John Lees

A response I wrote to a claim I have seen that a 3°C rise in global average temps will render the human race extinct:

It's also worth pointing out that even the average annual temperature of the regions of the world varies by more than 40°C from one inhabited region to another.
So, if we shift all of these temperatures up by 3°C, then we will simply see a shift in the situation, when some of the most extremely hot regions become more uninhabitable and some of the uninhabitable cold regions become more habitable.

Similarly for flora and fauna, which will tend to shift northward.

Why this effect will render the human race extinct, is not clear.

People are not potted plants, when a situation becomes intolerable then they either move away, of use their technological genius to adapt.

People currently live in such inhospitable regions as Dubai.

They live their in great number and are entirely comfortable.

But, if they were not, then they can leave and move north to where it is naturally cooler.


Tim adds:

During the late Triassic and early Jurassic it WAS that much warmer and life didn't just hang on as it does now in marginal places like Antarctica or Baffin Island or South Georgia but it thrived everywhere. (BTW CO2 was five times higher then than now.)

This claim is just silly. Life likes a warmer and wetter climate than the current interglacial age with too low carbon dioxide levels.

Siberia , Northern Canada, all the arctic islands, and the whole continent of Antarctica and it's satellite islands would open up in a worst-case scenario for us. It would be a golden age.

Crop cultivation has shifted north and south as climate has shifted over the centuries and it didn't hurt anybody. British vinters had to go out of business but they switched to importing wines from France and Spain and Portugal and wound up creating Port Wine in one of those ventures. There are plenty of good crops to grow. And now, with hybridization and other human genetic intervention, we can MAKE crops that grow in unsuitable areas. Canada is too cold for most vinifera grapes, for instance, but they grow plenty of hybrids there. If southern France becomes too warm to grow traditional French grapes they can start growing Spanish grapes. All that is needed is to replant to fix this "problem".

 Humans are not suited to cold climates. We evolved in a hot climate in the rift valleys of Africa. But we simply adapted to less than ideal conditions using technology. All life adapts to changing climate and always has. Some species die out - but only in the form they take at present. Most of the time they change form to better fit conditions.

There are no wooly mammoths around but there are elephants, their children. They just lost the shaggy coat. Even the dinosaurs live on in the birds we see today.

And the warm creatures like crocodiles survived total disasters and ice ages. They evolved during the late Triassic, 200 my ago and survived the extinction of the dinosaurs. No, I don't think this is doomsday at all.

Posted by: Timothy Birdnow at 09:51 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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