The climate change consensus extends beyond climate scientists

[sendler]

"The unfortunate fact is, degrowth is inevitable. This is because it’s a basic fact of physics—“common sense,” as Smil puts it—that GDP cannot grow infinitely on planet Earth. There’s no form of economic activity that can be completely divorced from the finite materials provided by the Earth, regardless of who governs it: wealth is intrinsically tied to material resources. Some economic activities are more obviously dependent on materials. Agricultural production, for instance, is very obviously bound by material limits. There’s only so much arable land area, only so much ammonium nitrate, and only so many hands to till the land. Heavy manufacturing also has very clear physical limits: there are only so many minerals, only so much iron, copper, lithium, cobalt, and aluminum."
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https://www.currentaffairs.org/2019/...3NTdkBNLTJwU2M

[sendler]

"The founding fathers of economics—luminaries including Adam Smith, David Ricardo, and John Stuart Mill—shared a belief that growth was finite, and that the reason for limits lay in the natural world. Writing in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, they based this conclusion on three observations. First, there was a limited supply of land. Second, all economic processes required at least some products of the land as raw materials. And third, the productivity of the land was subject to the law of diminishing marginal returns: each additional bit of labor and capital added to a plot of land will offer less and less benefit until no more gains are possible. Until the middle of the nineteenth century, leading economists recognized the interdependence of natural and economic systems."
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https://newrepublic.com/amp/article/...WGhHsKFa-zTGdA

[sendler]

I'm not a big fan of Adam Smithian free market economics either but I guess the article should have said EVEN Adam Smith had thought about the limits to growth on a finite planet.

[freebeard]

EVEN Adam Smith had thought about the limits to growth on a finite planet.

Glass half full: We're all gonna die.

Glass half empty: Space beckons.

[Hersbird]

Originally Posted by NeilBlanchard

Two questions: who is an "alarmist"? And what do you think they would "like" nature to act like?

Do pine beetles have science, that tells them they should die off during the winter - even if it isn't cold enough to kill them?

In what way does "science" say that warming will help the climate?

That's technically four questions. But many on the man made global warming side are alarmists. Not just let us give you a few ideas of what we think might happen, but go to the point of traumatizing kids if all ages robbing them of their childhood in hope they will grow up to be good little soldiers in what no doubt will ne a century long progressive revolution like all progressive revolution before.

They would like nature to act like their worst predictions predict.

Do you need science for nature to act as nature does? Nature just is and humans are part of it.

Science in relation to the topic of my original post, that agricultural production improves with warming, was pretty conclusive. What you might call settled or overwhelming if I wanted to be an alarmist. That didn't fit, you can allow even the slightest crack in the dam to stand so it has been virtually erased.

[redpoint5]

I had "Blue Planet 2" on in the background last night, and Attenborough mentioned that a 2C increase in ocean temperature, even just momentarily, can cause coral to die. My immediate thought was that means somewhere else temperatures have just warmed to the right temperature for coral to begin growing. Then there's the other factor, that ocean depth has to be just right for coral to grow, so that rising depth makes certain areas unsuitable for coral growth... again, that just means some other area is now made suitable for coral growth.

Pointing out changes in environment isn't a compelling argument. A compelling argument shows that something is lost and not gained back anywhere else.

As I always point out, our direct actions always cause way more disruption than indirect consequences. For instance, oceans fish populations might be affected by temperature changes, but overfishing is an even more severe problem.

[freebeard]

Science in relation to the topic of my original post, that agricultural production improves with warming, was pretty conclusive. What you might call settled or overwhelming if I wanted to be an alarmist. That didn't fit, you can [not?] allow even the slightest crack in the dam to stand so it has been virtually erased.

Did you catch the opinion on 'settled science' in Permalink #7249?

'Virtually' is ambiguous in a Simulation Universe.

[sendler]

Originally Posted by redpoint5

I had "Blue Planet 2" on in the background last night, and Attenborough mentioned that a 2C increase in ocean temperature, even just momentarily, can cause coral to die. My immediate thought was that means somewhere else temperatures have just warmed to the right temperature for coral to begin growing.

The problem is the rate at which these changes are occurring. What historically took 10's of thousands of years, we are doing in 100 years. Coral, trees, ect can only migrate across the Earth from one place to another at a very limited speed.
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Evolution to adapt to changing ocean PH can only happen even slower. Based on thousands of generations of genetic mutation of survival of the fittest.
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We are bowling over the biosphere much faster than it can migrate or adapt.

[litesong]

Originally Posted by sendler

The problem is the rate at which these changes are occur(r)ing. What historically took 10's of thousands of years, we are doing in 100 years.

Also included are time-dependent problems circling frozen AGW denier, republican & libertarian inabilities to change their political entreachments, even as AGW bombs land on their positions, such as:
http://iwantsomeproof.com/extimg/siv...olar_graph.png

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by sendler

The problem is the rate at which these changes are occurring. What historically took 10's of thousands of years, we are doing in 100 years. Coral, trees, ect can only migrate across the Earth from one place to another at a very limited speed.
.
Evolution to adapt to changing ocean PH can only happen even slower. Based on thousands of generations of genetic mutation of survival of the fittest.
.
We are bowling over the biosphere much faster than it can migrate or adapt.

Good point, and that's what I'm often saying, that it isn't the change that is the problem, it's the rate of change.

The rate of change dictates the rate of stress on all organisms.

While plants and animals cannot accelerate their adaptation consciously, humans can. This is what freebeard suggests when talking about hardening our infrastructure. Hardening infrastructure may be an easier/cheaper solution to the problem. We're pretty good at adapting farming to where it's most suitable too.