Better for the Economy

Roback found that heating degree days, total snowfall, and the number of cloudy days were positively correlated with wages, suggesting these are disamenities. As expected, the number of clear days was negatively correlated with wages. In her 1988 paper, she also found that the colder the winter (heating degree days), the higher the wages.

The DOT’s third conference on global climate change, referred to above, used differences in occupational wages among urban areas to estimate the value of climate to humans. One of the tables, presented by Ralph C. D’Arge (1974, p. 569) in his overview of the economic research, drew on the work of Irving Hoch to supply estimates of the costs and benefits of a 0.5deg.C warming. Hoch’s work (1974) implies that a rise in temperature would have bestowed on workers an implicit gain of $1.6 billion in 1971 dollars. In other words, adjusting for 1995’s level of wages and salaries and assuming that the temperature/wage relationship is linear, workers in 1995 would have been willing to accept about $47 billion less in wages for working in a 2.5deg.C warmer climate. to wages.

Department of Energy studies have shown that a warmer climate would reduce heating bills more than it would boost outlays on air conditioning. If we currently enjoyed the weather predicted for the end of the next century, expenditures for heating and cooling would be cut by about $12.2 billion annually.

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Warmer Weather is Healthier

From a purely evolutionary point of view, warm periods have always benefited plants and animals. The world has thrived during the warming periods between the ice ages. Cold periods have always caused serious survival problems for all organisms including mankind. Scientific studies show that there will be 40,000 fewer deaths each year in the U.S. In Britain alone, scientists estimate that about 30,000 deaths a year are related to cold winter weather. Warmer temperatures in the U.S. will reduce medical costs by about $20 billion every year.

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More Usable Land For Farming & Housing:

As the ice retreats to the poles, more arable land will become available for both residential and agricultural purposes. Large land-masses in the northern hemisphere, just south of the Canadian/U.S. border, have some very extreme climates that can be quite inhospitable for human habitation. Most Canadians live in a belt running along its southern border with the United States. But once global warming is factored in, vast northern regions will become arable and comfortably habitable. All of Canada will welcome an agricultural boon field with long growing seasons. Heretofore uninhabitable land will not only become inhabitable, but even temperate.
Satellite measurements now show that our planet has become greener than it was prior to the onset of global warming. The rising carbon dioxide concentrations in the atmosphere dramatically increases overall global food production. The presence of carbon dioxide has a fertilizing effect on the growth of plant life. The warmer weather means a longer growing season, and thus greater output. This, combined with fewer frosts and more precipitation, among other factors, will greatly benefit all of the agricultural economic sectors, plus the positive impacts on forestry and recreation. In addition to the dramatic increase of actual land available for cultivation, natural resources would be much easier to extract. The overall economic impact of global warming on the U.S. economy will actually be positive, creating a measurable increase in Gross Domestic Product.

The deserts of China received rains and were fertile 8,000 years ago, and this would be good news for China, since they need all the fertile land they can get, with their huge population. The arable land was also hundreds of miles further north into China than it is now. As well, those areas of India which are now deserts, were also rained on and fertile in those days, and that’s also good news, given how desperate hard up India is, being so poor and having such a huge population. Winters in the northern hemisphere will be milder.

So already we can see that Climate Change could very well prove to be good for Africa, China, and India. The results are mixed for Europe, but then they can always migrate north if someone can find the money in Europe to migrate people north, and the government can find the money to buy really poor people air conditioning so they won’t die by the tens or even hundreds of thousands every summer.

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Carbon Dioxide Good for Plants

According to climatologists, the villain causing a warmer world is the unprecedented amount of carbon dioxide (CO2) we humans keep pumping into the atmosphere. But as high school biology students nationwide know, plants absorb carbon dioxide and emit oxygen. Researchers have shown that virtually all plants will do better in a CO2-rich environment than in the current atmosphere, which contains only trace amounts of their basic food.

Plants also prefer warmer winters and nights, and a warmer world would mean longer growing seasons. Combined with higher levels of CO2, plant life would become more vigorous, thus providing more food for animals and humans. Given a rising world population, longer growing seasons, greater rainfall, and an enriched atmosphere could be just the ticket to stave off famine and want.

Forests will expand northward into the current tundra regions. Although forest growth increases carbon dioxide uptake, this beneficial effect will be overwhelmed by the release of large stores of methane and carbon dioxide as tundra regions thaw.

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Fewer Hurricanes

Global warming could increase a climate phenomenon known as wind shear that inhibits Atlantic hurricanes, a potentially positive result of climate change, according to new research released on Tuesday.

The study, to be published on Wednesday in Geophysical Research Letters, found that climate model simulations show a "robust increase" in wind shear in the tropical Atlantic during the 21st century from global warming.

Wind shear, a difference in wind speed or direction at different altitudes, tends to tear apart tropical cyclones, preventing nascent ones from growing and already-formed hurricanes from becoming the monster storms that cause the most damage.

The effect of global warming on wind shear is similar to the impact of El Nino, the periodic eastern Pacific warm-water phenomenon that tends to put a damper on Atlantic storms. The sudden development of El Nino was credited for an unexpectedly mild Atlantic season last year, when only 10 storms formed.

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Reduced Transportation Costs

A fabled sea route above North America linking the Pacific and Atlantic Oceans has become a reality thanks to global warming. Scientists have confirmed that in August, Arctic sea ice shrank to its lowest levels since satellite measurements began monitoring the region nearly 30 years ago. One consequence of this is that the Northwest Passage has opened up much earlier than expected.

Fully navigable, the Northwest Passage will make the trip 4,000 miles shorter for ships traveling between Europe and Asia, allowing them to avoid the Panama Canal. The Passage was partially open for a time in 1998, but sailing a ship through at time would have been tricky, Serreze said.

Transportation generally would benefit from a warmer climate, since road travelers would suffer less from slippery or impassable highways. Airline passengers, who often endure weather-related delays in the winter, would gain from more reliable and on-time service.

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Warmer Weather is Safer

With most streets free from ice and snow, driving will be a lot safer; No need to shovel snow reducing the stress induced heart attacks; Heating bills will be drastically lower; No need to waste money on all of that cold weather gear. Rail, road and air transportation would be positively impacted by a general warming since weather-related delays and accidents would be greatly reduced. Department of Energy studies show that consumer energy bills would be reduced by over $12 billion each year.

Global warming will have no real effect, positive or negative, on economic activities such as manufacturing, retailing, wholesaling, banking, education and the majority of other businesses that are unrelated to cold weather. Of course cold weather activities, such as snow-sports, would be negatively affected.

Animals Thrive in Warm Climates

Researchers have shown, moreover, that virtually all plants will do better in an environment enriched with carbon dioxide than in the current atmosphere, which contains only trace amounts of their basic food. In addition, warmer winters and nights would mean longer growing seasons. Combined with higher levels of CO2, plant life would become more vigorous, thus providing more food for animals and humans. Given a rising world population, longer growing seasons, greater rainfall, and an enriched atmosphere could be just the ticket to stave off famine and want.

Researchers say the apparent north-south widening of the tropics amounts to 2 degrees of latitude or 140 miles. Animals in general thrive in warmer climates.

Fisheries experts credit global warming for unexpected salmon numbers.

Global warming will have no real effect, positive or negative, on economic activities such as manufacturing, retailing, wholesaling, banking, education and the majority of other businesses that are unrelated to cold weather. Of course cold weather activities, such as snow-sports, would be negatively affected.

Shorter Winters

Man-made global warming has caused spring weather to appear an average of 10 days earlier than the start of spring 30 years ago, according to a report released Monday by Stanford scientists. Baseball season could be expaned to included another half dozen games with an earlier spring althougth this could result in losing a football game so that would be a draw.

Shorter and more mild winters will mean less time spent indoors with the heater on getting cold, not exercising and feeling depressed. There will be a reduction in warm weather clothing and goods but women wearing less clothing and suffering from cabin fever
will be a huge plus.

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Improved Beer Quality

On July 31 a team of canny entrepreneurs unveiled Greenland Beer, an ale brewed with water melted from Greenland’s ice cap, at a public tasting in Copenhagen, Denmark.

Staffed by indigenous Greenlanders and located some 390 miles (625 kilometers) south of the Arctic Circle, Greenland Brewhouse is the world’s first Inuit microbrewery.

And if reaction from tipplers at the tasting was any indication, the brewers may be on to something. Electrician Flemming Larsen described the ale to the Associated Press as "smooth, soft, but not bitter … different from most other beer.

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