My brother says...

[barondave]

Feeling the effects of global warming?
by Joseph Romm

As the 2006 hurricane season begins, three questions hang over Florida.

• Were the 2004 and 2005 hurricane seasons just part of a natural cycle, or have we entered a new period of global-warming-enhanced hurricane seasons?

• As global warming leads to ever-rising sea levels, how will that affect low-lying South Florida?

• What can the state do to help avert the worst climate change impacts?

Comments

[pgdudda.livejournal.com]

My opinion? It's already too late to prevent change due to global warming. The question isn't "How do we stop it?", but rather, "How do we minimize the effects so that they are merely bad instead of catastrophic?"

[barondave.livejournal.com]

It's already going to be catastrophic. The question is, "Will humans continue to be the dominant life form on the planet."

[pgdudda.livejournal.com]

Bad = having time to move people out of harm's way
Catastrophic = letting them just sit there till they become refugees

[cakmpls.livejournal.com]

My minimally informed opinion is that the recent hurricane seasons were part of a natural cycle, but one that may have been exacerbated by global warming, which is also a natural cycle, but one that has probably been exacerbated by human activity.

The problem is that much of human "development" has taken place during a relatively benign period as far as weather goes. So humans have built large cities in places that are, from the viewpoint of millennia, really stupid locations for people to live.

JMHO.

[barondave.livejournal.com]

recent hurricane seasons were part of a natural cycle, but one that may have been exacerbated by global warming

It's much much much much much worse than that. We've just started to see "exacerbated by global warming". Even if we completely stop greenhouse gas emissions tomorrow, a billion people will be killed or displaced within your lifetime.

The liberals are right and the conservatives are dead wrong. This is why we have to kick the bastards out.

[bchbum-98.livejournal.com]

When I hear people talk about the high cost of reducing fossil fuel emissions, in the form of windmills, mass transit, more efficient automobiles, recycling, etc, my response is that every coastal city will end up like New Orleans. The cost of effective levies in Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington, Miami, Tampa, Houston, San Diego, LA, San Fran, Portland, Seattle, etc. would be a whole lot more expensive than being liberal today. Ocean levels may rise 40 feet in our lifetime!

What percent of the U.S. electrical demand could be supplied by wind power if we had just spent $320 billion on windmills instead of the war?