Monday, 18 August 2008

• Global Warming - Pro or Con?

  For years now people have been arguing the merits of Global Warming; whether or not it exists, and if so, how best to deal with it. The entire discussion has, at this point, become almost tediously old (despite no conclusions having been reached). Generally, people are under one of two impressions; that Global Warming is a man-made result, and thus must be prevented, possibly at great expense; or that this so-called phenomenon is, in fact, part of the natural cycling of temperature on earth, and that such impacts are outside the realm of human capability, making preventative efforts both expensive and futile. However, a side of the issue I have yet to hear discussed is whether any of this is actually going to be a bad thing. Should the earth warm up (general predictions rest at roughly 1.1 to 6.4 °C (2.0 to 11.5 °F) during the twenty-first century) it is automatically assumed that conditions will be negatively affected. However, I would like to posit that this is not necessarily true, and that such an automatic assumption has its roots in religious creationism and other ideological and political beliefs.
  
  A warmer Earth might very well turn out to be a much more comfortable one for mankind. Quite aside from the multiplicity of jokes on the increasing real-estate values of property in both Canada and Siberia, one must remember two things; that humans are generally comfortable in a wide variety of temperatures, but prefer warmer ones; and that there are tremendous amounts of land currently inhospitable in both the far north and south of the planet. At 14.4 million kilometres square, Antarctica is the fifth largest continent (the USA is roughly 9.86 million kilometres square) and is currently completely uninhabitable to all but a few very select species of both fauna and flora (humans included, when without expensive heating accommodations). In fact, the BBC states that more people die in the winter than in the summer because of the cold (According to an article on October 27, 2006: "most of [the deaths] are due to strokes and heart attacks. This is because the blood becomes more liable to clot in people who are exposed to the cold." And while the article does suggest Global Warming might actually make the situation worse, the lacklustre argument used is that warmer climate might encourage more people to forgo winter clothing, and thus be caught unawares by extraordinarily stealthy cold fronts) and while humans are capable of adapting to colder climates with some success, there is no question that, barring technological advantages, living closer to the equator is easier for more people than is living equally close to the poles.
  
  Aside from the human advantage, a warmer Earth might well benefit the other denizens of the planet, too. One must keep in mind that the greatest latitudinal diversity of species is found at the Equator. An often referenced side-effect of warming is the death of cute furry animals like the Polar Bear, but warming temperatures could possibly allow many more creatures to thrive in exchange for the relatively few cold-weather adaptors that would have difficulty surviving. Insects especially, though not as cute and cuddly, prefer to prosper in sweltering weather. Areas currently inhabited by a small range of the creatures in the far north once were home to a much wider range of life in warmer times, and could be again. Wikipedia tells us that during early periods like the Cretaceous, "Animals such as Chasmosaurus, Hypacrosaurus, Troodon, and Edmontosaurus may have all migrated north to take advantage of the summer growing season, and migrated south to warmer climes when the winter came. A similar situation may also have been found amongst dinosaurs that lived in Antarctic regions, such as Muttaburrasaurus of Australia." Take the Paleocene-Eocene Thermal Maximum (55.8 million years ago, the temperature rose by 6 °C over 20,000 years). Wikipedia once again states that, "The PETM [was] accompanied by a mass extinction of 35-50% of benthic foramanifera (especially in deeper waters) over the course of ~1000 years - the group suffering more than during the dinosaur-slaying K-T extinction. Contrarily, planktonic foramanifera diversified, and dinoflagellates bloomed. Success was also enjoyed by the mammals, who radiated profusely around this time. [Emphasis added]... There is no evidence of any increased extinction rate among the terrestrial biota." So there you have it.
  
  While opinions over global warming vary fairly widely, I believe that possible benefits are generally rarely considered because of religious and ideological grounds. If one happens to believe that the Earth was created at a certain point in history specifically so that humans might inhabit it, not only does one also generally believe that the planet and the animals upon it exist to help sustain man, but that things are as good as they possibly could be. If our planet was custom-designed to house us by an all-knowing being, it makes no sense to imagine that it is not perfectly suited for us. Thus, possible benefits are simply not considered. On the other hand, if one believes that a certain field of science proves that mankind is changing his environment by any considerable margin, there are a number of reasons for said scientists and their supporters to focus nearly entirely on the negative effects of those changes. Perhaps science and politics have gone hand-in-hand for so long that fear-mongering is being used as a form of control by those 'in charge'. Perhaps scientists are looking for larger influence and power, and recognise an instance of possible danger as the best way to draw attention (and funding) to their cause. Or, perhaps none of this is true, and Global Warming really is nothing but the end of the world as we know it.
  
  Obviously, I am not a scientist, and am not claiming to be one. The information above is merely amateur research into a matter that seems rarely discussed in any other than negative terms. However, I find it curious that while many recognise warmer temperatures as more hospitable, few believe that generally warmer temperatures might make for a generally more hospitable environment. I also concede that global warming is also global climate change, and that rather than simply getting hotter, the planet may become more volatile in its weather patterns. It just seems to me that, for whatever reason, the two sides seem either to blithely deny the issue entirely, or disseminate nothing but tales of woe and destruction for all. Either way, the common man seems to be played for a fool. Perhaps the planet will get warmer. In fact, most of the critics of Global Warming do not disagree with this, but merely emphasise what they see as the futility of action, rather than their objection to the basic premise of a changing climate. However, rarely is it mentioned that perhaps not everything that happens will kill us all, should we resist the urge to switch to compact-florescent light-bulbs.

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