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Some answers on Climate Change
Categories: Environment, Science
by Admin on Monday, November 4th, 2019 at 18:00:43

Someone asked some questions on climate change elsewhere, and I took some time to answer them. I'm cross-posting the questions and my responses here for the benefit of any of my visitors who might have similar questions:


Why should I support fighting climate change?

Do you have kids? Are there any kids in your near family, or do friends have kids you care about, or (reaching, but) do you care about kids in general? Because if this isn't stopped, they're going to be at least miserable, and possibly much worse.

What action should I take to help reduce climate change?

Change, if it's coming at all, must come from both the top and the bottom. Starting with your own actions... drive less, set your home to warmer in the summer and cooler in the winter, keep appliances off that don't need to be on. Do this even if you're in an area with hydro or other non-stank power, because power you don't use can be shared to other areas that may not be hydro or other relatively clean power. Unless you're 100% power independent, for instance, if you run your own isolated solar installation.

How much money is it going to cost me?

Your own actions will probably save you money, potentially quite a bit, but how much depends on your present circumstances. Next is getting your representatives — senators, congresscritters, the president — to take political action, which can be much more effective, but is comparably much more difficult to achieve. They can fund the science and technology that will be needed to counter the effects, and they can set emissions regulations that can slow the onset of the more serious problems somewhat, thus providing more time for the science and tech folk to create and implement remedial counters.

What will happen if I do nothing?

In the nearer term... food shortages as crops have to be moved to more northern temperate bands into the hands of farmers who are unfamiliar with them, and as ocean acidification increases and blows out the balance of life there, resulting in changes that may in fact turn out to be catastrophic — a lot of the world depends upon the ocean as a food source. If it's unavailable to them, they're going to want the other foodstuffs, and that will change the market price and availability — not in a good way. Violence is definitely possible over this issue. Harsher weather, generally speaking warmer and carrying more intense storms. In the longer term, some ocean rise, which will cause people in low-lying coastal areas to relocate, which will (a) reduce the available real estate people can live on, and (b) destroy or very seriously inconvenience all businesses that are presently operating in those locations.

End game... probably this will get solved, IMHO, but it may be well into some of the above problems before it is if our politicians and citizens don't get after it. If it isn't solved... might be pretty much apocalyptic within a few hundred years. Worst case... runaway warming... ever look at the climate of Venus?

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