There are many problems the author unfortunately omits. Arctic sea shelves collapse? The ocean rises and millions if not billions may be displaced. How's that for an anecdote.
The problem with GW right now is it's a political football. The left wants to paint the right as irresponsible so they make catastrophic predictions. The right wants to paint the left as alarmist so they deny it outright.
As far as I can tell this article, in a very HN way, is just trying to lead people who have bought the hysteria back into a rational mindset by showing the reader another side exists.
Botkin says "We are told that the melting of the arctic ice will be a disaster." Then he seems to be trying to refute this passage by saying that a warmer climate worked out great for the vikings. He doesn't attempt any sort of analysis of what the real-world effects of change in sea-level would be.
Botkin may have something worth saying, but he needs an editor to help him focus in on clearly stating and backing up the points that he wants to make.
All I can get from this is that he wants people to stop the panic because, hey, there might be some benefits from a warmer climate.
There are two sides to this debate, but the two sides are not similar. One is the scientific consensus of the world's climate scientists, represented in the IPCC reports. The other side is a loose collection of crackpots, dissidents, and astroturfing energy companies. One side has been correct about every major point of contention for the last decade; the other side has been wrong about every major point over the same period.
Rationality and alarm are not mutually exclusive; and the suggestion that those thinkers who are alarmed at the probable consequences of global warming are in the grip of "hysteria" is just name-calling. A more documentable ad-hominem is that the climate change deniers are in the employ of the energy companies:
http://www.ucsusa.org/news/press_release/ExxonMobil-GlobalWa...
The author is right on that it isn't the end of the world, per se, but he dodges the question of what small changes will do to our civilizations, by framing the problem on a geological scale.
As somebody who has personally worked on wheat farms in Texas and in Alberta, (these two places, as you may know, have a wide temperature variation between them) I have to say the science behind this statement seems already empirically refuted.
I would submit to you that any extra wheat production you may see in the central US is due to topographical (it's flat), nutritional (good soil), and cultural (daddy was a wheat farmer) influences, more than any propensity of wheat for that exact temperature, as evidenced by the successful wheat farming americans and canadians from Texas to central Alberta)
http://www.thefreshloaf.com/node/4632/major-wheat-growing-re...
Different varieties of wheat are adapted to different conditions and some are more productive than others. Ultimately, wheat is still a plant and it still needs water and sun to grow. The climate models suggest that as temperature goes up, midwest droughts will get worse. Natural systems are not orthogonal. A rise in temperature will cause more rainfall in some areas and less rainfall in others.
While we're at it... as you said, wheat is not too finicky. Corn? More finicky. Wonder what will happen to corn. It needs hot, humid summers with just the right amount of rain and sun. When you look at the map from the link, it is pretty apparent there is a big hole in the middle of the "wheat" belt. Hmm I wonder what we grow there? ;)
I wonder where, if at all, that hole is going to move if we have a drier midwest as the admittedly crude climate models predict. And I wonder how a change in climate will impact the current wheat growing regions in terms of rainfall.
Remember, it is a 2.5 degree global temperature shift being discussed, not a 2.5 degree shift in Canada's temperatures. Water vapor is a much stronger greenhouse gas than CO2 is, so the effect of more CO2 is much less pronounced in the lower latitudes. From what I have heard, a 2.5 degree shift in global temperature average caused by increased CO2 would translate into a much larger shift in e.g. Canada's temperatures.
That said, if you're curious, my problem with GW has always been the focus on the cause and not the effect. I don't have a problem with us trying to do everything we can not to change Earth's enviornment. In general I think it's a good idea for humans to make as little an impact on nature as we can in going about our day.
But at the same time it's a proven fact that our planet makes dramatic shifts in it's climate even without our influence (Ice Age for example). So the reality is climate change is coming whether we cause it or not.
Beyond that GW is not proven beyond a doubt so if it happens not to be true we'll have spent all our time trying to stop causing something that we were never causing in the first place.
So basically my opinion on GW has always been that, since we know climate change is coming no matter what, humanity should work on preparing itself for climate change's effects regardless of who or what causes it.
And it might come quite suddenly whether we cause it or not. And it might do the opposite of what we expect.
Looking back through the geologic record, the climate has done all sorts of interesting things -- all without our help.
As a general observation not connected to the parent, the use of cellular automata techniques in modeling is really very much in its infancy. I'm really surprised that posters to a hacker board wouldn't already know that.
You don't believe in the concept of insurance, do you?
If GW is true, this probably requires regulation, complex interventionist policies etc. The things that the left wants. So the left believes & the right doesn't. Or it thinks that it is natural or inevitable or not so bad.
I think this is an example of how ideology can become a belief in policies rather then principles.
You should know that even the most computationally challenged "climate modelers" don't claim this will happen quickly. It would happen over a period of many, many, many, many years. The city would simply vacate what it had to, as it had to, and add levies where it made economic sense to do so. It won't be a tidal wave that just appears on the horizon.
>the most computationally challenged "climate modelers" don't claim this will happen quickly
The most crazy/aggressive models from the 1970's said we would lose half the Arctic sea ice by 2050. We hit that point two years ago. If multiple sea shelves collapse, it will indeed come as a tidal wave. We don't know what will happen but we don't have the luxury to be confident that nothing will surprise us.
Come on guys. Why do you say these things? It's literally 5 seconds away in a new browser tab. http://www.dailytech.com/Sea+Ice+Ends+Year+at+Same+Level+as+...
I paid careful attention and put together personal regulations: I must eat breakfast, I must eat lunch, I must eat dinner.
By that evening I was 1 pound lighter than my target weight. I was still a bit worried, but felt comforted to know I had averted a disaster of catastrophic proportions.
"I was still a bit worried, but felt comforted to know I had averted a disaster of catastrophic proportions."
Um, in your own metaphor you would most likely be dead.
The fourth quarter report of the International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) clarified we have indeed hit the 50% in a third of the time of the most aggressive estimates. The sea ice that has come back is not the same as what was there before: it's the very thin product of a single season.
http://wattsupwiththat.com/2009/03/06/basic-geology-part-3-s...
"The main reason why sea level rises is because the equilibrium between glacial ice and temperature is out of balance, and has been for the last 20,000 years."
"Note that from 15,000 years ago to 8,000 years ago, sea level rose about 14mm/year - which is more than four times faster than the current rise rate of 3.3mm/year"