Thoughts on Climate Change

I've been wondering...

Hundreds of millions of years ago, we know the Earth was a warmer, wetter sort of place. Perhaps that was because there were more greenhouse gases in the atmosphere than there are today. Perhaps the reason it changed to a colder, drier place was that for hundreds of millions of years plant life was slowly but inexorably sequestering ever greater amounts of carbon into the surface of the Earth as each succeeding generation of plant life thrived, then died.

Maybe the climate we are changing is the climate we are restoring to a past state by releasing all that sequestered carbon. Maybe the world would end up a warmer, wetter place overall and more of it would be habitable for ALL life than is sustained at present.

Maybe.

I had a look at how much land would be inundated by a rise in sea level of 6 metres. The absolute amount of land is large in area (a third of Irian Jaya / West Papua disappears after only 2 metres) and much of it is in places where a lot of people live now (Bangladesh, Florida, US eastern seaboard, New Orleans), but the relative amount of land on a global scale is very small. Were we not divided by nationalities and shackled to a fairly rigid view of individual private property (as opposed to some more flexible measure of private value / potential), moving to adjust to the new shore lines would be relatively simple to do. You would just do it and do in a way that made sense and was as equitable and practical as possible. OK, some micro countries would disappear under the waves, but the homes of much larger numbers of people have in the past been destroyed in single cities to build better highways. Life goes on. Those displaced are generally assisted and provided for in some way. Best case, of course.

The more difficult consequence of climate change is ecosystems and habitats. These have evolved for the most part slowly over what we would consider very long periods of time. Sudden significant changes to climate can have the effect of a great clearing out (ok - "extinction", I said it) of species that did depend on the climate remaining as it was where they were living. Gaps in the ecosystems thus left may not be filled by evolution for millions of years.

To some extent, those problems could be mitigated by actively moving plants and animals from one area where they had previously enjoyed a particular climate to a new area where that climate was now coming into existence. People would have to understand that they were more adaptable and therefore secondary to creatures and plants who were less adaptable. In the move to new ranges, the least adaptable would win - at least initially.

Instead of allowing species to falter and die for lack of mobility or lack of overlap between old and new regions, human civilisation could function as a real 'Noah's Ark' and move endangered species to new places with the climate they required in order to survive. Granted, that might not be a viable approach for animals and plants that currently live at the extremes at either end of the climate spectrum should those extremes disappear entirely from the planet. For example, polar bears might have to be migrated to Antartica where there is land and ice where they need it. They may need to be kept separate from the penguins for obvious reasons. At least at first.

I know more than a few Canadians who would not mind a more temperate climate one little bit. I imagine Scandinavians and Russians would feel the same way. Perhaps a few Scots and Icelanders as well. Americans in the South West looking at hotter temperatures and less rain (and therefore water) might not be so happy. "CSI: Miami" might have to become "CSI:Orlando" when the former disappears beneath the waves.

It may well be that the price paid by all life on Earth for our unintended change to the climate would be high in the short, medium and long term. Property values in some places would evaporate, destroying the capital resources that might aid in paying for any transition. Who will - literally - ant to buy the fabled swampland in Florida when 30% of the most populous areas in Florida are converted to salt water swamps by climate change?

But my curiosity has been aroused. What WOULD the world be like if it was several degrees warmer and the seas did rise? Might it actually end up being......BETTER?

A mischievous thought, I know....but: "What if?" We may well find out if the lack of real commitment to addressing the causes of climate change remains the norm.