

MIT study says Arctic ice thinning 4x faster than predicted - dmcgregor
http://bostinnovation.com/2011/08/10/mit-study-says-arctic-ice-thinning-4x-faster-than-predicted/

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grannyg00se
This is a report that adds nothing to the original release from MIT and in
fact fails to mention that these new predictions are based on actual observed
data. Here's the original post from MIT:

<http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2011/arctic-ice-melt-0810.html>

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ryandvm
The question isn't whether the earth is warming or not - it clearly is. The
real question is what should humans do about it?

I think it's pretty reasonable to ask if trying to turn down the heat is the
best use of our resources? That is, perhaps the incalculable trillions of
dollars that it would cost to adjust the earth's climate would be better spent
on helping humans adjust instead. Hell, there is significant evidence that a
warmer climate would lead to an agricultural boom - which coincidentally is
exactly what is going to be required to feed 7 billion humans.

Or look at it another way - what if it turned out tomorrow that the climate is
warming because of solar activity? Would the environmentalist movement still
be advocating that we try to prevent climate change?

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grannyg00se
Reasonable environmentalists aren't advocating that we prevent climate change.
The earth's climate changes. It always has and always will. There is nothing
we can do to prevent the natural cycles the earth goes through.

What we need to adjust is our unnatural, unbalanced effect on the earth's
climate.

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krschultz
Why do we _need_ to? Just because it is unnatural and you are philosophically
opposed to it? Or are you saying something about the fact that the temperature
change is driven by humans rather than nature makes it a problem?

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ajb
The distinction is one of knowledge. We have evidence that that the
environment as it exists now, is a relatively stable regime. The climate has
changed throughout history, but not, obviously, to the extent of rendering us
extinct.

If, however, we act to bring the climate out of the regime for which we have
this evidence (for example, by raising the CO2 level to its highest value for
800,000 years), then with our present rudimentary understanding of the
climate, we cannot predict what will happen with any great confidence. And,
there is evidence that climatic changes can cause tremendous damage. So, the
burden of proof should be on those who say that these changes are safe.

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DougWebb
<quote>The climate has changed throughout history, but not, obviously, to the
extent of rendering us extinct.</quote>

It's come pretty close, and that's typical. Most species that have ever
existed on this planet went extinct ages ago, often during periods of drastic
climate change (as far as we can tell from the archeological record.)

Our own fairly recent past is the same. The latest research on the 'flood'
that gave rise to flood myths in every civilization in Southern Europe, the
Middle East, and North Africa, suggests that the Mediterranean Sea was a
fertile populated valley during the last ice age. But when the ice age ended
due to natural climate change, the rising Atlantic broke through the natural
dam at Gibraltar and flooded the valley, and into the Black and Red seas, up
the Nile, etc. That's a massive natural disaster that must have wiped out a
pretty big chunk of humanity. It was probably repeated on a smaller scale
around the world too, as seaside villages were flooded out by the rising
oceans and likely increase in the number of storms as the world warmed up.

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jamii
Even more dramatic, a number of genetic studies suggest that hominids faced
near extinction more than once eg
[http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=early-
human...](http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=early-human-
population-size-genetic-diversity) estimates a total population of around 50k.

