Reply #14: Because when you "force" a system against natural trends... [View All]

[TheMadMonk]

...the results are often not pretty.

The evidence present in the climate record, combined with what we know about the Milankovitch (and associated) Cycles, all strongly suggest we should be heading into a period of increasing glaciation.

We have to go back several tens of millions of years to find conditions similar to those of today.

When comparing the currently evolving conditions to past climate models, we are finding that those conditions match or exceed the most pessimistic predictions of those models. BTW even the more optimistic predictions are telling us we're in for a world of hurt. The pessimistic ones tell us it might well be more fun to be buggered with a pineapple.

Firstly there's the inevitable rise in sealevel, which if the "pessemistic results" trend continues will be at least one metre and might well be five to ten times that amount in absolute worst case scenarios.

We will be seeing a lot of diseases carried by insects such as ticks and mosquitoes moving a lot further north and south of the equator.

Desertification of a good many of our food growing regions is already happening as rains fail, and glacial meltwaters dwindle. Improved farming practices and drawing down water tables (thus incuring a future water debt) has helped to mitigate this, but eventually the water will just not be there to continue irrigation.

Imagine if you will Ethiopia written large across the entire Indian sub-continent.