Global Warming Causes Everything: Including Heart Disease!
September 5, 2007 · By Greg Farries
The long list of scary consequences of global warming keep staking up – global warming might even give you a heart attack!
“If it really is a few degrees warmer in the next 50 years, we could definitely have more cardiovascular disease,” said Dr. Karin Schenck-Gustafsson, of the department of cardiology at Sweden’s Karolinska Institute.
On the flip side, it will also cause a decrease in hypothermia and frostbite. Let’s call it even.
I am willing to call it even.
For the moment, put aside the scientific dispute about human causes. There is no objective way to determine whether global warming or climate change or whatever we have to call it now is a bad thing. It will certainly be bad for some people and it will be good for others. Therefore, in an aggregate sense, how can the costs and benefits be balanced?? Answer: They can not.
I was being slightly flippant in my response. Actually, I am of the opinion that the costs in the geological short-term will outweigh the benefits.
The reason is obvious – any significant change will upset the delicate balance nature has established over the centuries. Species will become extinct (even faster), migration patterns will change, diseases will enter new areas, etc etc. The health and diversity of the planet will suffer.
After a few centuries, nature will adapt once more, as she always has and always will. It may take centuries or millennia to re-establish an equilibrium, but the Earth will do just fine – it’s us that we have to worry about.
For humans, once-fertile areas will become arid or soaked, and it will take time for new areas to replace them. Sources of fresh water will be eliminated or contaminated. Entire cities (nations) will be underwater. In a few centuries, everything will balance out again, but at what cost?
Yes, I realize you were being facetious and I am too — just a bit. I hate Canada’s cold.
However, I genuinely dispute the validity of saying that the effects of global warming are objectively bad.
“In a few centuries, everything will balance out again, but at what cost?”
Stay tuned.