I don’t understand your first objection. At no point in the text did I say, or imply that the population increase was due to modern medicine. This is a common misconception, but I’ve been aware of it for a long time and it is not part of my argument.

If, instead, you are actually objecting on the grounds that you DO believe that the population increase was due to modern medicine, then I would have to say that “you’re wrong”. People were perfectly able to live long lives and achieve lower rates of infant mortality before modern medicine became widely available. The real change brought about by modern medicine is healthier people (most easily apparent in the increased height of recent generations), and an increased quality of life. The population increase due to modern medicine is marginal at best, and there are many statistical studies that will back this up.

Your second objection is scientifically misplaced. A marginal increase in CO2 (100ppm may be 30% of total CO2, but it’s still a very small part of the atmosphere) has only a marginal effect on the growth of plants, whereas it has a much more significant effect on the temperature. Moreover, people who study plant biology will tell you that the amount of CO2 is less important than the ratio between gases, and changing those ratios will affect different plants in different ways. That is to say, increasing the CO2 doesn’t necessarily increase the growth of all plants uniformly, but will aid some more than others. This isn’t a huge problem, except that if it is done too quickly (and in geological time, 150 years falls under the category of “too quickly”) it can dramatically shift the equilibrium points of the biotope, which leads to biodiversity loss.

Your point about temperature also misses a major point about how climate and food production are linked. Warmer doesn’t necessarily equal better. It might surprise you to learn that very little of our food is grown in tropical climates, instead it is mostly grown in temperate climates. Why? There are several reasons but the two main ones are (1) our main food crops were indigenous to temperate climates, this is mostly due to the types of flora and fauna that are native to certain climate zones. You will also notice that all of our domesticated animals are native to temperate climates, and this was important to the development of agriculture. The reason that most of our food crops are native to temperate climates has a lot to do with the soil, and also (2) the climate – temperate climates are more stable and have predictable rainfall patterns. Sure, a lot of tropical environments receive a lot of annual rainfall, but it is very unpredictable making it difficult to plan the kind of industrialized agriculture which is in fact the real reason for our population growth.

A temperature increase has the potential to make arable large parts of land in northern Canada, Scandinavia, and Siberia. However, this is by no means guaranteed. There is no guarantee that the soil will be suitable for farming, and even if it is, those parts of the world have almost no infrastructure (save for the trans-siberian railway) for transporting the food. Moreover, the loss of arable land due to desertification in areas of the world which will become too hot to reliably grow food will more than outweigh the gains.

I encourage you to read further on these topics, both on this website and elsewhere. For now, I refer you to the Koppen-Geiger climate chart which can be found here:(http://www.danielyeow.com/2009/the-earth-debate-part-1/) to emphasize the point that suitability for habitation isn’t a linear function of temperature, but is a chaotic function of many variables. The real point being that we should try as hard as we can not to mess with it, rather than coming up with completely unscientific reasons that “more CO2 would be better”. (I say “unscientific” because an understanding of how global food production works, combined with the peer-reviewed literature would suggest that the opposite is the case).

The planet is becoming more inhabitable than at any other time. In the last 50 years human population went from 3B to 7B, a 133% increased, matched by our food supply increase, matched by worldwide crop yield increases, partially brought to us by a 30% increase in CO2 in our atmosphere. Objection one, the population went up because of modern medicine. Answer, no, that caused demographic changes within the population, like longer life expectancies, and lower infant mortality. Unless you can show me pics of 100s of millions of third world double wides from 50 years ago, I’m going to have to serve you the truth, 2000 calories a day 50 years ago, 2000 calories a day today, the population increase was brought about by the food supply increase. Objection two, the crop yield increases were brought about, by hybrids and better plant breeding. Answer, yea, in an atmosphere that has 30% more CO2. The only thing that is making our world more habitable than the CO2 increase, is the temperature increase caused by the CO2 increase. Look at a world temperature map for crying out loud. No sense pretending we grow our crops in the dead of winter, and if it gets any hotter, we won’t be able to grow anything at all. The truth is that there is a vast frozen stretch of land across northern Canada, Europe, Asia.

Now I am doing kinda the same as you did… but in the US!

I’m glad you enjoyed it!
I can proudly say we live in a beautiful piece of land

-”An Argentinean Wandering Around the US”

Also your captcha pains me so

2. I don’t agree with this. How is certain death cowardly while probable death is brave? Consider how the film 300 is a depiction of ultimate bravery (in the majority opinion of our culture, at least). Suicide bombers choose certain death attacks when probable death attacks reduce the probability of success unacceptably; the latter simply isn’t an option in most cases. Sometimes it is, and the terrorist has survived to face the consequences (I’m thinking of Timothy McVeigh). The organisers usually claim responsibility for the attacks, and certainly suffer whatever consequences follow. Finally, there’s the argument that many suicide bombers believe in consequences in the afterlife, and in any discussion of bravery, it is mindset rather than fact which is important.

3. I’m not sure your analogy works (a dog won’t bark at a bear for the purpose of intimidating another dog), but I guess you’re probably right on your main point.

2. The situation of a soldier dying for their country and a terrorist dying in a suicide bombing are very different. The target is irrelevant to my use of the label. The reason I say they are cowardly is because they have no intention of facing the consequences of their actions. A soldier faces a potentially fatal situation but takes full responsibility for his actions regardless of whether he emerges alive or otherwise (and he would prefer to emerge alive). The terrorist faces a definitely-fatal situation knowing that he won’t be around to face the consequences of his actions. That is what makes the action cowardly.

3. You’re right, I am simplifying things greatly… probably too much. Crashing planes into buildings in a foreign country cannot directly contribute to the reinstitution of the Caliphate, so we examine how it does it indirectly. I believe that it only shows weakness if the result is a great deal of fear. If the twin towers crashed to the ground, and everyone just shrugged it off like it was nothing, the impression of demonstrating American weakness among Arab people would probably not be felt. A dog barks, and if its prey cowers, then it believes it can attack, because the fear shows weakness. But if its prey doesn’t react in a cowardly way, then it won’t attack because it doesn’t believe its prey is weak.

This is all just speculation of course (and I really should check the comments on my website more often, sorry for the late reply)