From: Eugen Leitl (eugen@leitl.org)
Date: Fri Apr 12 2002 - 12:30:35 MDT
On Fri, 12 Apr 2002, Samantha Atkins wrote:
> Sea level going up by 20-something meters will lose us much current
> coastal real-estate. Look at how many major cities that involves and
Yes, but none of it will happen overnight. We're talking decades to
centuries here.
> then tell me their loss will not hurt us much. Also, we are talking
> potential thermal run-away here, not simply changes to coastline.
The flip will be nonlinear according to most models, but this is still not
TEOTWAWKI. Things will become in fact colder and wetter where I sit.
Incidence of floods and storms in other places will greatly increase,
that much looks probable.
> And there is the small additional problem of the ozone layer holes
> getting bad enough to dose us with (more) unhealthy levels of UV.
Yes, that's a problem, but here carbon dioxide is innocent, for a change.
Since we're talking about greenhouse gases, how come we only focus on a
minor contributor (carbon dioxide) and ignore methane, and fluorocarbons?
> This things are not something I think we can screw around with because
> we think it will not "even hurt us badly".
I agree that we shouldn't screw around with it without dire need, but I
see a problem enforcing it in the real world (industralization is much
desired in many still undeveloped places, and in developed part of the
world the diverse lobbies are very interested in opening new export
markets).
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