Blatant Reality

By Jonathan Williams

People always tend to look at the down side of Global Warming (be it man made or natural), but there are some benefits to it as well. Now, before I start going into what all the benefits are, I would like to preface it with saying that too much of anything is a bad thing. Therefore, there will come a point where too much warming will stop creating benefits and create more problems. With that being said, I don’t believe we are at that point where the world is too warm.

 

Also, I believe the warming we may be experiencing now is due to a natural variability (yes, I am a “skeptic”) and any of the drastic measures proposed in treaties like Kyoto or legislation like the Lieberman/Warner Act will not do anything to stop global warming.

 

Another thing to note is that I am by no means a climate scientist and the following is somewhat an amalgamation of several other scientists/economists/researchers ideas. Since even the best climate models have no idea exactly what the future will bring, some of the benefits listed below might not pan out but the flip side to that is there may be some unexpected benefits that we have not yet predicted.

 

Now, on to the list. Keep in mind the above paragraphs along with the fact that some of these benefits are only benefits if we act upon them.

1. Overall, Fewer Deaths Caused by Cold: Most people would agree that if the earth is warming, then the average temperature will be higher. This increase in temperature will lead to less deaths from cold related complications. Now before you get all up in arms saying that there will be more deaths caused by heat, you must understand that cold related deaths greatly outnumber heat related deaths each year.

    

   In Bjorn Lomborg’s book “Cool it,” he argues that an increase in temperature by just 3.6 degrees F would increase heat related deaths in Britain by about two thousand but decrease cold related deaths by twenty-thousand. Thats good news when you consider that for the 2005/2006 winter, 25,700 people died in cold related deaths which is much more than the predicted 6,000 heat related deaths in the coming years.

2. More Water Overall: If the world does warm by 3.6 degrees F, the average precipitation worldwide will increase by 7%. Now Gore would have you believe that this water is going towards places where we really don’t need water that much and away from areas that do need the precipitation. However, Lomborg would make the point that a warming world will have even less people that are water stressed. Here is a map that shows the water availability of most the world.

    

   Lomborg states that without global warming, people living in water stressed regions will increase to 3 billion (by 2100) but with global warming, the number will be at 1.7 billion, 300 million lower than today. With fresh water becoming one of the major issues in the world, this definitely sounds like a benefit.

3. Warmer Winters: When looking at the trend for when the warming is happening, one will find that the good majority of the warming is occurring during the winter. Not only will this lead to less deaths as stated above, it will also potentially lead to longer growing seasons. This of course is on the whole a good thing with increased food production being one of the benefits.

    

   However, one must take into account that this past winter was one of the coldest and most snow field winters we have had in a while so we might not be able to count on “warmer winters” in the future.

4. More CO2 = Better Growing Seasons: Another thing that people miss is the fact that more CO2 in the air will contribute to more plant life (Photosynthesis 101). Now some people tend to think that we are the reason for the increase CO2 (which we are to an extent) but there are other factors involved too. A warmer world also releases more CO2 into the atmosphere because the oceans (one of the main sources of CO2) won’t be able to hold as much dissolved CO2 in them (Chemistry 101).

    

   Already we are beginning to see this with the world becoming greener than in the past. According to Fred Singer and Dennis Avery in the book “Unstoppable Global Warming,” wheat production alone could increase by 70% with an increase of 100ppm of CO2.

    

   And while I am on this topic of CO2, there is no such thing as CO2 “pollution.” The CO2 that comes out of your car is exactly the same that we, along with (almost) every other creature on this planet, exhale. Its chemically identical. So if your car is polluting by emitting CO2, so is Al Gore and all the other greens by just breathing. “Anthropological” CO2 and “natural” CO2 are the exact same molecule.

5. Warmer Temps = More arable land: Another things that is often cited is that we will lose a lot of arable land do to global warming. What people don’t take into account is that we will also gain a lot more land to cultivate. This is good news for the folks living in the colder regions. For example Greenland is now able to support cattle for the first time in hundreds of years and it is largely contributed to global warming.

    

   If you look on a map, you will notice that there is a lot of land in the north that is fairly uninhabitable and almost completely useless in growing crops. This land in Canada and Russia will greatly benefit from a warmer climate.

 

Now do these benefits outweigh the negative impacts of a warming world? In my mind they do. A warmer world seems to offer more chances of opportunity which may help the world benefit as a overall. Will there be changes we will have to deal with? Sure, but the world isn’t static (never has been and never will be) so change is something that we will never be able to get rid of.

 

Overall, if our world does warm by a couple of degrees, there will be changes. However, one mustn’t only think about the gloom and doom aspects because there are benefits as well. Now will these benefits truly outweigh the negatives? Only time will tell but I believe that the ingenuity of man will be able to make the best out of any situation nature may deal to us.