Is AGW really a problem?

I think fretting about AGW is re-arranging the chairs of the deck of the Titanic. The activities of humans are already leaving a permanent geological record, so that even millions of years from now, this era will be listed among the greatest mass extinctions, on rank with the Permian-Triassic and the Cretaceous-Tertiary extinction events. We are already altering the face of the Earth forever. Many AGW deniers are fond of making the argument that "climate fluctuations are normal in Earth's history", but what they leave out or maybe do not realize is that mass die-offs are also normal occurrences in Earth's history. And what is the single greatest reason why this is happening? There's now 7 billion humans on this planet, and still growing, requiring ever more resources of the planet to sustain, such as EATING up nearly all the fish food stock in the oceans. If the population were to be held constant at, say, 100 million people, we can perfectly keep up with the "same bad old habits" such as fossil fuel consumption and wasteful water use, and not have such a drastic impact. And if humans were to become extinct, well, this planet will recover eventually, and like what happened with the extinction of dinosaurs, new life forms could take over.

Unfortunately, many people that take the Bible seriously believe that it's been commanded by God to continue to proliferate and to seize whatever Earth has to offer (read Genesis). And believe that worrying about what happens centuries from now is to question or even doubt the imminent 2nd coming of Christ.

I frankly don't worry about acidification at all.

I realize that a word like acidification is scary to an alarmists. I remember I had a drill sergeant that warned everyone not to drink Coca Cola because it was ACID. It is simply a scary word to those ignorant about basic chemistry. In fact, the ocean pH is far from being acid and will never approach acidic pH. Alarmists using that word to scare people just shows how desperate and how far removed from science they really are. http://www.rationaloptimist.com/blog/more-evidence...

What we know is that alarmists scenarios have not panned out.

Since their dire predictions haven't happened, they are forced to point at other scary scenarios and what ifs. Acidification was already tried with acid rain but it had a nice ring to it so they have resurrected it.

Carbon trapped in the arctic or ocean may be released? Oh my. This is like threatening your neighbor that there may be a pit bull in your back yard that might be released if you don't stop driving your car. The carbon is certainly there. It was there during every interglacial period that has happened. I would like an alarmists to explain to the rest of us why this dangerous carbon didn't get released in previous interglacials when it was warmer than now.

I think the economic costs are higher than you think. A state like California has huge investments in infrastructure that is intended to last more than 20 years. We would need to greatly increase the number of reservoirs, because less water will be stored in snowpack and more of it will run off. The entire Sacramento Delta region would be under threat from a sea level rise, and the combined effects of a rise in sea level plus storm surge could make the delta region brackish, essentially cutting off Northern California water supplies from Southern California for a period of years. That's just one region of the world, but things like that would happen all over and the cost easily in many trillions of dollars. Think of all the farmland you've seen, what if the preferred climate zones shifted poleward a few hundred kilometers? Some people could move, or production areas might change in the more prosperous countries, but in poverty-stricken countries the populace may just starve as a result.

EDIT: jim z, call it what you like (would you be happier with ocean de-basification, or dealkalinization?) it's just as big a problem. You ignore the problem by saying the name is incorrect--that really does nothing to solve it, even though you might think it does. The pH of the ocean is decreasing (moving more toward the acid end of the scale) and it could be a HUGE problem if many organisms are no longer able to build shells.

Yes.

There will be major impacts to agriculture from increasing droughts, heat waves, and other extreme weather putting stresses on crops. There's the economic damage due to public infrastructure along coastlines, as pegminer discussed. There's potential military conflicts over dwindling natural resources, especially among poorer nations. Water supply problems, especially for regions which rely on glacial melt. And so on and so forth - the link below covers it well.

Perhaps a better reasoning why we will lose species that are isolated is their own fault because they didn't evolve legs?

Just because you notice things occuring doesn't mean that it's either a problem or that people caused it.

AGW doesn't exist and is not a problem.

Its a fake problem to scare the masses into paying more taxes and more for fuel .