@gardenman wrote:
Is the planet warming? Most likely.
Are humans responsible, or is this a natural event? Likely a bit of both.
Will humans all die as a result of global warming? No. Humans live everywhere from the arctic circle to the equator. We're very adaptable. Even a massive change in temps is survivable for humans.
Are greenhouse gases the big bad villain? I doubt it. We're consuming three times the BTU's that we were in the fifties. That's three times the heat generated by humans over the last half century. If we're generating three times more heat now than we were fifty some years ago, the planet had better be getting warmer or we'd be in bigger trouble. If you go back to the early models of greenhouse gas warming, we'd now be a lot warmer than we are if the greenhouse effect was responsible.
How do we fix it? The reality is we can't if it's not greenhouse gases that are causing the issue. If it's just radiant heat then unless people are willing to stop heating/air conditioning their homes/businesses we're going to keep heating up the planet.
The reality is from the time man first figured out how to make fire we've played some small role in heating the planet. Is it a massive problem that requires the spending of trillions of dollars? Not really. Most of the uproar is politically motivated and has become political fodder. Much of the money that's been spent to combat global warming has gone to political supporters (Solindra being just one example) and has had little to no impact on global warming. It's much more of a political issue than a real world issue.
"But, but, but we're all going to drown when the sea rises! Those lucky enough to survive the sea rise will then be killed by the tropical diseases that move north!" Well, it may kill the humans stupid enough to stay in place while the sea rises around them until they drown, but that's no big loss. As to the tropical diseases, is there a part of the tropics now that humans don't go to on vacation?
The changes are incremental and humans are amazingly adaptable. We'll survive no matter what happens. Global warming is an inconvenience, but it's not the end of the world. Life on the planet is pretty darn adaptable. There are humans living in the Sahara desert with insanely high daily temperatures. As temperatures have shifted so has life on the planet. Manatees were spotted as far north as the Chesapeake Bay last summer. Lionfish, a tropical marine fish, now come as far north as New Jersey. (I'm not sure I didn't see where one was spotted near Massachusetts.) Life adapts to changes on the planet. It always has, it always will.
The Earth has never been stable. It changes. It's changed before humans ever came, and it'll change long after we're gone. Do we play a role? Sure. So does every other living creature on the planet. The doom and gloom predictions are way, way over the top though. The reality is that humans will survive pretty much no matter what happens. Life will survive no matter what happens. Life is persistent. There's life in the coldest and hottest parts of the world. As problems go, global warming should be way, way down the list. You (and all of your children and children's children) are far more likely to die from a million other causes than global warming.
Global warming has caught the attention of "The sky is falling" crowd who always believe something horrible is just around the corner and only they're smart enough to see it coming. The reality is the sky isn't falling. We aren't all doomed. The world will go on. It might be a bit warmer, it might be a bit wetter, but we'll survive. We always have and we always will.
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