Warm is Better than Cold

Going green.
reen leaves and trees and grass.
reenbacks.

This is the third in a series of posts questioning the validity of arguments by the global warming alarmists. The first two posts were An Inconvenient Truth, exposing the lies and exaggerations in Al Gore's movie; and, The Sky is Falling, So Give Me Some Money, revealing the hidden agendas driving the global warming alarmists; and this post presents some positives about global warming.

Is Global Warming Always Bad?

Is Global Warming Always Bad?: by Patrick J. Michaels. Michaels is a senior fellow in environmental studies at the Cato Institute and author of Meltdown: The Predictable Distortion of Global Warming by Scientists, Politicians, and the Media. He says:

Have you ever read anything good about global warming? Why is all the news always bad? Objectively speaking, any environmental change should have both positive benefits and negative effects.




For example, theory predicts and observations confirm that human-induced warming takes place primarily in winter, lengthening the growing season. Satellite measurements now show that the planet is greener than it was before it warmed. There are literally thousands of experiments reported in the scientific literature demonstrating that higher atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations -- caused by human activity -- dramatically increase food production. So why do we only hear one side about global warming? Perhaps because there's little incentive for scientists to do anything but emphasize the negative and the destructive. Alarming news often leads to government funding, funding generates research, and research is the key to scientists' professional advancement. Good news threatens that arrangement.

Some Positives About Global Warming

Global Warming's Silver Lining: Wired News. Benny Peiser, a social anthropologist at Liverpool John Moores University, said: "From a purely evolutionary point of view, warm periods have been exceptionally good to us. Cold periods have been the troublesome ages." The possible positive side effects of global warming have researchers like Peiser ready for changes to come.

While Peiser admits the price of global warming will differ for every region of the world, "the benefits outweigh the costs by far," he said.
This could be especially true in regions of Russia where the harsh winters can kill hundreds in a single city.

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A group of 26 scientists and economists contributed to The Impact of Climate Change on the United States Economy, a book edited by Yale University professors Robert Mendelsohn and James E. Neumann. The book finds that a moderate warming will have a positive economic impact on the agriculture and forestry sectors. Since carbon dioxide is used by plants to capture and store energy, there may be a fertilizing effect as levels of the gas rise. This, combined with longer growing seasons, fewer frosts and more precipitation, among other factors, could benefit some economic sectors.

Another economic boost could come from the establishment of new trade routes as a direct result of global warming.
As rising temperatures melt glaciers in the Arctic and particularly in Alaska, a new, faster trade route could open up. The Bering Strait, a legendarily difficult passage for ships, could become an oceanic highway between the hemispheres as ice sheets disappear.

Business investors in the Arctic region (a former oxymoron) are anticipating an influx of everything from tax revenue to tourism. The seldom-used strait is set to become the Suez Canal of the north, cutting down travel time between Europe, America and Asia by as much as one-third. Experts predict the passage will be open for year-round travel within a decade. Less fuel will be consumed using this route,

A final potential upside to global warming is that with every degree Celsius warmer our planet gets, we could have up to 20 percent more calamari. Phillip Lee, director of the National Resource Center for Cephalopods, points out that squid are extremely sensitive to temperature, and individual cephalopods react to warmer weather by developing a larger body mass.
Squid, which are mostly protein, can grow significantly faster than other animals. The largest squid ever captured was 16 feet long and weighed in at 330 pounds. But stories of monster squid up to 60 feet have been around since the 1800s.

While optimists know not every outcome will be positive, they believe the overall effect will make us think back to the hysteria and wonder what the fuss was about.

Global Warming May Boost Crop Yields, Study Says: John Pickrell for National Geographic News.

Escalating greenhouse gas levels may significantly boost production of fruits and seeds in crops such as wheat, rice, and soybeans, according to a recent study.

Other researchers have summarized the positive effect of elevated carbon dioxide on leaves, stems and roots.

Damages and Benefits of Warming: "Health and Amenity Effects of Global Warming" Thomas Gale Moore, Senior Fellow, Hoover Institution, Stanford University.

A somewhat warmer climate would probably reduce mortality in the United States and provide Americans with valuable benefits. Regressions of death rates in Washington, DC, and in some 89 urban counties scattered across the nation on climate and demographic variables demonstrate that warmer temperatures reduce deaths. The results imply that a 2.5 deg. Celsius warming would lower deaths in the United States by about 40,000 per year. Although the data on illness are poor, the numbers indicate that warming might reduce medical costs by about $20 billion annually. Utilizing willingness to pay as a measure of preference, this paper regresses wage rates for a few narrowly defined occupations in metropolitan areas on measures of temperature and size of city and finds that people prefer warm climates. Workers today would be willing to give up between $30 billion and $100 billion annually in wages for a 2.5 deg. C increase in temperatures.

It could. Higher levels of CO2 would be conducive to plant growth. Additionally, higher average temperatures would mean longer growing seasons. Both of these factors would mean increased food production.

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Conclusions

I have presented for you only the tip of the iceberg on this subject, forgive the pun again. The effects of global warming of course will not all be good. On the other hand, when you read any liberal site, or any work by a scientist who depends on funding for his anti-global warming theses, there is nothing good stated about the phenomenon. Common sense tells you otherwise. Every change in circumstance has its positive effects and its negative effects.

The reason why these scientists and liberal sites lie, exaggerate and present only one side of the truth, as in Al Gore's movie, An Inconvenient Truth, is that they do want the green. Only not the green of the earth, but the green in their pockets. Environmentalism is big business, replete with grants and funding and devices and reputations. Al Gore pumped more CO2 into the atmosphere with his criss-crossing the globe condemning pollution than many factories do in a year, to say nothing of all the air-conditioned and the at-the-source coal-heated venues at which he spoke.

Another thing that nobody is speaking about is that ice ages do occur, and we cannot predict when one will arrive, or why. What if we are on the verge of an ice age, right at this moment? We will need all the global warming we can get if this would occur. These things are always in flux.

What I request is truth. This post in and of itself presents only one side of a truth, exactly as the global warming alarmists do. The whole truth will contain evidence from both sides whether global warming is really happening; the good things about global warming, the bad things about it; and accurate likely predictions of what life will be like if global warming occurs.

This series of posts demonstrates that it is not universally agreed that global warming will occur; that if it does occur it will not be as bad as the alarmists predict; and that if it does occur, there will be both positive and negative effects from it.

I again say that going green is a good thing, as long as we don't get hysterical about it. I repeat, you are not the devil if you buy a Hummer, and you are not an angel if you purchase a Prius.

Rock

(*Wikipedia is always my source unless indicated.)


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