Stable climates encourage high diversity. Globally, biodiversity is highest in the tropics where climate is relatively more stable than anywhere else. The regular rainfall and warm air means that plant species were not competing for light and water as much, which allowed them to specialise in different ways. This also drove specialisation in their plant predators so you get an overall increase in diversity in the plant and animal (and probably also fungal) kingdoms. When you get to regions with irregular rainfall, species must adapt to limiting water use so their evolutionary specialisations are limited by this requirement. Lower rainfall and periodic variations in temps/sunlight also restrict how far species can go in these environments. There is still a great range in diversity outside of the tropics, but the instability limits how much diversity can arise in the first place if not persist under changing conditions.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary...
The main thing to remember here is the time required for adaptation. The results of rapid desertification are seen in the Sahara, where very few animals and I think no plants have adapted to be widespread there, whereas other deserts on other continents can have lots of plant life, and hence support more species. The desert kangaroo rat, which rarely drinks water can persist in arid conditions due to the an extra long loop of henle in each nephron of the kidney which is where water is filtered out of the urine and returned to the blood; thus can survive in this environment when a similar mammal the same size and shape would quickly die. http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.10...
Releasing a population of black rats into the Sonoran desert doesn't mean a few of them sill survive and then acclimate to the hot, dry conditions. But if they are exposed to gradually increasing temperatures and decreasing water supplies across numerous generations you can guarantee that adaptations will arise allowing them to tolerate the new conditions. The question is how long would it take compared to the severity of the changes.
Anyway I guess Kano summed it up best by saying he/she is selfish and doesn't care about non-humans. This is typical of denialists who don't understand the importance of biodiversity, and how human survival depends on it. We still live in ecosystems, albeit ones we have changed to suit ourselves. But all our food comes from ecosystems which rely on biodiversity in the form of pollinators and seed dispersers. Not only will humans be at risk from reduced food sources by ecosystem collapse, but also from the potential for increases in the incidence of pathogens as a result of reduced diversity. While new diseases may arise at any time (and is difficult to predict) ones which rely on vectors (such as arthropods) can be tracked and their future distributions predicted. If some of the predatory species which feed on these vectors are lost, then the risk of vectors spreading increases. Mosquitoes are a prime example, many frogs are at risk of extinction and losing frogs means gaining mosquitoes and therefore increasing risk from any pathogens they spread. http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v46...
I'm sure that somebody could-and maybe already has-come up with a gobal temperature average that would theoretically be the 'sweet spot' that would maximize the comfort and convenience for the most number of people on earth, including a variety of flora and fauna that would thrive best under a specific temperature. But it seems to me that the 'generally beneficial' condition is a state of stability and it does seem that we are moving out of that state as temperatures increase and the planet searches for equilibrium.
It is an interesting question though...and is an interesting illustration of the verbal gymnastics some people go through-I recently saw a question that asked what the temperature was 'supposed' to be as if climate science had a global average that is 'ideal' which I guess we should be striving for by his apparent misinterpretation of what 'supposed to be' meant.
From my point of view it is all relative-if it is 6 degrees warmer on average in one place and 5 degrees colder on average someplace else maybe that averages out to only a 1 degree increase but if it happens over a short period of time there's gonna be some interesting weather events going on between the two areas. Seems like this is what science has been telling us...not that any location or the planet is wrong for not being at the temperature it is 'supposed' to be at. Frankly, I never really got why people would play those kinds of games...
Those two examples aren't based off of an ideal condition; they are based on bs and stupidity.
While there is no "ideal" for "all life" simply because life itself has evolved to fill diverse and often not mutual environments. For example, if all the Earth was water, things that couldn't survive in water would die off or change, The inverse goes for if everything was water. That said, I think you can see that an ideal would probably involve diverse conditions that allowed for different environments. Kinda like what we have now. In that respect, see Robert Hart for what paradise would probably look like.
The problem with the kind of thinking in the global warming denial camp is that they forget that human life is inextricably linked to other organisms, and that we all formed under certain specific conditions that are being changed by our own activity and against our own long term interests. In that regard, even if we can't define an "ideal" state, we can sure as hell say what would be very NON-ideal state. And sadly, we're creating a very non-ideal state for ourselves.
judging by the evidence The conditions on earth most beneficial to life are in the saltwater oceans that cover 70% of the planet.
the average temperature of this salt water varies from 3.9c to 17c with the most variety of salt water lifeforms occurring near the higher end of the temperature scale.
a few lifeforms have even managed to get away from the competition & adapt to dry conditions on the few scattered areas that aren't covered by the oceans.
Many of these small scattered areas above sea level are covered by ice that is extremely hostile to life so the percentage of life that doesn't live under the ideal conditions of saltwater oceans is so small that its inconsequential & should be ignored on a planetary scale.
No. Many organisms do best in conditions which would kill us.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremophil...
Other organisms will die in the presence of oxygen, which we require.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obligate_an...
When I hear the "CO2 is plant food" meme from denialists, I tend to think of carbon dioxide being plant food, which it is, as being part of the false dichotomy of everything being either all good or all bad. The same false dichotomy has led to people being against fluoridation of water and nuclear power. Because fluoride is toxic and because nuclear power produces radioactive byproducts, they are supposedly all bad.
Other things being equal, and if carbon dioxide is the limiting nutrient, it can increase plant growth. But plants are vulnerable to drought and in some cases, to excessively high temperatures or lack of cold.
http://www.gardenguides.com/107164-seeds...
I'm with Kano in that I consider what is good for humans to be what is important. Where I may have a difference with many "skeptics" is in what is good for humans. I consider the polar bears to be more like canaries in a coal mine than the reason to fight globa warming. However, the idea that people have to worship oil, coal and SUVs or be anti-human is nonsense. Besides rising sea levels, global warming also threatens food production.
http://www.climatehotmap.org/global-warm...
I don't know if you can call it generally beneficial, but here on planet Earth the presence of carbon is a necessary condition for life.
Otherwise, the question is self-answering. The fact that organisms exist is proof that the physical world is generally beneficial to the bio-chemical processes necessary for life. Beyond that, every species is on its own.
Perhaps I'm selfish, and I am not so concerned about good for all life, I am more concerned about good for humans.
Check wikipedia, ice age climates, were cold dry deserts over most of the earth, with only the tropical belt having lush plant/animal life.
The warm wet high Co2 periods were exploding with life, with forest covering most of the world and the oceans full of fish and marine life.
Dare you to watch this video http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla...
If the Earth was a closed system and in a giant plastic or glass sealed enclosure
you could adjust the Temperature for your version of a perfect high and low.
Then you can figure out where to make it rain or snow ?
And if you really want to get complicated you can have different zones of Temperature.
you could make the North and south poles -100 degrees all seasons .
Then you have Murphy's law and the Chaos factor to muck up your calculations.
Your off, it is the warmon religion that preaches the meme that man is changing the climate and that is "bad" and generally that mans actions are bad for the planet. Your question is irrelevant.
Before you move onto some other irrelevant question seeking witty analogies or some "meme" that will make you feel smarter, too much of anything is generally bad. But we aren't talking about too much of anything when it comes to AGW we are talking about poorly interpreted observations and bad predictions of the future, along with misguided associations to current naturally occurring events.
There's this denialist meme that, if global warming is happening, it's a good thing. And, of course, there's the "CO2 is plant food" meme. Both represent this vague idea that there is some set of conditions that benefit *all* life on Earth, and thus that anything that makes the Earth more like that set of "ideal" conditions is good for life.
But, well, there is *no* condition that is good for *all* life. So, I'd like examples of that idea. Please point out things that thrive in conditions that would kill other things, things that are killed by conditions that most things thrive in, conditions that are generally beneficial to one type of organism but generally harmful to another, conditions that are beneficial to a point but harmful after that point, and the like. As usual, links to sources, especially peer-reviewed ones, are good.
If you actually can come up with a condition that is good for *all* life, list that, too.
