6 Global Warming Side Effects That Are Sort Of Awesome
The way things are going, we can expect global warming to wipe out humanity in the next few years. Or never, it's not completely clear. So why dwell on negatives like drowning deaths and widespread panic? There's a bright side of our impending doom to look forward to and plenty of good things catastrophic climate change may bring to you (and the environment).
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#6.
It Could Delay a Far Worse Ice Age
In general, humans do better in extreme heat than extreme cold--a lot more of us live around the warm equator than the frigid poles. So it makes sense that global warming wouldn't be nearly the disaster that, say, a new Ice Age would be. Especially when you take into account the fact that we've yet to find crops that like to grow under three feet of ice.
A new Ice Age isn't the stuff of science fiction, either. These cooling periods have happened at least four times that we know about, caused by slight changes in the Earth's orbit around the Sun that happen from time to time. It's a regular cycle. Our current warming is not, however, part of that cycle. Right now we should be cooling down, but thanks to those brave souls who refuse to give up Hummers, make margaritas with diesel-powered blenders and drive their hovercrafts to get the daily mail, we're not. This may not be all bad news, if the warming will wind up delaying or blunting the effects of the next Ice Age, as some experts think it will.
Maybe it will at least stop this one.
On the Other Hand...
Of course, some might call this a draw as we may be trading an Ice Age for living on an overheated desert planet where everyone has to wear suits that make us drink our recycled pee and take sandworms to commute to work in the Spice mines where our boss is Sting in a Diaper.
In other words, the Earth doesn't have a thermostat that we can adjust up or down one or two degrees to keep us comfortable. What we humans need is as little change as possible, and we could be setting up a situation where we spend the next few centuries adapting to a warmer world and cutting greenhouse emissions, only to then get sucker punched by the next Ice Age when it eventually arrives.
#5.
Warmer Winters Means Fewer Deaths
We try to keep things light-hearted here, so let's put it this way: Every winter someone, or 10,000 someones, forgets to turn up grandma's thermostat and by the time Christmas rolls around the family gathers to discover a Grandma-cicle under the Christmas tree.
OK, that was actually much more disturbing than if we had just said it outright: Winter kills people. Not just from freezing to death, either; warmer winters will save people from dying of pretty much EVERYTHING. Studies have shown that cold causes more of almost every kind of death, from heart attacks to digestive system disorders to infectious diseases, all of which jump in cold winter temperatures. For example, respiratory disease jumps 149 percent in colder winters. Death by digestive system failure shoots up 113 percent. Even parasitic deaths leap by 112 percent despite the common wisdom that hot temperatures make for prime parasite paradise. And of course, warmer temps equal less ice which equal less vehicular manslaughter.
No exceptions.
Name a way to die and most likely colder temperatures increase the odds. Now here comes the freaky part: Scientists don't know why. One theory is cold temperature puts more strain on virtually every system of the body, and of course the fact that everybody is packed indoors probably helps spread bugs around. Either way, the cold is hard on us humans, and milder winters can only help.
Extreme cold makes literally everything worse.
On the Other Hand...
The above studies were done in the United States, and probably does apply to all industrialized countries with similar climates. Meanwhile, the people living near the equator are going to be getting their asses kicked by climate change--everything from coastal flooding, to drought in already-starving countries, to Malaria. Still... we're going to save so much on mittens here.
#4.
We May Grow More Food
If you're a farmer in America or Europe, or a multinational conglomerate that owns all the farms, global warming is your friend. As temperatures rise, areas formerly barren, like tundra, will begin to produce vegetation. In addition, increased temps will create longer growing seasons and yields will also benefit from fewer crop-killing freezes. Canada and parts of Europe could start growing more food right away.
Also, remember that plants eat CO2. The additional CO2 global warming brings will increase photosynthesis in plants, making the process more efficient, requiring less water. With new, water-sipping plants, not only can we expect more food, trees and agriculture with fewer resources, but a cheaper, easier way to create biofuels, which up to this point have created more ecological damage than good.
It could be a no-win situation.
Hell, what are we even worried about?
On the Other Hand...
Climate change also messes with rainfall patterns, and could turn a lot of the current farmland we depend on into the Dust Bowl. We just don't know. Maybe we'll be knee-deep in corn cobs. Maybe we'll all starve. It'll be a surprise! That's the thing, when you're talking about your food supply, uncertainty is automatically a bad thing. Most people would rather eat at a restaurant where they know they'll get a mediocre steak every time, than one where you may get either Kobe beef or a cow turd depending on the mood of the chef.
*sigh* If only Global Warming WERE real and not the biggest scam ever conceived. 15 years of no increase in warming, sea levels NOT rising, total amount of icecaps/glaciers unchanged, it was far warmer during the Medieval Warming Period, Egyptian Empire, Roman Empire, Greenland used to actually BE green etc. etc. etc.....
Replyam i the only one who thinks the canadian ice caps melting is extremely bias? thats the most unconservative thing i have heard. "cheaper goods! screw wildlife!" is basicly the message i got from that, not to mention the exploitation of the oil reserves up there.
Replyhello cheezking you will be happy to know that global warming increases potency of your beloved heroin.
can winter increase the chance of death for say having an insane demigod walk into you living room and put you through a wood chipper?
ReplyPlease dont dis people with psychosis accompanied by extreme hallucinations i am very offended...na just joking, probably, i dont see why not.
Co emissions trade is incredibly huge right now a tiny country like mine just sold its unused co to Japan for about our one whole years budget plus free electric cars and free charging network for the whole country
ReplyWhich is about as economically viable as trading Pokemon cards...
Global Warming is poorly named. It makes
ReplyThe summer hotter.
and
The winter colder.
yes, but combine the winder temps and the summer temps, then look at the summer and winter temps of the rest of the world and the AVERAGE temperature of the WHOLE DAMN WORLD is going up. THATS why it's called global warming.
cause the globe is warming.
The whole "winter colder" thing has a lot less science backing it up than the summers warmer bit, so that's not exactly fact yet.
Challenge Accepted.
ReplyJust throwing it out there, but a lot of lumber companions REPLANT what they chop down. Mind you, it'll take a while for it to grow again, but at least they aren't leaving it dead.
Reply Hide All See All 4 Replieslumber companions, what like beavers? When have they ever replanted a tree?
Anyway just consider how long it took to grow the first time
yeah, dunno what ^he's talkiong about with beavers, but...
lumber companies go for old-growth hardwoods, because you can actually use them for construction. the thing about old grown hardwood is that it takes about 100 years for a tree of that variety to reach a useful size (at least, useful for the construction industry).
we're gonna need that wood a lot sooner than 100 years.
That doesn't work in the rain-forest. Soils are very low in nutrients and one acre can hold around 50-100 types of trees that are of the deciduous flowering variety so when they are gone it is over.
no construction company would ever use hardwoods. lumber companies harvest and plant softwoods that grow rapidly. hardwoods are mostly harvested for finish work and trim work, decorative purposes. almost all of the woods used now are sustainable reharvesting.
Welllll..... plankton actually cause most of the oxygen we breathe... not plants...
ReplyPhytoplankton are plants...
jesus this was painfully biased. i don't think the cracked writers have ever written something balanced.
Reply Hide All See All 6 RepliesOMG EVERYTHING I DISAGREE WITH IS BIASED
Biased? Like how?
I apologize if I'm incorrect, but if you mean biased in the fact that they're admitting global warming exists and is bad in an article about global warming then yes, I guess that it's biased in that it utilizes facts and reality, but I don't think I've ever heard that called bias before.
They're just looking on the bright side.
Um...of course it's biased. Everything is f*****g biased. Balanced just means "agrees with you" anyway, so why would their humor articles need to be balanced?
This isn't Fox, darling, no one claimed a humor site would be balanced.
Since when was FOX balanced?
I would add something more to the Global Warming flamewar, but I'll let the "experts" here hack it out. What I do have to add is this "SHAME ON YOU CRACKED FOR ADDING THAT WRINKLY, BEEF-JERKY SKIN CANCER PATIENT THREE PICS UP!!! NONE OF US NEEDED TO SEE THAT!!!"
Replyyour reaction suggests that you needed to see it most of all
Actually that is Al Gore and he's 6 pics up.
Im pretty sure the global warming cancelling out an ice age thing was debunked as another bullshit news story exaggerating scientific findings out of proportion.
ReplyScientist: cyclic solar cooling of a fraction of a degree cancelled by global warming.
Media: ICE AGE AVERTED BY HUMMERS.
Great chanel on youtube which i learnt a lot from, potholer54, just gives scientific knowledge, no spin.
Global warming is the new pagan religion. Notice how most of those people who scream about it are left-wing atheists or agnostics. Global warming is either 1)not happening 2) happening, but not caused by humans or 3) happening, caused by humans, but not a big deal because the planet is self-regulating - more heat = more plants = more CO2 dissipation. Also = more clouds = less sunlight.
Reply Hide All See All 7 RepliesThere are a million factors affecting temperatures. For anyone to weigh in on how one factor affects temperatures is idiotic no matter how many degrees you have. Scientists do 180 degree turns every day. A few years ago, some claimed global cooling. Humans assuming they're changing the earth is massively egotistical.
Except every reputable climate scientist in the world, including places like China and Brazil where there would be a strong incentive to lie, agree that climate change is happening and we're causing it. It's a matter of hippies or New Age mumbo jumbo; it's straight forward science.
Will climate change kill billions of people? No. Will it kill millions? Almost certainly. We only have one atmosphere. It's irresponsible to conduct such a permanent experiment on it. That's the opposite of conservative.
Yes, great un-egotistical f.korambayil, claimer of what is and isn't egotistical.
Wait what, religion??? it implies no moral or spiritual code whatsoever.
Belief shouldnt have any effect on scientific knowledge.
Wrong, 4) it could be happening as the climatologists are predicting.
The planet is not self regulating, heating melts ice, which means less rays are reflected, so more are absorbed, so things get hotter, etc, there are both accelerating and decelerating factors to temperature change.
There are a million factors affecting volcanoes, earthquakes, and flooding so i suppose we should leave all those alone too, because we obviously cant predict any of those.
Yeah the 90,000,000,000 (that's 90 BILLION)tons of ice lost EACH YEAR (from the Greenland icecap) now is a myth and the never seen before islands around Greenland, we now see are just imaginary. Never mind that the climate of Charleston, SC in 1860 was the climate of Toronto, Canada in 1960. One problem we face is the warming is not scalar, and its not just greenhouse gases either. The warming effect is synergistic. The more warming the less snow and ice increasing the earth's albaido, the less of the sun's heat reflected back into space. Expanding world population itself adds to the problem as modern life consumes more power which increases the the heat and entropy produced right here. More buildings are erected which trap heat during the day and worst of all more paved roads and parking lots are added which soak up huge amounts of heat from the sun, that the previous grass and trees did not. When all the ice melts, the state of Florida will only exist during low tide, as its highest point was only 200' above sealevel which increased an inch just in the last decade. Only one glacier is not receding in the whole world. At least 6 of thev 15 glaciers in Glacier National Park have disappeared!
Stop drinking the corporate propaganda, these are the same folks that gave us Adolh Hitler, Benito Mussolini, and Tojo.
Well, there's two possibilities here: first off, you're trolling, which I'm honestly hoping is the case, but unfortunately I feel like may not be because people really do end up believing stupid s**t sometimes. Second off, you're just kind of sheltered and clueless, which it seems may be the case.
I was about to waste my time actually trying to argue here, but I've decided to skip it since if someone honestly still denies climate change, chances are they're the kind of people that no evidence whatsoever, no matter how straight forward or obvious, will ever change their mind. Those are the kinds of people that a fact could walk up and slap them in the face and they'd still deny it. Also, it's obvious by your nonsensical reasoning about heat somehow making more plants and clouds stopping sunlight somehow fixing things. I'm sure anyone who passed middle school could figure out why those are idiotic things to reason, but I'll just skim the surface by saying heat doesn't create more plants; most plants survive by sunlight hitting photon receptor cells in their leaves which excite electrons and set off a whole chain of events I won't go into here, but either way certain plants survive in certain temperatures; more heat doesn't really mean more plants. Also, as someone else here said, the majority of the oxygen produced on earth is created by plankton that go through photosynthesis, and climate change severely affects them and as far as I know is what's responsible for creating the big dead areas with no life in them due to all the plankton responsible for sea life dying off.
Also, what the hell do clouds even have to do with anything? I don't know what kind of straight up stupid understand one has to have regarding how the environment and atmosphere works to believe that being cloudy somehow would stop climate change, or that somehow there would be clouds covering the world due to climate change, but it's some twisted understanding that I don't follow.
Anyways, I've gone on long enough about something this patently ridiculous, because unfortunately a lot of frustration builds up when people get together to deny reality and believe idiotic s**t that ultimately affects all of us. Oh, and lastly, judging by your use of the term "pagan religion" and referring to "left wing atheists or agnostics" as not being you, I'm assuming you're the kind of person who has no problem believing in something that you can't see or feel first hand, and by all indications doesn't exist, so why would it be so hard to admit that something that does have real supporting evidence exists? That's always fascinated me about some people...
"The great death-god Cthulhu is coming for us" thus spoketh the chief prophet of the winds. "We must all sacrifice that which is most precious to us. No longer may you drive Hummers, they anger the gods. Remove all cans that spray mist, these too anger the creators." The great orator scanned the skeptical crowd. "If we do not give the gods these gifts, they shall descend upon us as a torrent of death. Fiery death..."
We have thus been warned.
Notice how most of the deniers are delusional religiots who think Jesus is coming next week, so who cares about climate anyway?
I'd honestly rather die of cold than of heat stroke. Sure, cold hurts at first, but then you die peacefully instead of in a pool of your own vomit. Heat stroke sucks and it has been slowly roasting people during the summer. But again, this isn't to be taken seriously since it's mostly sarcastic. So yeah. D:
Reply Hide All See All 3 RepliesLooks like someone didn't do the research... Dying of hypothermia would actually be rather torturous. As someone who really hates the cold, I'd rather risk heatstroke. I've had to help burn off the stubble in wheat fields when it was around 115F, and that was more comfortable for me than when the weather gets below 70F.
Nah there is a nice calm warming occurence as your body goes into hypothermic shock, evidently its somewhat pleasant.
Holy s**t people, cant we just agree that dying either way would potentially suck!?!?!
I don't believe that there is truely SIGNIFICANT man made global warming. By that I mean based on my scientific knowledge of the subject I believe that earths warming is natural and if we are effecting it by a couple of extra degrees the earth isn't going to blow up or catch on fire (this is not meant to be literal please don't take it seriously). Unless of coarse it was going to do the before in which case your right it might happen a few years sooner but that doesn't matter because I plan to be dead before then (also before you call me heartless I believe The human race easily could have wiped itself out by then and if not we should probably have developed some advanced space travel cause come on there are so many ways that we could be wiped out on this planet it's insane). Also global warming is obviously happening the debate is on wether or not man has had a large enough effect (if any) to impact the effects of earths warming and cooling cycles. I believe that it's almost impossible to get completely unbiased studies of this so I choose not to accept these beliefs until they can be proven and are not contradicted by well common sense.
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesThe last thing I want to say is that I don't think people who dissagree with me are idiots, that's arrogant. But I do believe that people who respond by calling a point of View stupid and cuss the person out for basically no reason are idiots, among other things. So if you would like to reply like that Go ahead I'm just going to laugh at you.
P.s. If it seems like I worded things complicatedly (I've been told I do that) I'm not trying to sound like a know it all I think big words are fun like threshold isn't that an awesome word.
Take some higher level science courses. They'll teach you all about it. You sound like you may possibly be a younger individual, and I understand not just going along with what you're told since what you're told can't always be trusted, but I'm guessing if I'm correct and you've still got school left that hopefully they'll go into all of this stuff firsthand. As a matter of fact if I remember correctly one of the first things we did in my freshman year college biology course in the lab was a short section going into a fair bit of detail on this very subject.
I know, right? Threshold is like a high school word! I'm surprised that you can use it in a syntactically correct manner! Who's a big boy? You're a big boy! That's right!
Before this conversation suffers from the discombobulation of personal bias. Please know that your views are caused by the miasma of biased opinions that are generated by PR companies to decrease the personal responsibility of corporations in the thermodynamic increase in the average temperature of the planet. I install doors so I nail down thresholds.
CO2 absorbs heat. By looking at the fossil fuels consumed by humans every year scientist have been able to use High school math to roughly predict how many more parts per million of CO2 every square meter of atmosphere will hold. They can tell you how much more heat that meter can hold and how much more the earths temperature will increase. Predictions started in the 70's and have been impressively accurate.
1. Truly
2. Affecting
3. Course
4. Whether
5. Disagree
6. Punctuation saves lives, and makes reading this inane s**t a little less tedious. (P.S. words in the middle of a sentence don't get capitalized, know-it-all)
Well at least he started his rant with "based on my scientific knowledge of the subject" so that we could all figure out before reading that long ass incomprehensible rant that he really doesnt know that much about what he is talking about, and that yes, he is probably starting high school this year.
#5 Not to mention that warmer winters is what caused the pine beetle infestation in Colorado, turning our forests into the next biggest forest fire in the making.
ReplyI knew that preferring hot weather over the cold put me ahead of the curve. Take that, friends who always tell me 'you can always put more clothes on...'! Yeah!
Reply Hide All See All 4 RepliesNot enough clothes in the world can make me move from SFL!
Some of us are more sensitive to the cold. I'm one of those people who still gets cold even with enough warm clothing to make it difficult to move. Give me 100+ F weather any day over anything colder than 70...
its called work harder
^ What the f**k does working harder have anything to do with this post? We get it, you work construction so you think you're the bees knees. But guess what asshole, even people that work hard can still hate the cold and prefer warm weather.
And, just for my two cents, I hate the cold also! Growing up in So FL, when it gets below 74 I have to put a sweater on. And dont even get me started on air conditioning! But yeah I always hate it when people tell me "well just put more clothes on," NO f**k THAT! I want to be able to move, and not have it take me 10 f*****g minutes to get my pants off to pee! I would rather be sweating my ass off, then have to wear 10 f*****g layers of clothes just to stay warm
Actually, global warming could CAUSE an ice age. It could f**k up the system that brings heat to Europe, and without that Europe, which is mostly further north than Wisconsin, would be in trouble.
ReplyActually, we are already in an Ice Age. Our current interglacial period is expected to end no sooner than five thousand years and no later than thirty thousand years. Secondly, there is no persuasive evidence that humans can shut down the gulf stream. The majority of the scientific community agrees that human activity may be altering the global climate, but our destructive capability does not extend to ocean currents
You do know that was just a movie, right?
fewer deaths is not a good thing! we need to reduce the human population if we're going to survive
Reply Hide All See All 5 RepliesGood, we'll begin with you
We need to die more to survive?
No, we need to find a way to quickly get to other galaxies and live on barren planets.
@Marching_Hare: More accurately, there are more humans than the planet can properly sustain. Too many people having sex and big families. We need to reduce the global population if we want to stick around and see the end of the world...
@VladYvhv, now see here, sir. i have too much sex all the time and i dont have a family.
YOU, sir, are obviously a biased, uneducated liberal hippy douche. either that or a biased, uneducated conservative and a racist. hard to tell.
On #3, wouldn't the route between Europe and eastern Asia be shortened by going through the Suez Canal?
ReplyAnd the Panama I believe
On the number five, I live in the tropics and its fraking hot in winter, its pisses rain like a drunk-mob from Beerfest from March to June and it dessicates the whole place from July to September then goes to raining cats and dogs until winter again, so I don't care if it freezes your arses up there. Hey, you already getting the worse winters ever while we toast like pancakes and drink booze and procreate like crazy. We can drink from age 18(or less in many cases) and yes we can legally marry at 16. In any case, if the world freezes over I doubt here in the tropics we'll get any colder than say Virginia, and that at mid-Winter, and if it boils up we can always migrate and take your jobs and return to toasty home in mid winter. Hey after all we are taught(compulsive and mandatory rule by the US since the 1900s) English since we are 4, while we master Spanish from infancy. No wonder almost all latin-americans hate and envy us Puertoricans. LOL. The only concern are the mega hurricanes, which is a word our ancestor invented and we got some awesome inventions that help us survive even a super-ultra-duper scale Cyclone. Now that invention is not something to share right now(evil laugh), but we will be marketing real soon(as soon as our lazy bones feel like it). The again a few hundred less of us may help put more of your tax in OUR pockets(ALL HAIL FEMA!). And maybe you forgot the most important bit, the number zero... more heat less clothes! Yeah baby show os some more of that!
ReplyThanks for the invite! I will be there tomorrow!
That was quite possibly one of the stupidest things I have ever read. I would like the last minute and a half of my life back, as well as the IQ points your stupidness just made me loose.