Ray, your list of Doomsville items should be balanced by the good things CO2 increases achieve. That is of course, assuming that we have evidence that it really is people who are increasing the CO2 levels and not something odd like termites and bacteria. There are a LOT of those little blighters [the insect and micro world beasties].
It makes sense to me that we are achieving some CO2 increase because we have pipelines working flat out all day every day pumping the stuff to the burners, but we are trying to fill a leaky tank.
The deeper we fill it, the faster it runs out. So the question is how much is our doing and I believe the answer to that is something like 10% or 15% of the CO2 in the atmosphere is achieved by us.
The next question is what are the good and bad effects?
We only ever seem to hear about the bad effects, such as your list. We don't hear about the good effects. That tendentious listing tells me that we are dealing with dishonest people pushing a barrow rather than objective analysts figuring out what's going on. Would you buy a used car from somebody who lists only the bad points? You'd feel obliged to say "Hey, that car's not all that bad. Look at the new coat of paint, check out the wear remaining on the tyres, even the spare. How about that upholstery? Still pretty good, with only a few holes".
It's the overall package which matters.
I haven't seen a summation of value of all the extra plant growth. The value of protection against another glaciation [which is due]. The happiness of those in Russia, New Zealand and other places which spend less time under ice. The increased fish production [assuming CO2 is a limiting variable in oceans and not some other variable such as iron - there must be plenty of places where CO2 is the limiting factor, where iron supplies flow into the ocean, perhaps from the Amazon, Nile, Waikato, and whatever river empties out from Pittsburgh and other rust belt towns].
Where glaciers used to flow, New Zealand is now covered in grape vines [the Kawarau River valley for example].
Those nasties you mention are trivial in my neck of the woods. Hail is not as common now as I recall from decades past. As a child in the 1950s, I saw 2 inches of hail dumped. It was very impressive. Hail was more common [according to my admittedly dodgy memory]. In 1984, I saw almost an inch dumped. Now, hail is a rarity, lasts a minute or two, melts and is gone. Coral troubles are very localized issues. The average rice grower in China and India and the Kalahari bushman are unconcerned by the Great Barrier Reef. That's assuming coral woes are due to CO2 increases in the ocean surface.
What are all the good things about CO2 being increased from ice-age levels? There's a hint to my favourite improvement.
Aquaculture should get a big boost. People could add nutrients such as iron and nitrogen [or whatever's needed] and turn huge areas into infestations of marine life. Killing off sharks would be a good idea as they would proliferate at the top of the improved food chain and would hijack the profits. Sharks also have the nasty habit of eating people, so making some of them extinct would be good. I wonder whether Japanese would like to eat seals instead of whales? There would be more seals and killer whales with some shark reduction.
There are many good effects with global warming and CO2 increased.
One of the bad effects is supposed to be higher sea levels due to expansion as the oceans warm. As the tsunami on Boxing Day reminded people, it's not the gradual sea level increases that matter, it's the sudden large ones. Not that that was large. A decent bolide in the Pacific would shut up talk about earthquake-induced tsunamis [which can't be very big] and make worries about warming ocean expansion trivial.
Mqurice |
