Dieter Helm
- Published in print:
- 2012
- Published Online:
- October 2013
- ISBN:
- 9780300186598
- eISBN:
- 9780300188646
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Yale University Press
- DOI:
- 10.12987/yale/9780300186598.003.0002
- Subject:
- Environmental Science, Environmental Studies
This chapter examines the importance of climate change and its underlying physical processes, and the impact of various degrees of warming on human civilization. The seminars at environment and ...
More
This chapter examines the importance of climate change and its underlying physical processes, and the impact of various degrees of warming on human civilization. The seminars at environment and climate change institutes and departments invite in the campaigners, blurring the boundaries between impartial academic research and partial and committed interests. The climate has always been changing, and within human history there have been substantial swings in global and regional temperatures. Longer growing seasons and milder winters mean that the constraints on economic activities in the cold places (and the costs) are somewhat alleviated. At the upper end of temperature projections, the detrimental impacts of climate change could be very large in ways that cannot be fully comprehended at present.Less
This chapter examines the importance of climate change and its underlying physical processes, and the impact of various degrees of warming on human civilization. The seminars at environment and climate change institutes and departments invite in the campaigners, blurring the boundaries between impartial academic research and partial and committed interests. The climate has always been changing, and within human history there have been substantial swings in global and regional temperatures. Longer growing seasons and milder winters mean that the constraints on economic activities in the cold places (and the costs) are somewhat alleviated. At the upper end of temperature projections, the detrimental impacts of climate change could be very large in ways that cannot be fully comprehended at present.
