Global warming worst case = Only slight misery increase

Agricultural brainboxes at Stanford University say that global warming isn't likely to seriously affect poor people in developing nations, who make up so much of the human race. Under some scenarios, poor farmers "could be lifted out of poverty quite considerably," according to new research. David Lobell, an agri-boffin …

[Anonymous Coward]

Poverty kills not Global Warming

Good article. Of course it is poverty that kills people not global warming (or cooling). Poverty means higher vulnerability to disasters, higher infant mortality rates, more preventable deaths.

So we need less poverty, regardless of what the climate is doing. The problem with the Greenies is that they want everyone to be poor. Jjust wait for all the usual racist Reg comments advocating the poor should be sterilised or exterminated. The Green-BNP merger will be along shortly.

[Anonymous Coward]

RE:Poverty kills not Global Warming

"The problem with the Greenies is that they want everyone to be poor."

Yep. That's their number one aim. Nothing to do with trying to protect the environment!

[Anonymous Coward]

No, nothing at all.

That's why we have mercury in light bulbs.

[Ross 7]

So the msg is...

"Even if the worst predictions come true, overall the world's poorest will still be only slightly worse off than they are now"

So if you;re poor, you;re ****ed either way?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the msg is...

Even if the worst happens, whatever we're doing now to uplift the poor will continue to work just fine, so we should go on doing it. And whatever bad stuff is happening to poor people will not get so much worse that we can't help them handle it. They're screwed now, they'll not be worse off next year.

[N Nunes]

counter-intuitive, but true?

OK, I know common sense usually gets a well deserved spanking from proper science, but something here seems very odd indeed... If I get it right, the gist of the article is that if crop yields increase, poor farmers are worse off; if however, they decrease, they become better off. Does that apply only to poor farmers, or more generally? Can I increase my earnings by producing less? I think I'll take the rest of the day off to celebrate!

P.S.: Well, I guess that is more or less how the stock exchange works: you don't actually produce anything useful, and get handsomely payed for your contribution to society.

[pedrodude]

Scarcity is the key

No... you haven't thought it through.

Ignoring subsistence farming (which does not significantly affect the balance of trade), food is typically produced at a surplus in developed countries, thanks to advances in agriculture tech. This drives the prices down so far that the EU/US have to step in to protect the industry (in the name of guaranteeing food supply) with subsidies, import tariffs, etc. that artificially increase demand for EU crops, meaning external producers find it hard to compete.

If global production is affected, it will affect the overall food supply; and because there will be less food to go around, prices (and therefore profitability) for all farmers will increase. This, in addition to the relaxation in protectionism that the EU/US will have to accede to (again to guarantee supply), should allow external producers to benefit from a more even playing field, even if global warming does make it harder to produce.

[h4rm0ny]

@Greenies.

Yep - you nailed it. People who care about the environment can be lablelled "Greenies" and our goal is fpr everyone to be poor and we get along great with the BNP. Also, my arse can play the National Anthem on the kazoo.

Moron. The only thing that you were right about is that it is a good article.

[Anonymous Coward]

So you agree then?

I've never met a Green who believed in economic development. Higher living standards and development are what get rid of poverty: so more people have less miserable lives.

Glad you agree with me. Shall I get your Afghan coat for you?

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: So you agree then?

"I've never met a Green who believed in economic development."

WTF are you talking about?

Green politics covers the entire spectrum. There are those who think green socialism is the way forward and those who think green capitalism is the way forward...

[kwikbreaks]

Hmmm

> Also, my arse can play the National Anthem on the kazoo.

I don't think that would go down well on the X-Factor but you'd get a vote from Piers Moron on Britain's Got Talent for sure.

[Pete 2]

Predict the results, but not their effect

The thing about climate change is that all it can do is tell us how much warmer (or not, depending on which vested interest you believe) the place will get. The next step: to say, with accuracy, what the effect of that rise will be is where the problem lies. While all the clever, clever scientists can prognosticate away they're still only producing theories. The problem is that we're in uncharted territory: not having a planet with our population and weather that's already gone through this effect to analyse and validate the theories. In fact the debate is still underway about what are the key factors that will turn a rise in temperature into real, live weather (and will be until the "oh, yeah" day when it actually happens). So while I firmly believe that climate change is real - just look at the photos of polar ice - what I have yet to be convinced of is which of the disparate forecasts of it's effects is the right one.

What we have here is just another shot in the dark.

[Rod MacLean]

RE: Predict the results, but not their effect

Maybe I'm missing something but they didn't seem to take global sea-level rise into account when calculating the effect on poverty...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sea Level Expert: Sea is not rising

There's no sea rise to consider.

New Paper in Science: Sea level 81,000 years ago was 1 meter higher while CO2 was lower.

http://www.sciencemag.org/content/vol327/issue5967/twis.dtl

We The People have been lied to for so many decades now. It's time we stop listen to the global warming alarmists.

[Marvin the Martian]

Nice analysis

And some reported as distorted as the best of what the IPCC has to offer, well done.

The peasants who have it so go are those that are (a) not subsistence farmers by definition [as those cannot sell what they have, higher or lower prices] and (b) oh, not actually those who lost their crops [because someone has to lose their crops for shortages and pricerises to occur].

That added to the obvious observation that the problems lie mostly in the disruption [like the worst famines are not characterized by the least calories available, but by problems in distributing those due to local security situation, typically warlords] as the individuals cannot control timing [what good is a suddenly valuable crop if the neighbours cannot pay for it and you cannot store or transport it].

Another nicely avoided issue is that a change in local climate means a change in optimal local produce/seed type [against local culture/recipes, and against availability]. So even if it gets milder and wetter and theoretically more productive, fat lot of good it does you if your own seed crop becomes useless and you have to import expensive new types of grains [presumably having become useless in a neighbouring zone]. Since it takes a few seasons of underproductivity before you give up on the produce type your family has grown for generations, and choosing an unknown alternative for which you don't have the expertise, even a hypothetical exchanging of locally-obsolete-elsewhere-suddenly-useful seeds will be only on a fraction of the local needs.

[pedrodude]

So what do you suggest?

Be real. It's not so dramatic as that. Hardly any for-profit farmers are the 1-family 1-field 1-cow type farmers you seem to think they are.

For-profit farmers in regions that are so fragile and sensitive to disruption (let's face it, you're hardly going to turn up one year and find that your crop which was growing so lush and verdant last year is now barely managing a single green shoot in a dusty ash wasteland) shouldn't live there then because it's obvious that they're living on a volcano or behind a dragon's arse or something.

If they can't see it coming (declining year-on-year yields would be a BIG hint) or can't make a switch to a different crop (I think you'll find that generally the expertise and ingenuity magically appears when you're trying to make ends meet) then they need to get out of the agriculture industry. If they're farming for profit they should be treating it as a business anyway and hedging their bets across a diverse selection of crops.

And if they are living somewhere where only one thing grows at a time and is only fertile with the greatest of effort (presumably this would necessitate you being a subsistence farmer anyway) you need to get out and find another line of work or become an economic migrant or something.

(Not that they should should all of the blame of course, reducing farming subsidies/import tariffs in the EU would go far as well...)

[Anonymous Coward]

@pe*t*rodude

"For-profit farmers in regions that are so fragile and sensitive to disruption [...] shouldn't live there then because it's obvious that they're living on a volcano or behind a dragon's arse or something."

"If they can't see it coming [...] then they need to get out of the agriculture industry."

"And if they are living somewhere where only one thing grows at a time [...] you need to get out and find another line of work or become an economic migrant or something."

That's right, because it's so easy for the poor agricultural classes in the developing world to just liquidate their share portfolio and move to the city in their newly bought Mercedes and BMWs. What kind of mobility do you think these people have, and what kind of opportunities do you think are open to them as "economic migrants"? Even farmers who can make a go of an agricultural lifestyle are getting the shaft from corporations like Monsanto, which is pertinent to other comments in this discussion about the developing world becoming dependent on agribusiness to do anything: another nice way alongside subsidies to screw those countries.

Yes, I think the *petro* influence is quite telling, here. In the developed world with the subsidised, intensive farming and increasingly perverse farming methods ("let's genetically engineer stuff which can't reproduce and can survive increasingly brutal pesticides so that the farmer, erm, customer has to have more stuff shipped to them every season"), it's just a matter from sucking on the oil pipe (and having one's military sustain the pressure on the other end) and prancing around in a consumer society from one opportunity to the next.

Sure, there needs to be an end to unfair subsidies and dumping, but to claim that people in developing nations should just adapt (while the developed world chooses something else to whine about) ignores many of the reasons why they're in such a predicament in the first place, if it isn't just flat-out patronising.

[heyrick]

What about the bugs?

I live rural. The neighbours all farm. What once was a set of nicely hedgerowed fields is now practically planted to the horizon as a massive strip of land. Deep plough? Rarely. Fields left to rest? Nope. Not even in winter when it is harrowed (barely "turned") and planted with a cover crop. Oh, but wait, what about the winter breaking down the dirt? Well, perhaps that's why two feet down its so bloody hard the farmer considered explosives to break it apart - and this is not a guy in possession of a sense of humour.

Hedgerows? Ripped and levelled.

Nearby meadows? Ploughed and planted to maize, apparently for biofuel so crop success is not as important as it might be otherwise (said maize usually ends up smutty and mouldy).

Observation? Why is it the last two summers we've barely had any bees? The white-tail fuzzy types seem to have completely vanished, while the wasp-like ones are usually to be found on the ground dying. We used to have a problem with flies in the spring, perhaps enjoying all the muck they chuck on the fields. There are much less in evidence. As are the birds and things that would make a meal of them.

I reckon farmers in rich nations ought to go back to the horse and plough so they can regain a modicum of respect for the environment they're f**king with with such reckless abandon.

Grenade icon, awaiting upvotes and downvotes and how many understood the message...

[Paul 4]

Buy organic

And they will go back to showing some respect.

[Paul 129]

Where do the profits go now.

The multinational supply chain is a hard thing to beat. At one end they push farmers to sign contracts, that would be less than the production costs, quoting low world prices. Yet in Australia the prices at the shops are at record highs. Expect more investment in this area as the multinationals see the reducing supply as a good opportunity to improve profits. More money for the poor, yeah right...</sarcasm>

[Anomalous Cowherd]

Hmm.

I'm sure the people of Zambia will be overjoyed for their Thai colleagues.

[Anonymous Coward]

Venus

Since no one really knows how global warming works or what the critical factors are, the worst case is that the Earth winds up resembling Venus. Almost pure CO2 atmosphere, 92 times the pressure we are used to, surface temperatures a cosy 460C, sulphuric acid rain... I seem to recall there is a theory that parts of the surface rocks actually get hot enough to flow, from time to time.

Who is to say that Venus didn't once look the way Earth does now? Maybe it had a technologically inventive species that let its population rip and gave them all vehicles and appliances driven by fossil fuels... One day, things began to get a little warmer. "Oh well, nothing to worry about", most of them reflected. What's five degrees or so between friends? Now, they are all vapour.

[Steve X]

Venus/Earth

I've always understood that the main reason Earth and Venus are different is due to the effects of having a moon. Unlikely that climate change will make much difference to that.

Anyway, at the end of the day all this talk about "saving the planet" just means "keeping it the way it is now". Nice, maybe, but irrelevant in geological time. The Earth changes, ice ages to tropical climes, and in the meantime we all get shaken up and cooled down by earthquakes and volcanoes. We can't leave (yet) so we just have to live with it. Whatever happens the Earth will still be here long after the human race has gone.

Not, of course, to say that we shouldn't still find ways to develop renewable energy and recycle things, squandering finite resources that will take aeons to replace is just plain daft. Let's do it without the chicken little impressions, though, eh?

[Anonymous Coward]

re: Venus (@Steve X)

Steve, you wrote that "I've always understood that the main reason Earth and Venus are different is due to the effects of having a moon". You may indeed have always understood that, but it ain't necessarily so. The Wikipedia article on Venus has this to say:

"Studies have suggested that several billion years ago Venus's atmosphere was much more like Earth's than it is now, and that there were probably substantial quantities of liquid water on the surface, but a runaway greenhouse effect was caused by the evaporation of that original water, which generated a critical level of greenhouse gases in its atmosphere.[34]"

Reference [34) is "Runaway and moist greenhouse atmospheres and the evolution of Earth and Venus" by James F Kasting of NASA Ames Research Center.

http://tinyurl.com/ydu8rpd

[Ministry of Truth]

Sigh

Before we all go wikibothering and pretending to be experts, let me point out that Venus doesn't have a magnetosphere. And that is the major difference between Venus and Earth. All those nice, life giving light gases getting ripped out into space, meaning that pretty much all they gets left is Nitrogen and CO2.

Any way, even if it was all peachy and nice and wasn't a horrific acidic poisonous atmosphere, we'd all die of cancer from the sun.

Incidendently, it's a damn sight nearer to the sun anyway, which is partly why it's so much hotter.

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: Venus/Earth

I agreed with you right up until you said:

"Let's do it without the chicken little impressions, though, eh?"

...simply because someone has to scare/shock mass pollutors and environmental rapists into action and the only way that this can be done is to force the issue into the public conciousness in ways which they can understand...

[Jack2]

Nice try

Venus is now the argument for CAGW? Round and round -- circular reasoning is all the warmists have.

I'm glad people aren't buying their BS anymore.

[Captain Thyratron]

Little detail everybody keeps leaving out.

Venus is also only about seventy percent as far from the sun as Earth is. By virtue of the inverse square law, this means that the solar flux that reaches Venus is nearly twice as strong as the solar flux that reaches Earth. Thus, Venus was much more likely than Earth to develop a disastrous runaway greenhouse effect just by virtue of being in a closer orbit around the sun.

Have a look here for a more in-depth discussion of this:

http://pubs.giss.nasa.gov/docs/1970/1970_Rasool_DeBergh.pdf

[Scott van Looy]

Dodgy statistical analysis ahoy!

You say:

"But small farmers in other nations, a group which accounts for very large numbers of people, would be very happy: rising food prices would lift them out of their hardscrabble existences and make them comparatively well-off."

Which is clearly missing the point that if food becomes scarce, prices will go up. Because farmers will have less food to sell. So how are they going to make *more* money by selling *less* food? I'd say they're likely to stay just as poor.

If the Reg spent half the time publishing stories about the actual science of global warming that it spends publishing dodgy stories rubbishing scientists, it'd make me happy.

Or better still, just don't bother, as it has little to do with the tech world and smacks of someone somewhere in your editorial staff having an axe to grind...

[Anonymous Coward]

Sub-prime science

So you'd be happy to read about sub-prime science because it supports your pre-conceived world view. OK fine.

But the public doesn't believe the scares anymore. They don't believe it's a problem, they don't believe the computer models, and they can see through the activists. Even the recycling Guardian-readers who used to worry about Global Warming don't care any more.

Has the penny dropped yet?

[Anonymous Coward]

RE: Sub-prime science

"So you'd be happy to read about sub-prime science because it supports your pre-conceived world view. OK fine."

...but you just read some sub-prime science that supports YOUR world view!

"Has the penny dropped yet?"

It dropped here but presumably your penny has been glued up by something!

[pedrodude]

Profitability

Er and because cost overheads would be reduced... The reason businesses like to sell few amounts of high profit items is because it costs less in materials, administration, tooling, workforce, etc.

If a company's making miniscule profits, regardless of how big it's sales are, it might get a little hairy if say, a disruptive technology comes in or a supply-chain issue forces your overheads up, and you've got no room to maneuver. And by hairy I mean losses, job cuts, liquidation, and other little things generally considered as bad things for a business...

Somebody please explain to this guy how economics works.

[Sir Sham Cad]

Narrow thinking

Which, of course, it has to be, because food security and environmental change is a massive subject.

Needless to say, this is all well and good for crop farming but warming of even 1C is likely to be damaging for fishing industries or even subsistence fishing which an awful lot of people around the world (especially those who live around the Pacific) do.

It would be interesting to compare the effects on fishing with those on crop farming and then see where we are in the bigger picture. I, personally, don't think it'd be as rosy as this research alone would conclude.

[Robert Carnegie]

You can't be much more miserable and still alive.

So as things get worse, the planet's excess human population starves to death. The prosperous survivors are a lot happier. No more guilt. No more being told to eat up your dinner because of the hungry children in Africa, they aren't there any more. And it wasn't our fault, was it?

[Steve Roper]

Yes Mr. Scrooge

"the planet's excess human population starves to death"

Charles Dickens had an answer for that about a century or so ago:

"If he be like to die, he had better do it, and decrease the surplus population... Man, if man you be in heart, not adamant, forbear that wicked cant until you have discovered What the surplus is, and Where it is. Will you decide what men shall live, what men shall die? It may be, that in the sight of Heaven, you are more worthless and less fit to live than millions like this poor man's child. Oh God! to hear the Insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!"

[Gordon is not a Moron]

How do the anti-climate change lobby respond to this?

Reverse thier entire stance on climate change, looking slightly foolish, but embrace the benefits.

Maintain thier position and stick two fingers up at the struggling farmers in the developing nations?

But I suppose the pro-climate change lobby have just as big a problem, trying to sell climate change good thing whilst trying to push through CO2 emission reductions.

[EvilGav 1]

D'oh!

Climate Change != Anthropogenic Global Warming

[Rod MacLean]

@EvilGav 1

"Climate Change != Anthropogenic Global Warming"

Except in this case it provably does.

[Goat Jam]

Oh, is that so?

Who proved it then?

[macamat]

Sure, but what happens after 2030?

So if you accept the article we get some winners and some losers. But that's just 1.5 degrees, and just to 2030. The IPCC report 4's worst case scenario for 2099 is 6.4 degrees.

So by 2030 the losers will be a bit worse off, but by 2099 their land may be ruined? Or to modify the heading, "Global Warming worst case = slight misery to begin with, utter misery eventually"?

[Anonymous Coward]

Genocide r'us

Population isn't a problem, it's people like you who want to prolong human misery.

But since you want a genocidal purge, can we start with one sub-intelligent excess human called "Robert Carnegie"

After you, Robert.

[jake]

I wonder ...

How many zettawatts have been radiated into the atmosphere by the entire "global warming" campaign? Including Al "hypocrite" Gore's personal $LARGEJET of the day, of course ...

I'll get worried about global warming when people are growing wine grapes around Hadrian's Wall, like they were nearly 2,000 years ago. Until then ... Have a nice day.

[Rod MacLean]

@jake

They may have been growing vines along Hadrian's wall 2,000 years ago but that wasn't as a result of a period of MAN MADE warming.

If we don't stop it then yes, perhaps we will be able to grow vines there again - for a decade or two, just before it turns into a desert...

[jake]

@Rod MacLean

"They may have been growing vines along Hadrian's wall 2,000 years ago but that wasn't as a result of a period of MAN MADE warming."

OK, can you tell me the history of the Frost Fairs on the River Thames? Care to explain how they occurred, from a climatological perspective? I didn't think so ...

Face facts, the climate has been both colder & warmer than it is now, and within recorded human history. We DO NOT understand exactly why. Trying to make changes in the climate without understanding the mechanics of the shifts in climate are not only a waste of time and energy, but possibly foolhardy.

"If we don't stop it then yes, perhaps we will be able to grow vines there again - for a decade or two, just before it turns into a desert..."

Assumes facts not in evidence. Instead of listening to propaganda designed to make money for a few already wealthy people who aren't otherwise employed, how about using your own brain for a change?

[Anonymous Coward]

@Jake

Something to back you up mate...

"Since the sun, and not carbon dioxide, is the principle driver of climate change, a dearth of sunspot activity would herald a repeat of the Maunder Minimum, the name given to the period roughly from 1645 to 1715, when sunspots became exceedingly rare and contributed to the onset of the Little Ice Age during which Europe and North America were hit by bitterly cold winters and the Thames river in London completely froze.

Long-time man-made global warming advocates NASA assure us that significant sunspot activity will return in 2012, but a recent a paper on recent solar trends by William Livingston and Matthew Penn of the National Solar Observatory in Tucson, predicts that sunspots will all but vanish after 2015.

As we reported last week, the Armagh observatory, which has been measuring sun cycles for over 200 years. predicts that global temperatures will drop by two degrees over the next 20 years as solar activity grinds to a halt and the planet drastically cools down, potentially heralding the onset of a new ice age.

“Based on the past Armagh measurements, this suggests that over the next two decades, global temperatures may fall by about 2 degrees C — that is, to a level lower than any we have seen in the last 100 years….”Temperatures have already fallen by about 0.5 degrees C over the past 12 months and, if this is only the start of it, it would be a serious concern,” concludes David Watt."

[jake]

@AC 14:47

"Something to back you up mate..."

I don't need backup ... logic is logic, no matter how you look at it. Not that the "global warming" religion will pay attention to logic, any more than any other religion will.

Ta for staying a spell on my island in a sea of insanity, though :-)

[Robert Carnegie]

Let's get rid of the Anonymous Cowards

Since by definition Anonymous Cowards won't be missed, no one knows who they are.

Have you read Jonathan Swift? He is a bit wrong headed in my opinion on things like the importance of science - he was a priest after all - but some of his modest proposals were thought provoking - and clearly I overlooked an opportunity that he mentions.

I do think that a smaller world population would be a good idea for sustainability, but I'd want to achieve that by having fewer people born, not more dying. Even with best efforts, I think we can depend on death holding back or undoing population expansion, depending on the replacement rate, for a while to come.

I also think it is fair to offer to subsidise "family planning" technology - contraception - while I myself am not reproducing. George Bush and the Pope don't agree with me, of course.

[Mme.Mynkoff]

"I myself am not reproducing"

That couldn't be because you can't get a date?

Just as well really.

[Anonymous Coward]

erm..

Everybody dies. I think you were probably inferring 'lower life expectancy'.

AC - because I CAN (Are you also in favour of the mandatory mobile phone registration?)

[Anonymous Coward]

@ Robert Carnegie

Re: The planet's EXCESS human population starves to death,

Unfortunately that will happen regardless of climate change, co2 and all the rest, the planet and its contents are a finite resource and if there are too many people starvation follows.

Population control is the only real issue facing human beings, the rest are merely symptoms of the same problem.

Contrary to populr belief being in a wealthy western nation is no protection, if the peasants will not send you their food because they are starving you only have what you can grow yourself.

[Paul 141]

aren't we forgetting something?

The price of food has already doubled, due to the Bio-diesel obsession; the AGW fraud is not a victimless crime.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: aren't we forgetting something?

Absolutely

[Cucumber C Face]

Let them eat fish?

I am sure that Pacific islanders, Bengladeshi's and East Anglians will be overjoyed to switch to fish farming on their doorsteps (which are currently several miles inland).

[Anonymous Coward]

I doubt it

Given the average rich nation's fetish for fish farming, there won't be any wild fish to actually catch: most of them will have been scooped up before being able to reproduce by trawlers looking to shove them into the mouths of overfed, overdrugged, diseased farmed fish intended as luxuries for the rich man's plate.

Of course, since fish farming is one of those "economic miracles" where the environmental costs can be shunted over to someone else, expect criticism of such industries to be labelled as "whining" by the usual pro-business puppets in various governments.

[Anonymous Coward]

We Are the World

WE CANNOT LET THIS HAPPEN!

Join with me, Robert Carnegie - because without mass misery and guilt, how else will we get people to contribute to religious indoctrination programs masking as dodgy charity organizations (as opposed to some UN folks who really do their job)?!

How can we get recycled performers and reuse 30 year old fund drive commercials if we can't exaggerate the plight of people - no, CHILDREN (ftw!) - in far off lands? We already have commitments for "We are the World" 50, 75 and 100 (Diamond centennial deluxe special edition - BUY YOUR RESERVE COPY NOW!!! ONLY 250,000 yuan!!!!!)!

Without that delectible skimmed cream of other's hard earned, many wealthy westerners, easterners and countless local middlemen would have to live like normal people! UNACCEPTABLE!!!

WE MUST HELP THEM NOW!

Please send a blank, signed check or all credit details to Aributunosabemustafaheffenson Nikumsay El-Fadid, Jr. , Nigeria.

[Aron]

All scenarios considered

I used to believe in all this overpopulation and global warming malarky when I was a young attention craving lefty who wanted to impress girls and myself with how much I cared.

It's embarrassing to look back upon such moral posturing. It's like I was a politician or religious nut.

The truth is everything is getting better because humans are hard wired for forward movement, even when they believe in such fanciful nonsense and hysterics. There's no problem that our natural desire and progress isn't solving anyway. It's just that activists always see what's happening anyway, jump on it, and then claim they were the ones who solved the problems!

[Anonymous Coward]

re : all scenarios considered

Psst Aron,

I hate to tell you this, but your rather naive prediliction for simple solutions to complex problems has not left you. Do you not see any similarities between "oh no - the human race are responsible for everything bad" and "it's ok - progress is inevitable and will solve everything".

While black and white thinking is easy, I fear you have merely swapped one fallacy for an opposing, yet equally invalid one.

[Tom 13]

The real underlying factor overlooked in

the economic analysis is that most of the people living in poverty on the planet don't live in poverty because of environmental factors holding back their farming capacity; they live in poverty because they live under more despotic regimes than wealthy do. When the increase in profits comes along, the despots will take more. Afterall, anybody making more than $250,000/year (162,000 pounds/yr) doesn't really deserve it now do they?

[Jack2]

Where is the empirical proof for CAGW?

The bottom line there's no empirical proof for CAGW -- man-induced CO2 can not drive climate change. Its effect on earth temperature is negligible. End of story.

CAGW is dead! Debate is over!

[Martin Owens]

Except

All the actual scientists who have actually carried out real research.

Believe the crack pot forum poster on the inter web... or the legions of scientists with PhDs.

Of course you could just look at the data, make your own data and do the analysis yourself, but somehow I think you'll find what you want and not what is there.

[Alan Newbury]

re Except

"Of course you could just look at the data" - What? You've actually managed to find a complete dataset?

(couldn't decide between Joke Alert or Black Helicopters - after all, if you actually have the data then the helicopters will be after you soon)

[Anonymous Coward]

@doody et al.

""it's ok - progress is inevitable and will solve everything"."

Why is that unreasonable? Surely if we can engineer our way out of any negative impacts of global warming then that would be better than sucking down the big pain of reducing our carbon footprint?

As I see this (as for the predictions put forward in the article) one simple consequence seems to be that global temperatures will rise by something like 1.5C. OK, this will make large areas of Africa and Asia no longer tenable for farming, however surely it will also make large areas of places like Russia, Canada and Northern Europe in general better able to produce more. Logically speaking you just move the optimum growing areas a bit further from the equator.

So the solution is to move the growers to the arable land. Sure it will be a bit shitty for people who don't want to move, but as a species we have always migrated when appropriate. Or we'd all live in Africa.

The earth was a lot warmer than it is now and a lot colder. I have seen Rhino and Elephant bones (not mammoth, real heffalumps) dug up in parts of the UK that 12,000 years ago were under 2Km of ice.

Sea levels rise, we build levees or move. Climate warms we crack out the sun-cream. Climate cools we put on a cardy. Already people are trying to develop fusion, hydrogen power and all manner of more efficient, cleaner energy and you can wash your clothes even at 30C, apparently. If you want to wear dirty clothes.

[Nuffnuff]

@doody et al.

Progress is unfortunately not inevitable - in our instance, it is fuelled by vast quantities of energy which simply are not enough to sustain growth for the time frame you are talking about.

People have been trying to develop fusion for 50 years. Hydrogen is an energy storage medium, not a primary fuel. Oil appears to be on its last legs (who'll put money on Iran not getting a visit this year or next) and it's a bit late for fission, what with it not being economically viable and consuming absurd quantities of petrochemicals in commissioning.

Your solution to move growers to arable land doesn't take into account little details like borders, either. Without some serious military presence, it wouldn't be the growers to move, just the crops.

Not that we're necessarily all screwed, just those who have the misfortune to live in an area without enough political or military clout to avoid resource depletion.

On another topic, what's wrong with washing your clothes in cold water? I don't think I've ever done a hot wash in my life...

[John Smith 19]

@Aron

My old History teacher warned us to be *very* weary of *any* politician who proposed simple solutions to *very* complex problems.

He learned this from his father, who learned it in the early 1940s, around the time he acquired some unusual body art.

Six digits, two letters, on his left arm.

It's advice I have never forgotten.

[Kanhef]

Agreed

And pretending the problem doesn't exist is perhaps the simplest solution of all.

[Captain Save-a-ho]

Computer models for climate are shit

It's high time we throw out the entire idea of computer modeling where the climate and weather are concerned. They've proven resoundingly that no predictions can be made with any real level of accuracy, besides telling what we already know if we walk outside.

Maybe all these eggheads should spend their time trying to find a pattern in Old Testament Hebrew for predicting the future. It's just as likely to be accurate as the complete shit they're producing now.

Definitely needs to be labeled a "soft" science, like Sociology and Psychology (both bullshit in general).

[Anonymous Coward]

Sort of agree - then again

I remember watching a programme on TV some (many) years ago 'Antenna' I think, which 'dsimissed' the global warming theory. It attacked it on a few points - 1. Sea-levels rising caused by ice-caps melting - the north pole is floating and hence would not increase sea-levels if it melted. 2 The computer modelling is rubbish - it did not take account of CLOUDS, and their increase and effect on temperatures. There were a couple of other points too that I can't remember. They even tried to input old earth data and run the simulation forward to present day - unfortunately the computer model predicted that what is now the Sahara should actually be a tropical rain forest! - FAIL

Anyway, even though I am not 100% convinced that some of the models are correct, I am also wary of things they do not take into account that make predictions worse. Specifically POLLUTION. In the days after 911 when planes were grounded, surface temperatures rose dramatically - indicating that the TRUE temperature is being masked by pollution, and predictions could be a lot worse than expected/forecast.

SO on the one hand I am still not 100% convinced how much of the effects are attributable to man (or that can be controlled by man), but on the other I am also aware that predictions could be a lot worse than they currently are (especially when pollution is taken into account).

My take - I like the ideas of the greens for renewable/cheap/clean fuels if only to stop money being fed into terrorist via the middle east. Are we just pissing in the wind though? - who knows - but don't label it all as bullshit. There is a middle ground, and you can still agree that the 'solutions' are valid actions - even if you don't agree that what they are trying to solve is real.

[1uncle]

Warming

Those unfortunates living in poverty do so in USA because they either didn't or couldn't get an education. The demo rat politicians have given our taxes to millions of uneducated females so much money for each child they spawn just to buy their vote.

[Nuffnuff]

A bit off topic

Just noticed what appears to be a preponderance of ultraconservative americans posting here. Demographic readership shift, or have you poms just got thicker all of a sudden?

[heystoopid]

Computer models

Watt , me worry ?

[John Smith 19]

A note on history

Based on my admittedly skimpy reading of technology and a *little* personal experience I'd say that *every* description along the lines of "We knew it was the *only* possible solution that would work. It was obvious" is written after whatever they are talking about has been a success. While such markets or technology are developing it's *never* that obvious, with the proviso you have to base your judgement on what people of the *time* knew. Global Communism (or the dictatorship of the proletariat) was at one time viewed as "Inevitable" as well.

AFAIK it really happens 3 main ways. 1) Person looks into subject and concludes whatever solution *must* meet certain (usually a very few) criteria. They then do whatever it takes to find a method that works that they can move forward (even if there are better ways found later) and do so.

2) Person studies subject in substantial detail, concludes the route with the highest chance of success and pushes ahead with that on the basis that "A working solution now beats a perfect solution a long time later." Frank Whittle's turbjet design is much simpler than some drawn up at Rolls Royce (by AA Griffith) but it worked with the materials and fabrication tech of the time.

3)Research team is put on a project and realizes they have found a solution to a problem even if they fail in their initial goal. IIRC the glue for post-it notes was a fail for its primary objective but nearly perfect for that application. This was a slight variation in that here it was the availability of this new stuff (within 3m) that set someone's mind thinking.

Note that this is only the germination stage. Plenty of also rans will fail to convince backers they have the right path and they have the skills (or can build the team) to get to the solution. They only tend to be recognized *long* after the fact.

[Gupie]

What about 2060...?

So according to this guy there are going to be no major problems in 2030 with a 1.5°C temperature rise, but so what!? Global warming is not going to reach it's maximum in 2030. The significant question is what will the effects be of with say a 3°C rise in 2060 and a 5°C rise in 2100....

[John 62]

what about the diesel?

one thing that lets farmers produce food is diesel. if that runs out, or gets more expensive, then the profit margin will be much reduced and the farmers won't necessarily be better off. In fact, people might start growing their own on a larger scale. You don't need an allotment, just a window, a 3-gallon bucket, some soil and a few carrot seeds.

[Robert Carnegie]

It's outsourced

Nuffnuff: there are three large converted call centres in major cities in India full of Indian graduates who are employed full time to fill up reader messageboards all over the Internet with American ultraconservative faff wherever "global warming" (anthropogenic climate change) is mentioned. Or medical insurance or gun control. You can tell they aren't really Americans because their written English is quite good.

Mme.Mynkoff: are you doing anything Saturday night?

[ThomH]

Orlowski was right all along

You know, not to allow comments on his articles. I have no comment on other things he may be wrong or right about.

[phuzz]

ahhh

I think I've worked it out.

How exactly can poor people be better off, if they can't grow as much food?

Well, obviously if people can't grow enough food, then all the really, really poor people will starve to death, thus slightly increasing the average net worth.

The system works!

(unless you're really poor, but in that case you probably knew that already)

[Anonymous Coward]

For an alternative/balanced view..read this (in FULL)

http://english.pravda.ru/science/earth/106922-2/

Extracts...

The main flaw in the AGW theory is that its proponents focus on evidence from only the past one thousand years at most, while ignoring the evidence from the past million years -- evidence which is essential for a true understanding of climatology. The data from paleoclimatology provides us with an alternative and more credible explanation for the recent global temperature spike, based on the natural cycle of Ice Age maximums and interglacials.

AND

The graph of the Vostok ice core data shows that the Ice Age maximums and the warm interglacials occur within a regular cyclic pattern, the graph-line of which is similar to the rhythm of a heartbeat on an electrocardiogram tracing. The Vostok data graph also shows that changes in global CO2 levels lag behind global temperature changes by about eight hundred years. What that indicates is that global temperatures precede or cause global CO2 changes, and not the reverse. In other words, increasing atmospheric CO2 is not causing global temperature to rise; instead the natural cyclic increase in global temperature is causing global CO2 to rise.

[John Smith 19]

Some notes on oil

It is oil industry policy to hold records showing them where to find 10 years *more* oil at some level of consumption. They either used outsourced geophysics survey companies to do the work in the first place or laid off them staff when the job was done.

It's the company oil reserve. they *expect* to find more in the meantime, if they have to.

Whenever you see some reporter spout on about "xxx only has oil for 10 more years. Shock! Horror!" remember this.

Oil companies are some of the *biggest* customers for processor arrays on the planet. Back in the day IBM SP2 arrays were top dog. If they have the biggest, they want 2. If there's a new model in the works, they want one of those on pre-order.

When they get it they re-run the seismic surveys they collected over the years *again* looking to get more detail or apply new algorithms (Not simple as you're trying to reconstruct a 3d object based on multiple scattered sound waves scattered in unknown ways). This still works out cheaper than actually *doing* a new survey out in the North Sea (or lately the South Atlantic).

Curiously despite all of the hardware generations that have passed Israel still seems to be one of the few bits of the Middle East with *no* oil under it. /were this ever to change it would (quite literally) send an earthquake through OPEC.

Also note that the bulk of the product prices are made up of the *oil* price itself and the local taxes. Processing costs are pretty minimal. However profit is a % of the oil price because if you need oil, or it's products, you're stuck with whatever the price happens to be. This is basically cost plus, which *might* explain why the oil business is as big as the arms business.

I looked up the "oil shock" of 1973 which seemed to put the global economy in the toiled for a decade. The price was a 300% rise. From $3 to $12/barrel. When I was finding out what oil company computer hardware was companies were firing staff because their *whole* budget was predicated on a price of $15/barrel. BTW an oil barrel is roughly 40USgals, not a modern 55gal.

Bottom line. Don't believe the hype.

[Robert Carnegie]

@ PRAVDA !?!

By the way: add Microsoft to the list of clients of the "infest every public forum on the Internet" Indian cubefarm that I logically deduced. No, wait: they aren't clients. They built it.

[Paul 4]

What about

The millions in poverty who fish. Reefs are already bleaching, and without them the fish die... even 0.5 will bleach more. We need to stop panicing so much, and start thinking. We need cheeper fuel (not cheep and dirty, but something like nukes or fusion, or cheap solar), so that in the west we can keep warm, and in the thrid world they can have basics like clean water.

We also need to look at where we are living unstestainably, i.e. fishing the seas dead, killing farm land by leaching the land dry and hoping something will come along to sort it out.