An Inconvenient Truth

ohh. I'll save that hint for later--hopefully I can pull it out of this grey mush parasite that inabits the inside of my head when I need it next time.oh, and thank you.

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All a man's knowledge comes from his experiences

That's a good question, as well as your point about types of land uncovered. That is why I stated that it is a potential and not a certainty.But the facts are not quite as dire as you make out either. Here is a map of the world.You should be able to see that there are vast tracts of land above latitutes that are currently unfarmable. This includes Alaska and Canda, both of which do have nutrient rich soil which can grow crops (of course there is no guarantee that the entire area uncovered would be rich soil.Step farming on mountains is a possibility, as well as aquaculture (which would be increased). But let's leave that alone for discussion.The question is if we will have MORE arable land than now. And that is a valid question. Certainly more will come available with rising temps and deglaciation, but will that offset losses in currently farmable land?Let's see more discussion of that, with evidence, rather than this... If they aren't willing to engineer their coastlines, which is a big assumption in itself, I'd suggest moving to a city or into the mountains.How many are going to be displaced... evidence please. I wholly disagreed with your claim that it was unimpeachable, which to my mind is a statement about conclusions rather than the data points themselves.I do agree that two people can have different interpretations, and more importantly come to a different opinion on what to do about a situation presented by the data.Unfortunately you are making factual misstatements about some of the data. And that can't just be "agreed to disagree" about. That is not solely about a different interpretation.On your other question about Gore's movie, I have no way to see it at this point in time. Given my strange political/economic status I can't even rent things online (if it were able to be rented online) and I just don't know where you snag it to download for free. Edited by AdminNWR, : fixed broken link (removed quotes)

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Okay I see your point, though I think a combo of what the Dutch did to the Ijselmeer, as well as for Rotterdam, with a lock system in between would be equally valid... and that's if we decided NOLA had to remain the main port area. We could have intracontinental shipping based from NOLA, yet place a port outside NOLA area for international shipping. I do agree with your points, though I don't believe "worst case" of rise is as graphic as you have made out. Again all the data I have seen is 1 m in 100 years and 4m in a bit more time than that. Of course, now that I think about it maybe they should plan for greater extremes than we have data for, that way if we are wrong one way or the other they have the ability to last. Someone get me a barfbag.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

When using
[url=http://hostname/link-details]displayed text[/url]
to post a link, do not put quotes around the url.

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damn damn damn... I'll try and remember. The problem is that for other things I write I need to included it, and so I forget that here. EvC no quotes on urls, starting now!

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

Maybe Percy can be persuaded to modify the code that expands urls, so that it could handle a url both with and without quotes. I think that would be less confusing.

you can use standard html link code with the quotesTHIS IS A TESTsee peek version

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Join the effort to unravel {AIDS/HIV} {Protenes} and {Cancer} with Team EvC! (click)

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we are limited in our ability to understand
by our ability to understand

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RebelAAmericanOZen[Deist
... to learn ... to think ... to live ... to laugh ...
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Deglaciation does not actually leave us with more land available for farming as the glacier scours out most if not all of the soil leaving the bare rock. As far as Canada and Alaska is concerned, much of Canada is made up of the Canadian shield, which is mostly unsuitable for highly intensive farming. Canadian Shield Much of the southern portion is made up of forests which would need to be harvested and the soil turned to agriculture, reducing the CO2 sink even further and I don't believe the soil is rich there either.The Same could be said for Norway, Sweden and Finland. There isn't much land available.I also have to wonder what the growing season would look like, with the upper latitudes not getting a lot of sun during winter.

One key factor is turning agriculture into food is predictability and forethought. There are a bunch of steps between the two.If we go into a period of rapid change, there will have to be some major issues of logistics solved.

1. where will the ariable land be next year?
2. how do we get the people, material, equipment and expertise to the land?
3. how do we get water to the land? (just look at some current water projects to get an idea of the scale)
4. how do we transport the product to either end consumer or processor?
5. how are current people in the chain that may be displaced to be compensated?
6. what if the new ariable area does not have
   • roads...
   • water...
   • experienced stewards...
   • is in an unfriendly nation ...
7. what is the minimal length of time land must be productive to return the investment in infrastructure?
8. what if next year all the above change?

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Sure, we could easily add a ton of problems to be overcome. Much of what you bring up though, is a social or political problem area, which would be moot if there isn't the land available. I thought Holmes was speaking more directly of the geological availability of land as global warming occurs.

I too thought that was the subject. The problem is that even if the land is there, is arable, if all the other conditions aren't available it just doesn't matter.

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Aslan is not a Tame Lion

Okay, its been a few years since my geo class which dealt with that, but I don't think your claim is accurate. Glaciers scour land as they move inward, with the weight pressing down as it grows. As it retreats, which is generally just melting/evaporation, and not physical movement, material is "dropped" in place.While some places would be scoured to bedrock, I'm not sure it is confident to say all would be. I lived in an area whose fertility was the result of deglaciation. This included leaving behind small lakes. THIS is important info... and much of why I said it was only a potential. I am not certain of much of Canada's ground quality for agriculture. I did think that Alaska had some good potential for growing crops. I read that in certain sections they get great returns (almost oversized food). But maybe that is different than engaging in intensive agriculture.In any case, its not like we are talking about having to shift all agriculture to previously glaciated terrain. The question is how much current terrain would actually be lost to flooding/drought, and given that would we have enough to compensate.Given the dutch model, I am still dubious as to whether we'd lose crops to flooding at all. That's another excellent point.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

I think some of your list is a little padded...Pts 1-4- Exist currently. Any changes due to CC will NOT be so rapid that it cannot be handled with foresight or planning we already employ. I mean we have droughts and floods as it is, sometimes some huge ones. We are only discuss an increase in such conditions over time, with some becoming a somewhat permanent situation.Pt 4 in particular- Is troubling to me as an argument. If we have more water in the atmosphere, and likely more rain, and immense flooding from rising water levels, it seems like getting water to land is going to be less of a problem rather than more of a problem. Unless we are discussing increased salinization of previously fresh supplies to the extent that farming becomes impossible, why will CC change what we already face?Pts 5-6- Are solid issues which even slow CC might result in. Its about investment time, energy, and money required to replace any losses with new territory. I'd love to see some estimates on this. I don't think this would be insurmountable, but it does mean cost.Pt 6 (unfriendly nation)- Is a particularly important point. We can talk about all the money and time and energy the US has to overcome the problem, but if we DO lose enough farming land that we must start getting food from outside the US... oh boy. And it seems that would be a really nice selling point in this argument. The US is already concerned about our reliance on foreign nations for oil, do we want to become dependent on other nations for raw food material? That would be a huge role reversal, and you'd think you could get enough of middle America to agree that shouldn't happen that they at least take a look ahead. But this still needs some credible science to support it. How much of our farmland are we likely to lose?Pt 8- This is a totally moot point. That happens anyway. Its not like the earth is human or agriculture friendly. Conditions may change slightly more rapidly in an overall sense, but its always been a year to year boom or bust. And it is not that its going to be so changeable that we'll have glaciers in wheat fields one year, then to drought the next, then to wheat fields, then back to drought or freezing temps.This is not to say you aren't discussing problems in agriculture, just I'm not seeing how CC is going to make most of them any greater than what we already face.

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holmes {in temp decloak from lurker mode}
"What a fool believes he sees, no wise man has the power to reason away." (D.Bros)

four dead polar bears really prove global warming?The film is entertaining but it is meant to educate and a great many people are now using its "science" as proof of global warming, so it is a terrible piece of propoganda because of that. It even quotes the very much discredited Mann et al Hockey Stick as gospel and Mr Lonnie Thompson's work on Tropical glaciers where he managed to get six widely differing results from six ice cores and averaged them coming to the conclusion that suited him even that the average really was the opposite of four of his six cores.Tornadoes. A decrease since 1950 of F3s or above. An increase on very small ones because of doppler radar. That's technology not climate.Replacement of 70% of fossil fuel energy by alternative energy would take 30 years and cost $200 billion/year extra. For the slow of skull that is a $6 trillion tab for being politically correct and empirically stupid.

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What about coconuts?