10-27-2018, 08:17 AM
(This post was last modified: 10-27-2018, 08:34 AM by Bill the Piper.)
Eric the Green Wrote:..... Several studies in the last year or so have suggested that sea levels are not only rising, but the rate of increase is actually accelerating.
Just this month, a paper in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences suggested that sea levels have been rising by an average of about 3 millimeters (around one-tenth of an inch) per year since the 1990s, and that the rate is gradually speeding up. If the process continues at its current rate, sea levels could rise by more than 2 feet by the end of this century alone.
Other recent studies have also suggested that previous estimates of sea-level rise, under a variety of future climate scenarios, may be too modest. Several papers in the last year, for instance—including an October paper in Environmental Research Letters and a December paper in Earth's Future—suggest that better accounting for some of the physical processes affecting ice loss in Antarctica could significantly increase estimates of future sea-level rise. Under severe climate change scenarios, these new studies suggest that sea levels could rise by more than 4 feet by the end of the century.
These 4 feet don't seem much. And this is what happens "under severe climate change scenarios". The real change will be probably 2 or 3 feet. I don't feel like worrying about that.
Quote:Global average sea-level could rise by nearly 8 feet (2.5 meters) by 2100 and 50 feet (15 meters) by 2300 if greenhouse gas emissions remain high and humanity proves unlucky, according to a review of sea-level change and projections by Rutgers and other scientists.
These predictions are bad science fiction, nothing more. The technologies of 2100, let alone 2300 will be radically different than ours. First of all, oil will be long gone. Also, the development of nuclear fusion will mean combustion will not be used as a source of energy because in comparison with fusion it's comically ineffective.
By 2300 we will have colonised Mars and built habitats inside asteroids. So the burden of human and transhuman civilisation won't be placed on the Earth alone. Then our descendants will be able to undertake a rewilding project on the home planet if they want.
Quote:We have no right to kill off any species, and all are important to global ecology. No conflict exists beween ecology and economy. Saving a species does not hurt the global economy. It may require slowing development in certain places.
This slower development might be a cause of someone's death. Imagine people sacrificed on the altar of Gaia. Greens certainly don't intend to kill people, but deaths caused by malnutrition and infections still happen. The only cure is economic development.
Under my value system, human life is above anything else. I thought it's common sense.