Space/Science — HabitableZone

Space/Science » in reply to re: Maybe

Maybe not.
ER — (archived)

It's not the increase in temperature that we have to worry about. Wheat and rice will grow fine if the temperature changes locally up or down a few degrees, as it does normally in the course of normal weather variations. It's the unforseen consequences of long-term widespread temperature changes that have potentially catastrophic results. A tiny temperature variation in the Eastern Pacific due to El Nino shuts down the hurrican factory in the Eastern Atlantic, a totally unexpected result which we still don't fully understand. The most likely effect of global warming will not be an immediate perception of higher temperatures, it will manifest itself as changes in established global weather patterns. Wheat and rice will survive the warmer winters and summers, but you can't grow either without rain.

In human prehistory, the Sahara was forests and grasslands, much like the American MidWest. It may become so again. But will the rain still fall on the American praries?

Can we predict what will happen? Of course not. We don't even know for sure anything will happen! But to ignore the possibility it might and to arrogantly dismiss those who are working on this problem as fools and Cassandras simply because it conflicts with our political superstitions and our investment portfolios is the very definition of avarice.

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