Don,

I don't know if it's a backward, medieval sort of thing, but in the olden days, when there was a crisis or problem, if people could find someone to blame - the Jews, of course, Gypsies, women are always good value - and punish them, then the problem would go away. And the fact that it didn't proved that there were more witches, more cunning and devious followers of Satan, to find and burn, more conspiracies to believe in.

Trumpf is obviously a believer in this sort of magic thinking. Our resident Village Idiot is another - in his case, anybody who looks Chinese, because, ipso facto, by looking Chinese, they all must support the totalitarian dystopian CCP. I'll have to check that out with my Vietnamese friends.

On the other hand, capitalism is infinite in its ability to seek out opportunity: As Rahm Emmanuel, mayor of Chicago and Clinton/Obama confidante, noted, every crisis is (or may well be) an opportunity. So although I do think that there may well be climate change occurring because of human activity, mainly in the production of heat, I am confident that capitalism and the constant search for new ways to make a dollar will prevail. [Afterpay - who would have thought ?]

Thank you for your thought-provoking articles, Don.

Joe

Optimum Global Mean Surface Temperature (GMST) for ecosystems:

Geological and palaeontological evidence suggests the optimum GMST for ecosystems is that which existed around the Early Eocene Climate Optimum [1] and during the ‘Cambrian Explosion’, i.e. ~25–28°C (i.e. ~10–13°C warmer than present).

Mass extinction events:

1. Most major extinction events [2] have been due to bolide impacts, volcanism and ice ages, not global warming

2. The Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum (PETM) was due to warming but it was less severe than most mass extinctions. “The most dramatic example of sustained warming is the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum, which was associated with one of the smaller mass extinctions.” [3]. The PETM occurred when GMST was above optimum for life on Earth.

3. The Permian-Triassic Boundary mass extinction event has recently been reported to have been caused by extensive volcanism that caused acidification and an ice age, not global warming (Baresel et al., 2017) [4]

4. Apart from the PETM there appear to have been no major extinction events that were due to global warming when GMST was below the optimum (approximately ~7–13°C above present)

Rapid warming:

5. Even very rapid warming is beneficial for ecosystems. Coxon and McCarron (2009) [5] Figure 15:21 shows temperatures in Ireland, Greenland and Iceland warmed from near LGM temperatures to near current temperatures in 7 years 14,500 years BP and in 9 years 11,500 year BP. Life thrived during these events.

6. Biosphere productivity is increasing during the current warming – the planet has greened by about 14% during 35 years of satellite observations (Donohue et al., 2013) [6], Zhu et al. (2016), Greening of the Earth and it drivers [7]). GMST increased by about 0.4°C during the period analysed (1982–2010)

Biosphere productivity is higher in warmer climates:

7. Biosphere productivity is higher at low latitudes (warmer) than at high latitudes (colder). Gillman et al. (2015) ‘Latitude, productivity and species richness’ [8]
<blockquote> Contrary to the recent claims, we found strong support for a negative relationship between latitude and annual NPP of forests with all datasets, and NPP was significantly greater in tropical forests than in temperate forests. Vascular plant richness was positively correlated with NPP.</blockquote>

8. Biomass density (tC/ha) ~10 times higher in tropical rainforests than extratropical [9].
https://www.tandfonline.com/na101/home/literatum/publisher/tandf/journals/content/tcmt20/2014/tcmt20.v005.i01/cmt.13.77/20140410/images/large/tcmt_a_10816421_f0002.jpeg
Source: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.4155/cmt.13.77

A rough calculation of biosphere and soil organic carbon density from Figure 2 charts A and B shows that carbon density decreases from tropics to high latitudes, as follows (tC/ha versus latitude):
Soil Organic Carbon: y = -0.125x + 105
Biomass: y = 110.31e-0.026x
Total: y = -1.975x + 241

9. The mass of carbon in the terrestrial biosphere has increased substantially during the warming from the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM). Jeltsch-Thömmes et al. 2019 [10], find that the mass of carbon in the terrestrial biosphere increased by about 40% (850 GtC) from LGM to preindustrial times. This compares with 10%-50% (300-1000 GtC) increase from LGM to the pre-industrial inventory of about 3,000 GtC stated in IPCC AR4 WG1 Chapter 6 [11]. This also indicates that warming is beneficial for ecosystems.

These points suggest that global warming is net beneficial for ecosystems when GMST is below the optimum, which empirical evidence indicates may be around 7–13°C above present GMST.

Global impacts at +3°C GMST by impact sector

Many Integrated Assessment Models have been developed to estimate the economic impact of global warming. The three most cited are DICE, FUND and PAGE. Of these only FUND disaggregates the economic impacts by impact sector.

The economic impact of the main impact sectors at 3°C global average temperature increase (relative to 2000), as projected by FUND, in % of world GDP are:

Impact sector Impact
Agriculture & Forestry: +0.61%
Storms: -0.01%
Sea level rise: -0.02%
Health: -0.03%
Ecosystems: -0.16%
Water supply: -0.17%
Energy: -0.89%
Total: -0.68%
Total excluding Energy: +0.21%

This indicates that FUND projects the overall impact is positive if the energy impact sector is excluded. Lang and Gregory, 2019 [1] finds the energy sector impact projections may be incorrect and should be slightly positive. In this case the impact of 3°C global warming on the world economy (i.e. total of all impact sectors) would be more positive.

cont ...

... cont:

Empirical data for each impact sector suggests the impacts for most or all sectors may be more positive than estimated by FUND.

1. Agriculture – may be more positive due to higher productivity, including as a result of increasing atmospheric CO2 concentration [2]

2. Storms – frequency and intensity decreases as global warming increases

3. Sea Level rise – the amount of sea level rise may be overestimated in FUND

4. Health – various studies indicate warming is beneficial for health – e.g. 5 to 20 times more deaths from cold events than from hot events

5. Ecosystems – paleo evidence, net primary productivity and amount of carbon tied up in the biosphere versus temperature (latitude) show that ecosystems are more productive at warmer temperatures.

6. Water supply – I don’t know how this will respond to global warming

7. Energy – With non-temperature drivers excluded FUND projects that +3°C global warming would negatively impact the US economy by 0.8% GDP. However, Lang and Gregory (2019) [1], using empirical data for the USA, finds that 3 °C global warming would positively impact the US economy by 0.07% GDP (see Table 2). The paper infers that global warming would also positively impact the global economy.

Conclusion:

If these findings are correct, there is no valid justification for policies and actions to reduce global warming. Such policies are reducing global economic growth and slowing the rate of improvement in human wellbeing.

References:

[1] Lang, P.A.; Gregory, K.B. Economic impact of energy consumption change caused by global warming. Energies 2019, 12, 3575. https://doi.org/10.3390/en12183575

[2] Dayaratna, K.D.; McKitrick, R.; Michaels, P.J. Climate sensitivity, agricultural productivity and the social cost of carbon in FUND. Environmental Economics and Policy Studies 2020, https://doi.org/10.1007/s10018-020-00263-

Peter. Well, you seem to be able to read if not comprehend? The sun waxes and the joint warms up, as the figures suggest, then the sun wanes and the ice advances and the climate becomes a little milder during a waning phase like the current one we've been in since the mid-seventies. (NASA)

The tundras are doing something never witnessed in living memory/recorded history. They're melting and releasing billions of tons of additional methane, annually, which is at least 21 times more efficacious as a greenhouse gas than CO2.

If you and all the other super-smart eggheads/circular thinkers, don't get that this is a problem that we need to address now! With urgent alacrity. Then we are doomed. See Allan Savoy's current satellite photos, which show SFA greening, but runaway desertification) Even so, the answer is and has always been Nuclear.

By the way, did you know that the "cool burning" of one-hectare of grassland releases as much CO2 as 6,000 cars. (See Allan Savoy and sustainable agriculture/farming.)

It's half smart drongos like you, with your indubitable facts figures and charts that prove little than you studied history rather well.

Your alleged expertise prevents the change we need and you know it!

Those who give a shite, should just take a running jump off a very tall building and leave you to it! Cause you are here to simply prevent change! There are far too many pedantic single issue, small picture folks, who "think" as you do!

So why should we bother about you and your, locked and bolted mindset, status quo ilk?

It's not yet too late to do something about ruaway climate change! And we could if we could but sideline/deal out the "historically accurate" contrarian buffoons!
Alan B.