Geography 101 Lab Series: #2

Today’s Lab was the dreaded Global Warming Death Cult Indoctrination Essay.

To paraphrase the text book, the reader was told that there was no doubt we were all going to die, either via drowning or spontaneous combustion unless one of two things happened:

1 – We all went back to Stone Age lifestyles, or

2 – An unlimited supply of magic pixie dust was discovered.

Not wanting to be Epic Fail Guy in my second week of being a student, I went for the “Just the Facts, Ma’am” approach, though attempting to use as many facts that slighted the GWDC as possible. In particular, I found a very highly lettered scientist who, while a believer in AGW, contradicts the Cultists on the topic of how AGW could effect food production.

The Assignment: The Greenhouse Effect

The debate over the greenhouse effect of CO2 and other gasses is not so much whether it is occurring but rather how quickly, and exactly what it will mean. Research the current literature on this topic and attempt to answer many of these questions:

* What is the strongest evidence that the Earth’s atmosphere is warming due to human activities? On what evidence do detractors base their doubt?
* Warming is expected to cause a number of changes, not the least of which is rising of the sea level. How much of a rise is expected? (Be aware that estimates differ widely.) Which coasts would be most affected, and how badly?
* Growers sometimes intentionally elevate the levels of CO2 in their greenhouses to increase plant growth, and warmer conditions also may extend agricultural regions farther toward the poles. With more CO2 in the Earth’s atmosphere is there also an expectation of better crop production? What evidence can you find of this possible benefit?
* Some dry regions will likely benefit from more rainfall, and some productive areas may become too wet or dry. What do the models predict for changes in precipitation? Which countries will gain and which will lose if the atmosphere warms?
* What international effort has there been to stop global warming? What is the role of the United States in this effort?
* Do you expect to see climates change in your lifetime?

Answer many of these questions in your paper.

Lab #2

In 1997, a final draft of the Kyoto Protocol was negotiated by dozens of nations. Under the Protocol, they agreed to decrease their Greenhouse Gas emission levels to 5.2% of what their respective nation’s GHG emission levels were in 1990.

By the end of 2009, over 185 nations have ratified the agreement. However, the US Senate, the American legislative body responsible for granting consent to the President to make international treaty agreements, has never been able to get the required super-majority of votes necessary to grant their consent. Despite this, the US has controlled its growth of GHG emissions to just 1.3% per year. This matches or beats the average of dozens of industrialized nations who are signatories of the Protocol.

Warming has been modeled to cause a number of changes to the planet’s surface. From changes in weather patterns to a rise in the sea level. The widely varied estimates of just how much rise are more than a little disconcerting as to how much scientists actually know about the possible changes to the sea level. On the North American Continent, for instance, the estimates vary, from just a foot of rise, to more than ten meters over the next one hundred years. The ten meter figure is estimated for the Pacific Coast region of the US. However, just averaging the estimates, it would seem that the Southeast and Gulf Coasts would see the worst amount of destruction. Florida alone may lose 20% of its land mass with just three meters of rise.

Changes in the weather patterns, most importantly the changes in rainfall and the activity of storms around the world have been modeled by scientists and the governments of the industrialized nations. These models show average increase in annual rainfall at both poles, in Northern Europe, the northeastern and northwestern coasts of the US and Canada, north Asia and east Africa. In contrast, The northern half of Africa and the Mediterranean, the Southwestern regions of both the US And Australia may see decreases in annual rainfall.

It is unknown whether it will better or worse that while the number of severe rainstorms will decrease, their intensity may grow. It will mostly rely on how close these storms come to human population centers.

A large portion of agricultural scientists believe that a rise in atmospheric CO2 could prove to be a boon to food production, even if few-to-no technological improvements come along to help humans adapt to the changes.

“Indeed, a warmer planet has beneficial effects on food production. It results in longer growing seasons—more sunshine and rainfall—while summertime high temperatures change little. And a warmer planet means milder winters and fewer crop-killing frosts.”

“Global warming also increases carbon dioxide (CO2), which acts like fertilizer for plants. As the planet warms, oceans naturally release huge tonnages of additional CO2. (Cold water can hold much more of a gas than warmer water). Since 1950, in a period of global warming, these factors have helped the world’s grain production soar from 700 million more than 2 billion tons last year.”

Of course, one person’s model directly contradicts another on all of these topics, which is why there is a “Wait and See” attitude amongst a large segment of the populations in industrialized nations, with large decreases in the number of people who believe there is a strong scientific evidence of warming.

The ability of the human species to adapt to the world around us may well prove to be our only saving grace in the future, since most days we can hardly agree on what shade of blue of the sky.

Grade: 80%

There is a format for citations called MLA. What with me not bing a student for the last 20 years, I did not know about this. Thus, I did not use MLA format for my citations and lost two points on this one. I was, apparently, given a pass on this requirement on my first Lab.

Meh.