[sideband]

I'm of the unpopular opinion that climate change has the potential to be a net positive for humanity over the long term:

+ Protecting coastal (and some inland) populations against higher water levels will be huge infrastructure projects that will allow us to re-imagine cities, many of which are even now burdened by very ancient designs and infrastructure. This will be a great use of resources that will put people to work on grand and civically engaging projects. Work to be proud of.

+ New coastal land will be created and deserts will slowly re-green, encouraging populations to migrate to and develop areas previously thought worthless. With that we'll have an opportunity to build thoughtful, efficient cities and the infrastructure to connect them from the ground up. Imagine the wealth and opportunities, economic and political, that would be created developing Greenland, Antarctica, or the Sahara.

+ Total potential agricultural output of the world will increase drastically, possibly making food cheaper for all.

+ Human civilization will be forced to recognize that we exist at the mercy of a bountiful Earth, which might make some of those other celestial bodies a bit more appealing.

Of course some obvious consequences will be painful, but I think change isn't automatically bad, and that the best of humanity always comes through during periods of non-violent adversity. A slow but certain and predictable warming of the Earth's climate is just that.

[peterbell_nyc]

Although without sufficient oxygen production globally, new coastal property would be of limited value! Would be interesting to see peer reviews of the study to get a sense of how problematic this might be. I guess worst case we could all get oxygen tanks to carry around, but it'd be a bit of a shame . . .

[bbctol]

I'm curious as to what supports the idea that deserts will re-green and agricultural output will increase? I am not at all an expert in the field, but I've always heard desertification and disappearing arable land as chief concerns of global warming, so I'd like to learn more.

[akiselev]

The increasing temperatures speed up evaporation in the water cycle which has a lot of impact on rainfall. Since wind speeds aren't increasing overall while temperature is, this means that rain clouds store more water and travel farther across land. This also means that the radius of the strip around the equator that can be considered tropical grows and pushes other biomes outward. The further north you get the more land becomes available for farming and if rains can reach them, a lot of fertile land will be unlocked for agriculture.

That's the theory anyway. The current impact of that evaporation seems to be increasing frequency and strength of hurricanes and monsoons. It is really hard to get fine grained reliable data on temperature and humidity across the entire planet, let alone account for unknown factors, so specific medium to long term impacts on agriculture are hard to pin down.

[IanDrake]

I share your unpopular opinion. These things don't happen overnight and nothing is static.