If Al Gore is right ...thats a pretty big IF from a pretty big blowhard

I think the problem for agriculture is not a gradual shift in rainfall and temperature but more extreme variations within a season. Examples are frosts occurring during the fruit ripening period or rain falling in intermittent deluges rather than steady showers. That's one reason I believe GW is already more damaging than we think. There is also a strong connection with fossil fuel use via fertiliser manufacturing and the tendency to use coal fired electricity for increased air conditioning and light rail. Several European countries are going that way despite having signed Kyoto. If these problems are not already evident to most they will be within a few short years

GW leads to less frosts and is actually cited as evidence for such....

With all the information and articles on Global Warming, and I do believe most of the dire predictions, I never seem to see any reference to the quantity of people on this planet. Over 40 years ago I read Paul Erlick's book "The Population Bomb" and took good note of what he said and how he felt the increasing volume would affect us all. Every Western government is committed to expansion on this finite planet and most continue to subsidise people to breed...."One for Mum, one for Dad and one for the county" as out treasurer exhorts. No one except the Chinese took any notice over where we were all heading and in the name of progress we are now paying the penalty. Who are the people who will look after and pay the taxes for the elderly to survive people ask? Well all that should have been a consideration many years ago and we will now have the inevitable over-lap in generations, as the population has to fall to remain sustainable. Three billion in the 60s and now over 6 billion and climbing. Am I the only one in step ?

“Should those of us living in low lying coastal areas consider selling out now?”
Probably, for many. Widespread, are areas which should never have been selected for permanent habitation in the first place: sitting-ducks for wipe-out at some time under present climatic conditions; without global warming considerations. Geoscience Australia has tried to alert the public via its geohazards program, dealing particularly with cities. Much of the low-lying east coast already has built-in impermanence.
“And what about the land?” Yes indeed - already over-stressed under present land-use practices and (and present, historical and recent geological) climate restraints. About a quarter of this planet’s biological mass is composed of fungi; largely within the surface layers of the soil. Australian agriculture and farming has removed much of this, via erosion and practices generally working against it, not with it. Agriculture here has an affinity with mining practice – destruction of capital, slaving to survive the dictates of market forces. Again, there is already built-in impermanence well before change arrives.
“global warming might eventually remove up to 20 per cent of the gross domestic product from the world economy.” Could very well be, and from the above it can be seen that we are already on a knife-edge; over-committed by virtue of present circumstances. But the economic system by which we currently live is dedicated to increasing the pressure on coastal communities and upon the land which provides food, clothing, and export earnings.
The forthcoming government following the next election, from either side of the political divide, is committed beforehand to continue increasing community numbers – currently at 1.32 per cent. This will multiply by one and a half the present population in 30 years.
“Who will be the winners and who the losers in the climate change lottery in Australia over the next 30 years?” Under present political and economic direction, Everyone will be a loser. We are not coping sustainably now, in catering for present numbers.
Climate change will multiply present problems, which will be multiplied again by population increase.

I agree with the last post: 'Under present political and economic direction, Everyone will be a loser. We are not coping sustainably now, in catering for present numbers.'

We are either talking in the language of denial, a prime example is our PM, and Treasurer, or our 'green' Premiers and Civic leaders who are talking the talk, 60% target reductions, but when you examine their actual achievements in greenhouse reduction, and scrutinise their strategies, it's apparent that their approaches have no chance for making the level of significant change indicated by the CSIRO.

Our governments' fundamental policy flaw is to rely on market 'choice' between products and services that are high emitters or low GHG emmitters. Tough manditory Australian Standards are urgently needed to be imposed by governments to give industry and the general public the clear direction required. Carbon dioxide and methane should be heavily regulated to a bare minimum. Their accummilated abundance is toxic to life as we know it.

By taking bold policy leadership on greenhouse reduction now, we can show the world what Australians' value. We may just earn some respect in the world for our efforts and achievements, replacing our awful reputation as world's worst (per capita) emitters of CO2 to the world's lowest. To achive that kind of change will mean fundamental changes to the kinds of technology we use. There is sufficient goodwill amongst most Australians to make the transition

Snake, was that the Paul Erlick (sic) whose best case scenario predicted that in 1974 America would stop food aid to India because it was "beyond hope" - now the second fastest growing major economy in the world?

The horse has already bolted and we're not going to get it back inside the gate. There are too many people consuming far too much, and neither of these trends will reverse themselves any time soon.

Nature seeks equilibrium given finite resources. As such, I believe there will be an inevitable resource war and things will balance themselves out (even if there's a lot of bloodshed). We can either be winners or losers in the shakeout of it, but it's coming. What we need to do is embrace it by shoring up our own resources within our own country and making sure we have sustainability reasonably well worked out here and make sure we can hang on to what we have. If we need to, we must make sure we're part of a political/military bloc that will not be devoured by others and may actually get a piece of someone/somewhere else. Personally, I think it will suck to be Latin American and African (as they'll be the first to go), and perhaps even from elsewhere. As rotten as it might be, it's going to be a fight for survival and we need to make sure we're one of the winners, not losers, even if that means we become something of a vassal state (since I don't believe we're powerful enough to stand on our own or as an equal partner).

If you want peace, prepare for war. If you want environmental sustainability, prepare for conquest and annihilation. I know that's really unpalatable, but that's what's on the horizon. That's how nature does it, and that's what nature will dictate we do.

What is 'Medical Geography'? And how does it relate to the field of global warming? A medical geographist may be able to tell us of some of the effects that increasing temperature may have, but in no way is he an expert on whether we are a significant cause of temperature changes

Perhaps you should listen to real experts on the question of man made global warming....
http://www.verumserum.com/?p=1006
http://www.channel4.com/science/microsites/G/great_global_warming_swindle/index.html

Compare earth's climate change with that of mars
http://alangrey.blogspot.com/2007/04/global-warming-is-real.html

The people who are supposed to be skeptics seem to lose it all when it comes to this climate change crusade.

Such fear mongering. A great sign of the religion of climate change.

Don't you love how everyone is 'worried about the environment'? I've been hearing it everywhere. Those same people weren't listening to the environmentalists 10-20 years ago are now parroting their words and concerns like monkey. Yes that's parroting like monkeys XD. Now you have the conservative government (home of rabid anti-environmentalism) trying to sell the idea of protecting forests to the same type of stubborn idiots as they were themselves (can anyone say pleasant irony?)

Grey:
"Such fear mongering. A great sign of the religion of climate change."

For every expert I've read who claims man-made global warming is a myth, I read another hundred who claim it's very real.

I'm willing to concede that some of the more extreme warnings may be exaggerated, but you know what? I think that's exactly what we need. Because the human race isn't going to get off its arse and do something unless the alarm bells are ringing loud and clear. While we're talking about the effect on the economy and the most 'efficient' way of going about things, we're doing more and more damage. Scaremongering is exactly the kick in the pants we may need in this situation. If it isn't too late already.

Grey, your poo-pooing concerns over global warming remind me of stories I heard at university from Jewish students who said mum, dad and grandma wouldn't leave Berlin in the 1930s because they couldn't imagine how bad the Nazis would be.

I think Australia is at a similar abyss. All of south east Australia is in the grip of drought and the cities of Brisbane, Sydney and Melbourne have outstripped their water supply. Perhaps you can build dams for Brisbane and Sydney but in Melbourne's case it appears the rain now falls over the ocean. So what? well Melbourne's food supply comes from the Murray Darling Basin and that is as dry as anyone can remember. And because Coles has centralised buying probably Australia's food comes from the Murray Darling Basin.

How long will it be before Australia imports basic food stuffs? And how much will it cost when transport oil prices rise?

Ask yourself why Bob Carr, the previous premier of New SOuth Wales, now lives on the south island of New Zealand.

Get a grip billie....the drought is a natural event that has occurred many times before and there have been much worse ones in recorded history. Just because you cannot remember it, doesn't make it untrue. You are but a blink in time and quite a panicky one too. Comparing the nazis to global warming is just a little ridiculous. The nazis were evil incarnate thrust upon this earth by a group of small minded sheep (much like GW alarmists). Global Warming is the latest panic driven event to grip the world since avian bird flu, the war on terror, y2k...and on it goes

Well, Billie invokes Godwin's law.

I am quite amazed that StabinTheDark can read so much, because thousands of experts have come out against man made global warming. If he reads a hundred others who claim it is 'real', that means he must have read hundreds of thousands...wow...More likely he just ignores the documentaries that are against global warming.

Stab's final comment is priceless, as that is what many scientists are doing....it doesn't matter if the science is solid...they exagerate the claims in order to use fear mongering. This is why it is a religious movement, not a scientific movement.
http://alangrey.blogspot.com/2007/01/neo-env-watch-rhetoric-exposed.html

Grey:

I was clearly using a figure of speech. I’ve read and seen documentaries on both side of the fence. At the end of the day I’m not a scientist. And at the end of the day the scientific community will always experience division, especially on a high profile issue like this.

So where do we turn?

The fact remains that there is strong evidence to suggest that the majority of scientists qualified in the field agree that humans are contributing to global warming. They may differ on how much and what to do about it, but they agree on that.

Yes there are plenty who don’t. Like in any number of contentious fields, there is disagreement, especially since hard research into the matter is still very much in its infancy.

I’m not saying to silence them or to stop research. By all means continue. But in the meantime, a paradigm is emerging.

My point is this. Even if the middle to lower end of the range of estimates are correct, it is going to take an enormous effort to reverse trends in place globally. We have everything going against us. Culturally, economically and technologically. These are practices that can’t turn on a dime, and we may need to. Apathy isn’t going to help us do it.

At the end of the day, getting people thinking about their impact on the environment can only help the human race in the medium to long term.

For you to rubbish the research done by a majority of scientists in the field by accusing them of a ‘religious movement’ is ridiculous

Grey is subject to the Golden Rule of Climate Sceptics:

"For a climate sceptic to make an argument, they must resort to lies, misinformation or an attack on science or the scientific community"

In Grey's case, it is an attack on science.

To set the record straight, there is no dispute about climate change due to human influence in the scientific community. Climate Sceptics pervert the rigours of science to create this perception.

As mentioned in the film "An Inconvenient Truth", Naomi Oreskes completed a study which demonstrated the extent of the scientific consensus on global warming. From a large sample, she was not able to find even one abstract of a peer-reviewed paper which contradicted or disagreed with the consensus position as described by the IPCC. (http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/306/5702/1686). This means abstracts were directly or indirectly in agreement; or were neutral or not addressing the issue.

The sceptics used every trick in the book to try to discredit this study. Not one of their arguments could not be backed up. When they failed they changed tack in various ways, trying to move the goalposts and/or trying to criticise the peer-review process. One can get an idea of the hollowness of such debate from this very forum: (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=5382)

Returning to the subject of the article, the winners will the countries that are most engaged in trading schemes and the companies providing the solutions and technologies for cutting global greenhouse gas emissions.

Why? Because carbon emissions eventually have to decline. If it does not decline within say 50 years, then necessity to solve it only becomes more acute. Dykes, airconditioning, sunscreens and insecticides are stop-gap solutions.

In the long-term, it's as simple as that.

Thanks David Latimer for your brilliant insights and your one cutting edge scientific reference proving beyons a shadow of a doubt the human influence on climate change.

PS Oreskes' paper has been discredited a number of times as has Big Al's fanciful walk through the climate change science...

Richard Castles,

Paul Ehrlich wrote The Population Bomb in the 1960s. At that time India was a net importer of food, experiencing widespread malnutrition and a very high population growth rate. He was not alone in predicting famine. Among the others who did were the Club of Rome and even agronomists like the Paddock brothers. If you had been around at the time, I suspect you would have been unwilling to bet any serious money on India not having a bad famine within a decade.

The reason they all proved to be wrong, or at least wrong about the timing, was that they could not anticipate the enormous success of the Green Revolution, which has doubled food production since those books were written. Sometimes technology does buy time for human societies. Sometimes it doesn't, and there is a population crash, as has happened numerous times in human history. How lucky do you feel?

Divergence, I'm not sure I understand your post enough to comment, so I apologise if I am misinterpreting you. As I understand it, it's one of the saddest things I've read in a long time. That you could depict the turnaround in Indian society as "buying time" is quite appalling. I doubt that's how the millions of people whose lives have been so improved would see it - they would call it food, shelter and life. Anyway, I have to go buy some time, or as I call it, eat.

Richard,

Obviously by "buying time" I mean that the Green Revolution gave India and other countries breathing space to solve the problems that created the crisis in the first place. India currently has a 1.6% population growth rate. Using the figures on land area and current population from the CIA World Fact Book (on the Web), I calculate that at this growth rate they have 490 years to standing room only. (Divide the land area in square meters by the current population, take the natural log, and then divide by the population growth rate as a decimal fraction.) Buying time is a fair comment until they get their population growth rate down to replacement level, assuming (unlikely) that they aren't also doing other unsustainable things besides growing the population. There have been a number of reports on the World Watch Institute site claiming that they are pumping dry the aquifers under some of their best agricultural land.

Growthists like to claim that Ehrlich was an idiot because he predicted big famines in the 1970s. (They never give him credit for predicting emerging diseases, long before AIDS.) My point was that his prediction was reasonable, given the information that they had at the time.

Yeah, that's the problem with prophesiers. There's usually something they don't "anticipate". What they are good at is justifying themselves after the event - 'well, of course, I couldn't have predicted that such and such would happen.' Erlick was wrong on numerous other counts, so having a stab at new diseases and hitting AIDS doesn't impress me a bit. It's like giving credit for someone picking the queen of clubs once in 52 calls. What amazes me is that the man's work is still brought up. Affluence is a better way to slow population growth than writing people off as beyond hope.