease (Score:2, Insightful)
Bad musicians is not a natural resource.
Now take recall your celine dion audio-terrorist!
You wouldn't hear about Canadian artists in the US if Americans didn't like them. It's not like Bieber could get big with just 500k screaming Canadian girls, you always need screaming american girls too
Serious question? Here's a serious answer (Score:5, Insightful)
> Its a law of physics that CO2 is an infrared absorber - is someone questioning that?
No, this is clearly true.
Its a fact that CO2 levels are rising in our atmosphere - is someone questioning that?
No, this is clearly true
Its a fact that most of that rise is due to man - is someone questioning that?
No, this is clearly true.
- - - - -
But your questions are too simple. The last time I posted an answer like this, I was immediately modded troll. But hope springs eternal, so here is why I count myself as a skeptic. Here are some further questions:
Will increasing CO2 increase the temperature of the earth? This is not certain, because of the complex interactions of the climate. One example: raise the temperature, and you get more water vapor. More water vapor yields more clouds, which have a *massive* cooling effect. In short: it is entirely possible that CO2 has a negligible effect on the temperature.
Set the temperature question aside for a moment: is a higher CO2 level a bad thing? CO2's primary effect on the planet is "plant food". Commercial greenhouses deliberately increase CO2 in order to increase their crop yields. If we could magically reduce CO2 to 19th century levels, we would see crop yields fall substantially.
Back to temperature. If the earth's temperature does rise, is this a bad thing? Historically, warmer periods have been times of prosperity. Most of the earth is in the temperate zone, and warmer temperatures improve the climate, lengthen growing seasons, etc. Imagine frozen Siberia as the bread basket of Asia. It is not clear that a warmer earth is bad.
Finally, how do we measure the temperature of the earth? There are many temperature stations scattered about, but the majority of them do not comply with the guidelines set up to ensure accurate measurement. Many are at airports (lots of tarmac), others - especially in very cold climates - are placed conveniently near buildings. These and other siting issues make the temperature measurements inaccurate. Satellite measurements have their own difficulties. The more you read about these issues, the clearer it becomes that we do not currently have reliable temperature measurements.
So: on the basis of inaccurate temperature data and ineffective models, what should we do? Should we commit trillions of dollars to drastic policies based on questionable science? Or should we, maybe, invest in a decent network of weather stations, invest in climate science, and *understand* what is going on?
Climate is complex, and the one thing certain about all of the climate models developed to date is that they fail to model climate. If a model is to be useful, it must make falsifiable predictions of future events. To date, no model has done better than a random-number generator. Tropical storms were supposed to increase, but did not. Sea level was supposed to rise faster that ever. In fact, the sea level has been rising steadily since the last ice age,, but the rise has actually slowed in recent times. If one thing is clear, it is that our understanding of climate is woefully inadequate.
Re:To summarize: (Score:5, Insightful)
Laurence C. Smith is a professor of geography at UCLA and a hydrologist. Sure he did write a book about the future importance of the north. That does not indicate that he is some how reliant on arctic study... Or something like that. Nor was there indication that he'd have written a book purely to get grants. It seems to be something he is interested in so he did research on and wrote a book. The science is real, we have found tons of oil reserves and gas reserves. This was obvious without even doing the science. We suddenly have new land available to us that we didn't have before. And new trade routes opening is obvious hell, it is happening to some degree already through Canadian waters.
If you dispute his claims then find science against him. If publishing a paper or saying something is important or being a part of the field you are researching is an inditement of fraud then science becomes impossible. You cannot force scientists to be in fields they don't care about. Write about things they find unimportant and are not educated in. It doesn't make sense.
The anti-science rhetoric coming out of
You aren't insightful, you got played.
Re:Deniers... (Score:1, Insightful)
Right... Biking to work isn't happening (especially in winter). Oh and given how little busing is in this area that isn't an option either. Also those 45 mpg cars are worse for the environment than the 25 mpg cars. Why? Look at the energy it takes to make them verses the 25 gallon cars and you'll see my point. We would be far better off building new engines for the older cars than making these worthless hybrids.
Re:Dutch disease (Score:4, Insightful)
Economics is not a scientific discipline. Those studies are not very credible.
Depends on your definition of "scientific". For example, science could mean:
a branch of knowledge or study dealing with a body of facts or truths systematically arranged and showing the operation of general laws
or "science" could mean stuff that the scientific method can be applied to (which incidentally includes the field of economic game theory). Or falsifiable theories.
Economics definitely fits the definition I mentioned above. It is flawed to say it isn't a scientific discipline without saying what a scientific discipline is. Else we're stuck with the futility of arguing while ignoring that the other person defines the words differently.
Re:The Torch of Civilization [Re:Dutch disease] (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:They don't deny it! (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Serious question? Here's a serious answer (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Torch of Civilization [Re:Dutch disease] (Score:2, Insightful)
Exactly, which means that Islam never "carried the torch of civilization and culture."
During the middle ages, Byzantium (at the time, Constantinople) was a Christian city, not an Islamic city. Discussing Byzantium does not say anything about whether Islam "carried the torch of civilization and culture" one way or another, since if Islam carried the torch, it was carrying it somewhere else.
To the extent that Constantinople carried civilization and culture (from the Roman empire), that torch was thoroughly doused when the crusaders sacked the city and burned the famed library, an event that happened centuries before "as the rennaissance was beginning in Italy."
Re:Deniers... (Score:2, Insightful)
I honestly wonder if people will still deny global warming when we have freighters traveling through the north pole in the summer. I mean, what's it going to take?
I wonder if people using the term "deniers" will ever stop setting up strawman and accept that people are questioning the causes of climate change, not whether the climate actually changes. Someone can criticise AGW theories without also saying that the world is ever unchanging and will always be so.
I wonder when people calling themselves "sceptics" will finally stop feeling they are being adressed when somebody mentions "deniers", and instead tell the deniers that they are stupid.
More oil, yay! (Score:3, Insightful)
So, if global warming turns the arctic into a temperate zone, then they can dig up more oil. If we ever reach that point, can we agree that "more oil" is not the answer to our problems?
Re:Dutch disease (Score:3, Insightful)
With regard to the article and summary: there's no good soil in the Arctic rim. Good soils take on the order of a hundreds of years to form. Good luck trying to become an economic powerhouse with nothing to eat. For examples of places with mineral wealth but little food, see Wyoming and other western states, or Saudi Arabia. Their situation is profitable when commodity prices are good but often have large unemployment when the commodity price cycle goes bust (Saudi Arabia has 25% unemployment right now, even when energy prices are high).
Re:Serious question? Here's a serious answer (Score:3, Insightful)
So: on the basis of inaccurate temperature data and ineffective models, what should we do? Should we commit trillions of dollars to drastic policies based on questionable science? Or should we, maybe, invest in a decent network of weather stations, invest in climate science, and *understand* what is going on?
I'd vote for yes. The scientists have made a warning, with the information they have today, with the knowledge they gathered for years. It might be right, it might be wrong. Now it's time for political decisions, some will be in attempt to prevent unbearable climate change, some for mitigating the effects of such change.
On this matter, the same as many others, we can always claim that the information is lacking, the knowledge is incomplete. There is no limit to the validity of that argument in theory. What happens in practice is that we all have to act on incomplete information, with risk associated to all decisions and risks associated with the timing of a decision and of its execution.
It could all be wrong. Maybe in the future a number of countries will be known for their wasteful use of resources in attempts to mitigate the effects of climate change and some others will keep their money for something else.
Re:Gulf Stream (Score:3, Insightful)
In all seriousness, take care on the roads. I've got a 4x4 and sometimes you cyclists are difficult to see, even with your silly hats and high visibility pants.
Thus demonstrating why helmets might not statistically result in lower injury rates. A helmet does fuck-all if you're run down by an asshole in a 4x4 who's too busy compensating for personal inadequacies to pay proper attention to the road.
Re:They don't deny it! (Score:3, Insightful)