Poll: Do You Think Climate Change (Global Warming) Is Affecting The Weather In The United States?
November temperatures in St. Louis were all over the charts, with some highs in the 70s and lows below freezing (source). Hurricane Sandy did massive destruction in the Northeast at the end of October. A few months earlier Hurricane Isaac hit the northern Gulf Coast. This weekend California is getting pounded by heavy rains (NYT).
Normal conditions or changing conditions based on man?
A new study published Thursday in the journal Science provides the most definitive — and accurate — evidence yet that polar ice caps on Greenland and Antarctica are melting.
Shrinking ice is not the only telltale sign that climate change is real. From rising air and ocean temperatures to stronger storms to record droughts, evidence of a changing global climate is all around us. (Business Insider)
The poll question this week asks if you think climate change (global warming) is affecting the weather. The poll is in the right sidebar, mobile users will need to switch to the desktop layout to vote in the poll.
— Steve Patterson
Are elevated global temperatures effecting US weather patterns? Uhm, ya….because science.
Global warming is real, but even for those who don’t believe in Global Warming it makes sense to begin recreating walkable, transit friendly cities to be in balance with the automobile. Around the world cities built that way are high quality living environments for human beings. (And they curtail energy use, check out Green Metropolis by David Owen, New York City has far lower energy use per capita than anywhere else in the US.And I I think it was 50% of the population don’t even own a car, because they don’t need to)
But yeah, I can’t even imagine the disaster the future will be for my children and grand children if we don’t get our act together. Mankind has polluted and ruined many environments over the centuries, it is naive to to think the global ice caps melting at a furious pace is normal. I can still remember the black skies of coal burning St. Louis until coal was banned as a heating fuel.
What is odd these same people that want to deny global warming, don’t seem to want to build better cities either.
The fundamental problem is that we humans are reproducing at an unsustainable, exponential rate – it boils down to raw numbers. From http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_growth :
Year – World Population – Timeline
1800 – 1 billion – many centuries
1927 – 2 billion – 127 years
1960 – 3 billion – 33 years
1974 – 4 billion – 14 years
1987 – 5 billion – 13 years
1999 – 6 billion – 12 years
2012 – 7 billion – 13 years
It doesn’t matter how green, compact or urban we choose to live, IF we continue to double the world’s population every 50 years. We’re all going to have to use half as much energy, food and water every 50 years, as well, and that ain’t gonna happen if rapidly-growing “third world” countries (like India) continue to rapidly move toward the “first world” living conditions that we currently enjoy. Unfortunately, it’s going to take a worldwide pandemic, directly affecting your children or grandchildren, to “thin the herd” before we can bring things back to any sort of equilibrium . . . .
We’re not doubling the population every 50 years any more. World population growth is slowing and will reach a peak at around 9-10 billion sometime this century and then decline. In all Western countries, the average birthrate is below replacement (2 kids/family), and as countries become more developed their birthrate falls as well. World usage of resources will increase as places like India become wealthy, but that is a one-time event, while technological innovation which allows for more efficiency will be ongoing. So there is no reason to worry.
http://www.innovationmanagement.se/2012/01/11/rising-to-the-challenge-of-peak-population/
I’m not too worried – I won’t be around in 50 years, and I don’t have any progeny to worry about . . . That said, a world with 9-10 billion humans will still be TWICE the number that were inhabiting this rock only 25 years ago . . . .
Irregardless of population levels, it does not excuse for allowing auto only urban planning to continue unabated. That is pretty well what goes on to date in the St. Louis region.
Not surprisingly the highest quality cities in the world are walkable and transit friendly. (see Mercer quality of living rankings) It is not a complete answer to curtailing carbon emissions, but it would go a long way to alleviate the problems associated with oil and carbon emissions. Most important of all, we would have a better designed, more humane city to live in.
Q: Is the world getting warmer on average?
A: Yes.
Q: Is that mostly due to human use of fossil fuels?
A: Yes.
Q: Are extreme weather events (hurricanes, droughts, etc.) getting more frequent/damaging for the same reasons?
A: Quite possibly, but there is still a large amount of scientific doubt about this.
Q: When you add up the overall cost to humanity of climate change (due to rising oceans, desertification, more extreme weather events, etc.), is it higher than the cost of preventing climate change?
A: Very hard to say (and there is little scientific data available). Fossil fuels are basic to nearly all industry and transportation, which lead to economic development, which leads to modern health care and democratic government and other extremely important things. The cost of climate change may be in the trillions, but so is the cost of eliminating fossil fuels.
Q: So what should we do about climate change?
A: This really depends on the policy. If you want the government to pay for a few billion dollars of research on solar power, or carbon sequestration, or better batteries – that will almost certainly be a net gain. If you want to limit the amount of CO2 that individuals are allowed to produce – you are likely to do more harm than good. So support the former, and not the latter.