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Climate Change & Toronto

The warming also increases the likelihood of powerful damaging storms, and if the higher levels of water in the great lakes are a trend induced by global warming we'll likely also be losing a good portion of our waterfront.
Sounds like a good opportunity for wave or tidal turbines.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/great-lakes-waves-could-power-your-tv/

That's the nature of climate change, for every negative there is a flip side positive. Sure the Maldives will vanish, but the available agricultural land and output in Canada may increase.
 
Sounds like a good opportunity for wave or tidal turbines.

http://www.zdnet.com/article/great-lakes-waves-could-power-your-tv/

That's the nature of climate change, for every negative there is a flip side positive. Sure the Maldives will vanish, but the available agricultural land and output in Canada may increase.

May, but that has to be balanced against potential for instabilities elsewhere - if the US midwest/southwest dries up, you bet we will be facing geopolitical pressures at our end.

AoD
 
That's the nature of climate change, for every negative there is a flip side positive. Sure the Maldives will vanish, but the available agricultural land and output in Canada may increase.

So, what is the positive flip side for the folks in the Maldives? Or Bangladesh, coastal China, Vietnam, the Netherlands, etc, if/when ocean levels rise by 20 feet? Do the benefits that may come to Canada sufficiently counterbalance a billion people being displaced from their homes?

Edited to add:

The notion that everything balances out in the end is magical thinking, and not grounded in any scientific reality. If the polar bears go extinct, a new species does not pop up somewhere else in the world. Same goes for entire cities and countries that vanish underwater.
 
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So, what is the positive flip side for the folks in the Maldives? Or Bangladesh, coastal China, Vietnam, the Netherlands, etc, if/when ocean levels rise by 20 feet?
It's a seesaw, flip side positive for Canada means a negative for those folks. I'd say my parents chose well when they emigrated to Canada over the lowlands.

How Climate Change Could Turn Canada into a Global Superpower
https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/...ge-could-turn-canada-into-a-global-superpower

Global warming will hurt most economies, but boost Canada's
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-economy-1.3282446

In Canada, climate change could open new farmland to the plow
https://globalnews.ca/news/3765838/canada-climate-change-farmland/
May, but that has to be balanced against potential for instabilities elsewhere - if the US midwest/southwest dries up, you bet we will be facing geopolitical pressures at our end.
True, but with a huge, sparsely-populated and now more arable land, we may welcome our Midwest neighbours. It doesn't have to lead to war over resources.

But we do like to default to the negative on climate change. Is it morally offensive to consider the benefits?

Canada has had a negligible impact on the climate compared to the USA, China and the developing world. Bangladesh ruined its own air quality. Canada's role in climate change is tiny, especially if you consider the climate benefits of our forests, but we can benefit from it.
 
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It's a seesaw, flip side positive for Canada means a negative for those folks. I'd say my parents chose well when they emigrated to Canada over the lowlands.

How Climate Change Could Turn Canada into a Global Superpower
https://www.vice.com/en_ca/article/...ge-could-turn-canada-into-a-global-superpower

Global warming will hurt most economies, but boost Canada's
http://www.cbc.ca/news/technology/climate-change-economy-1.3282446

In Canada, climate change could open new farmland to the plow
https://globalnews.ca/news/3765838/canada-climate-change-farmland/True, but with a huge, sparsely-populated and now more arable land, we may welcome our Midwest neighbours. It doesn't have to lead to war over resources.

But we do like to default to the negative on climate change. Is it morally offensive to consider the benefits?

Canada has had a negligible impact on the climate compared to the USA, China and the developing world. Bangladesh ruined its own air quality. Canada's role in climate change is tiny, especially if you consider the climate benefits of our forests, but we can benefit from it.

We can benefit from it so long as all else being equal - but that's the problem, it isn't going to be - and the Vice article had it succinctly:

By 2100, Canada will be the focus of much of the world's attention. As regions and countries across the planet collapse, millions of refugees and other migrants could head north. The vast oceans separating Canada from Asia and Africa will mean that "those who want to come here face greater difficulties than if they're wanting to get to Europe," Huebert said. Yet desperate people will make the journey. Government agencies will attempt to admit only the most skilled or in-need migrants—and the country's population could swell to 100 million people as a result. Many migrants will be turned away, however. And as more people arrive, Canada's land borders may become heavily militarized, while drones and gunboats patrol our shores.

This siege mentality could make Canadians intolerant of outsiders. We may come to believe we have earned the right to control and exploit the planet's last remaining resources. Foreigners, we'll tell ourselves, are coming to take our resources away. This zero-sum view of the world will in turn shape our political system. We'll hand over our civil liberties to authoritarian leaders who promise to keep our borders strong. "The election of people like Donald Trump becomes the norm rather than the exception," Huebert said. "It doesn't paint a picture of a very nice future."

A "worse case scenario" no doubt, but I would take the sunshine and rainbow view with a very jaundiced eye. There are potentials with warming, but it may not be worth it with disruptions elsewhere.

AoD
 
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Prince Edward Island could almost disappear, after they change the name to Prince Edward Islands (plural). The highest elevation is about 172 m. See link.

See link for inactive map.

background
 
Yeah, look at the amount that the water level has gone up the past 150 years. :)

https://www.epa.gov/climate-indicators/great-lakes

Not that any perceived "global warming" will affect the Great Lakes in any way, but I do wonder about those long-term water levels for the Great Lakes. Where were the measurements taken and what's the reliability. Because isostatic rebound is still occurring - that is: natural land uplift when glaciers depressed the crust of the earth downward then subsequently melted after the ice age. With these glacier's northerly melting pattern, the north shores of the lakes are uplifting (rebounding) faster than the south, effectively tilting the surface of the Great Lakes away from Canada and toward the US. If EPA's measurements are only coming from the US side, over the long term it might indicate a steady increase in water height (whereas our water height may come out steadily lower or declining).
 
Failed geography?

The Great Lakes are above sea level. Lake Superior is 182.9 m above sea level, while Lake Ontario is 75 m above sea level.

Maybe History too. Upper Canada and Lower Canada always messed me up until it was explained how they got those names.
 
The idea that Toronto or Canada as a whole will somehow benefit from global warming is a narrow view indeed. Our little corner of the globe doesn't exist in a vacuum.
Sure, we live in a very safe part of the world in terms of natural disasters, but we sure as hell are not isolated in terms of human disaster. Global warming has the potential (bear with me, I know this will sound a bit hyperbolic to some) to make the conflict in Syria--with all its attendant humanitarian catastrophes and caused migration--look like a bad joke. Except the joke will be on those who had their heads so far up their arses that they were back in place.

"Oh, it's -30 out today, where's your global warming?", says the dickhead putting 100L into his 5.0L 8 cylinder oversized vehicle that he only drives around the city.
Well, the look on that type of person's face when last year's illegal border crossings start looking like "the good old days" will be small solace to those of us who had some idea of how bad things could get.

Go ask the people of South Sudan, Syria, Nunavut, the aforementioned Maldives, Holland, Australia, California, etc what they think of "Canada's global warming advantages". Can the majority of the planet live in what is now Canada and Russia? Is that even feasible from a socio-political standpoint? Ask Russians about their views on mass immigration to their country from all corners.

Wait, where was the concern for unlocking agricultural land when we were paving over some of the world's best en masse to build shitty and inefficient suburbs? Am I being trolled? We're still paving over prime agricultural land and we're supposed to be grateful that global warming will unlock even more, farther north? This must be a joke.
Is the idea somehow that we should just continue with the wasting away of the planet because it will actually give us more in the end?
I honestly don't understand this.

Any positives derived from global warming will be dampened by its massive negatives, perhaps even to the point that they will be of negligible impact. Adapting to a shitty future and thriving in those conditions isn't quite the same as deriving net positives from it.

The Great Lakes have lots of water? Yeah, thanks for that astute observation. There are already plans by some of our southern neighbours to divert said water out of the Great Lakes watershed. That's now. What the fu*k do you think will happen if the Midwest goes the way of Western Australia? You won't be laughing about abundant fresh water then, I don't mind telling you.

Being excited for potential positives from what has the potential to be the worst humanitarian (ever) and ecological catastrophe (since yon dinos were licked) is either naively optimistic or just straight narrowly selfish.
Either way, I disagree that there are any positives to shitting the bed, so to speak.

I'd also like to add that comparisons with the last ice age are meaningless unless it can be proven that there were 8billion+ humans around at the time.
 

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