Another aspect of the Civ2 game that was lost in Civ3.

Yeah, that was cool.

At very least, coastal plains, grasslands, dessert, and tundra could turn into swamp, and swamp could turn into water. That way, you could avoid having your city destroyed, since if it the tile it was on turned into a swamp, you could get workers to "clear wetlands" and restore the tile before further global warming turned the swamp to water.

Building cities on coastal swamps (or letting a tile under a city remain swamp if it changed because of warming) would open you up to the risk of city destruction, but that wouldn't really be any worse than building near a volcano.

Not familiar with Civ 2 so not sure of how it worked. I do like the idea, even as I sit in my office hearing that my home is under a flash flood warning. :eek:

yes good one

They should just fix the global warming model first. Now the global warming can only be stopped from getting worse. Global warming should begin to reduce also. Then I would agree to this :)

Their should be some sort of improvement, say "dykes" built in cities that would prevent the terrain of the city square from degenerating. However if global warming was allowed to go too far you could still end up with your coastal cities on islands as the waters rushed in.

I respectfully disagree. I believe the whole idea should be scrapped. Global warming is not a demonstrated fact- it's far more hype than it is science. Unfortunately, much of it is driven by a political agenda bent on destroying capitalism and eliminating private property. I do not believe that Civ 4 should reflect this agenda.

When I was in school in the 70s, I was repeatedly told that in 20 years, the polar ice caps would melt and New Orleans would be underwater. I was also told that by now, we wouldn't be able to go outside because of holes in the ozone layer. None of this has happened. All the dire warnings about an ice age, then about global warming, then about both, have not come to pass. The fact that they haven't come true has not been because we humans have tremendously changed our behavior- we dump more 'greenhouse gases' into the atmosphere now than ever before. We also have more population, that is better fed (30% of world's population is malnourished now vs 60% 30 years ago), and drinking cleaner water than 30 years ago. In my own country (the United States), there are more trees now than there were when Columbus arrived in the New World. The reality is that the planet is far less fragile than we've been told.

I remember the time in the late 90s that scientists got their hands on real data taken by a satellite that was specifically launched to measure temperature. This satellite's 9 years of data showed that earth's average temperature had DECLINED by .8 degrees F during that time. The response? Scientists threw out the actual data and used their computer models instead, showing that the earth was warming.

I know that Civilization is not real, but it is based on real events. I believe it should reflect real science.

I realize I'm going to get a lot of heat for this post. I would ask that you base your responses on evidence, not on politics. I know that the polar ice caps are thinner in some spots than they used to be. Ask yourself- is this because of mankind's activity, or would it have happened anyway because of natural forces? Politicians and special interests have all told us for over 30 years that unless we do something right now (usually in the form of paying higher taxes, reducing people's ability to work their own private property, or by punishing capitalist nations), disaster awaited us. I am tired of them crying wolf. We've had enough time to evaluate some of their 'scientific models', and the evidence is just not there.

No one hates the environment, no one wants to poison the water, no one wants to see coastlines flooded. Personally, I'm planting 56 trees around my yard this year. This is not because I'm afraid of global warming- it's because I love trees and the environment. I just don't believe the hype about global warming. Before you tell me that global warming belongs in Civ 4, I would ask you to look underneath the 'pseudo-science' and see the politics that drives much of it.

Hey Pook. Well thought out and understandable post.

I also do not believe in the global warming theory. What I just wanted to comment on was that I know this one woman who bought land in the West Virginia mountains because she wanted ocean front land when she retired.

Originally posted by Pook
I respectfully disagree.

Yes, well, there are many internet-sites and other studies of this, but you wouldn't probably be very convinced, so what the heck. It is of course true that the doomsday prophecies have not come true (which is good), but that of course is no argument. They have been saying that fusion powerplants are ten years away for thirty years now, and they are still 10-20 years away. It is very hard to predict anything that has anything to do with weather. It is known (and by known I mean that there are dozens of studies) that the temperature of Earth has risen steadily for a hundred or more years now. What causes this, there can be no certainty at this point. You say that there are calculations that disprove this. Well, I can't say anything to that, now can I, because the calculations don't exist anymore. I would rather trust existing sources than non-existing - but of course one should keep an open mind. You may have what opinion you want, that is not an issue here, but I would like to say something about the changes. They may be nothing but statistics, they may result from whatever causes, but these are the facts in Finland (that happens to be very tender to temperature-changes because of the Gulf-stream):

Last summer was the hottest summer in 500 years. In last decade, eight years have been considerably warmer than the average, the other two were average years. All the springs have become warmer and warmer in the last 10-20 years, this spring's mean temperature is about 5 degrees (centigrade) warmer than the average was 20 years ago. Those are just those that I remember by heart. They are only effects in a small region, in a small time frame, but they are real effects.
I would be careful before I dumped the whole problem of global warming. Atleast I have been shocked by the weather-events all around the world in the last decade. Antarctica's ice-caps ARE getting smaller.

The only question is how much of the warming is caused by men, and how much is normal changes in temperature.

About the ozone-layer: the chemicals that caused the thinning of ozone-layer have been reduced considerably. The ozone-layer's thinning has slowed and will return back to normal after a century or something like that. Now you may ask the Australians if they have had any problems with it, and they might give a whole different picture of it. One of the certain things we know is the thinning of ozone-layer, and luckily that is under control.

Evidence is what I'm looking for. If I use the scientific method, it seems to me that the Civ 2 hypothesis would be "human industrial activity causes global warming, with negative effects on earth." If I try to test this hypothesis, the evidence is scarce and often contradictory.

I don't know about politics in Finland. In the United States, we have a phenomenon called "watermelon politics"- green on the outside, red on the inside. After communism fell everywhere except North Korea, Cuba, and Berkeley, California ;), the same people who were communists and socialists in years past now wrap themselves in environmental language. Their 'solutions' have not changed one bit. No matter what the issue or manufactured crisis of the moment, the answer is:
1) more government paid for by higher taxes
2) reduced individual freedom- "you can't drain that mosquito-infested swamp on your own property, it's a wetland"
3) punishment of capitalism- the Kyoto protocols would have devastated the economy of Western democracies while rewarding countries that produce more industrial pollution with fewer safeguards

Two other points I need to answer:
The satellite data showing that earth was cooling is still in existence. The problem with this raw data was that it:
1) didn't meet the expectations of the scientists
2) didn't meet the expectations of those funding the study
That's why they ignored it.

Regarding the ozone layer, volcanoes spew far more chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) into the atmosphere than mankind. An example is Mount Pinatubo in the Phillipines, which pumped over 1000 times more CFCs into the atmosphere than all of mankind's activity to that date put together. According to scientific models, this should have annihilated the ozone layer. Instead, it reduced the ozone layer by 20%, and earth recovered up to the normal level within three months. Something is clearly wrong with the model.

Summing up, I'm glad that global warming is not in Civ 3, and I don't want to see it reinserted into Civ 4.

Shyrramar: While last summer may have been the hottest in Finland over the last 500 years (your records go back that far - impressive) the past few winters over here in the States have been some of the coldest in recent memory.

Now, I am an enviromentalist (although not from Cal. Berkley
:cool: ) and I firmly believe that mankind is having some effect on the global tempature of the planet, however I personally do not think it is as extreme as some extremist make it out to be.

In regards to including it in Civ 4, I really don't care but it needs to be done in a better manner than it is implemented now. How, I don't know. At least we should be given the option to turn it off.


BTW: Congradualations to both Pook and Shyrramar for having an interesting debate without resorting to flames and insults. That is a rarity in some forums. :goodjob:

Pook: since you admitted you expected to "get a lot of heat" for that post, why not back up some of your assertions with links to references? You asked us to base our responses on evidence, not politics, but you did not provide any links to evidence yourself. This thread will probably quickly degenerate now into a "yes it is / no it isn't" argument with both sides claiming that the science supports their own argument, and that's all a big waste of time, especially if no one posts sources for their information.

For instance, can you provide some published source where I can look at the data on global temperatures that you mention contradicted scientists expectations?

It is my understanding that, by most methods of measurement, temperatures have risen over the last century - however, I can't point to any authoritative source for that off the top of my head, so I won't try to convince you of it. In fact, you could convince me of the opposite, if you can point me in the direction of a reliable source that says so. In the meantime, it is my understanding that the main debate is not whether global warming is real, but whether human beings are to blame. This is undoubtedly a debate with a lot of hype from both sides. However, I do take issue with you characterization of everyone who is "pro-environment" (politically) as being a closet communist. I'm sure its true that "watermelon politics" exists, but there are also a lot of well-informed, reasonable people who support capitalism and private property but are concerned about human greed overcoming common sense. Perhaps such people are misguided and are overestimating the fragility of the planet, but the easy counter argument is: better safe than sorry.

It is also my understanding that the majority of scientists believe that human activity has indeed had some effect on global temperatures. It is possible, as you say, that the majority of scientists are biased and hype the problem up, and that the minority who believe the opposite are in fact correct. However, I can't fault the Civ games for going with what the majority of scientists are saying, whether that turns out to be right or wrong. Sid and the other game designers have made their decision about who to believe: you may disagree and claim they're falling for an incorrect theory, but you cannot argue that they are falling for some obscure fringe theory that mainstream science has never heard of.

I am willing to consider the possibilty that my beliefs about the environment are wrong, but, since it is you who are suggesting a change to the game, I think the burden of "proof" should be on you. I feel no need to try to convince you you're wrong: since the game makes sense to me as it is, I'm not complaining. For that matter, if you convince me I'm wrong, it probably won't change the game either (you'd have to convince the game designers to do that ;) ). But if you're going to post here asserting that the game is inaccurate scientifically, presumably you'd like a chance to convince us that that's the case.

As sealman says, good work on keeping the conversation civil so far: flamewars about political topics are all too common. Pook, you're a brave soul simply for bringing this topic up...

Originally posted by Pook
Evidence is what I'm looking for. If I use the scientific method, it seems to me that the Civ 2 hypothesis would be "human industrial activity causes global warming, with negative effects on earth." If I try to test this hypothesis, the evidence is scarce and often contradictory.

I don't know about politics in Finland. In the United States, we have a phenomenon called "watermelon politics"- green on the outside, red on the inside. After communism fell everywhere except North Korea, Cuba, and Berkeley, California ;), the same people who were communists and socialists in years past now wrap themselves in environmental language. Their 'solutions' have not changed one bit. No matter what the issue or manufactured crisis of the moment, the answer is:
1) more government paid for by higher taxes
2) reduced individual freedom- "you can't drain that mosquito-infested swamp on your own property, it's a wetland"
3) punishment of capitalism- the Kyoto protocols would have devastated the economy of Western democracies while rewarding countries that produce more industrial pollution with fewer safeguards

Two other points I need to answer:
The satellite data showing that earth was cooling is still in existence. The problem with this raw data was that it:
1) didn't meet the expectations of the scientists
2) didn't meet the expectations of those funding the study
That's why they ignored it.

Regarding the ozone layer, volcanoes spew far more chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) into the atmosphere than mankind. An example is Mount Pinatubo in the Phillipines, which pumped over 1000 times more CFCs into the atmosphere than all of mankind's activity to that date put together. According to scientific models, this should have annihilated the ozone layer. Instead, it reduced the ozone layer by 20%, and earth recovered up to the normal level within three months. Something is clearly wrong with the model.

Summing up, I'm glad that global warming is not in Civ 3, and I don't want to see it reinserted into Civ 4.

Finland does not have such problems. It is actually the less corrupted nation in the world according to the latest study. We don't even have the same hysterical fear about communist conspirators ;). There is no reason to suspect a global conspiracy theory behind all this - or atleast some information to back it up would be welcome. Why would most of the western democracies sign that treaty after careful examination, if it only caused them harm?

If the study still exists, where may I find it and study it myself? There is little point advocating scientific method while there are absolutely no references in your post. If you want some of mine, I can provide a lot of those, but as they are available in abundance, you can get a hundred of those by typing "global warming" into google.

I am glad to see that you have a mind of your own and you don't simply acccept what scientists tell you. One should be careful though, that while asking for evidence to back up certain theories, one don't accept lightly the opposite evidence either.

Originally posted by sealman
Shyrramar: While last summer may have been the hottest in Finland over the last 500 years (your records go back that far - impressive) the past few winters over here in the States have been some of the coldest in recent memory.


EXACTLY my point. Global warming doesn't simply make all places warmer - they change the ecosystem causing rain where used to be dry, causing rising temperatures while lowering them in some places. Global warming causes abnormal weather. There have been record temperatures and other weather-effects all over the world lately. And what comes to our "records", there of course are none: do you think they know the temperatures 100million years ago because dinosaurs kept records? :lol:


Now, I am an enviromentalist (although not from Cal. Berkley
) and I firmly believe that mankind is having some effect on the global tempature of the planet, however I personally do not think it is as extreme as some extremist make it out to be.

As you may have noticed, I as just as much against extremists as are you. I am actually arguing against Pook because I see him as an extremist who claims that there is no such thing as global warming or atleast it is something that shouldn't be taken seriously. I am not advocating any doomsday-prophesies either. I think it should be studied, as there is no question nowadays that the phenomenon exists. It should be carefully researched what is the part of men in this, what will the long-term effects be and how can we influence it. Hopefully I have cleared sufficiently where I stand in this. If I have not, please do ask, and I try to explain! :)

Back on topic, it isn't missing. Marsh, for example, turn to coastal.

Originally posted by warpstorm
Back on topic, it isn't missing. Marsh, for example, turn to coastal.

Is this true.

I have not seen this happen yet.

Does grassland also turn to marsh.

No, grass->plain->desert. You can change what turns to what in the the editor.

Since Civ4 will be 3D, they could just raise the water level and let those areas that are now flooded, be underwater.

I don't know why a asked about grassland turning to marsh as I have seen it turn to plains a thousand times, I was having a brain cramp.

Now I am thinking that coastal grassland should be treated differently than interior grassland. I am thinking that coastal areas should first go wet (marsh/swamp/bog/etc...) as they start to flood and then as flooding worsens then area should go right under water.

Maybe this would give way for new terrain improvements like dikes.

Pook, do you have a link to where you got your "global cooling" information. I have seen sites that claim that this is true, but so far every single one has been discredited.

Pook: For one, I find it hard to believe that any sattelite could measure the average temperature of the planet that accurately. The only way one could measure any kind of temperature from up there is with infrared cameras, but that will only measure the tempurature of things that are visible(meaning not the air!) And even if it could, why bother when you can just get the information from all of the major cities in the world each day?

Furthermore, think about this logically for a minute: Most research Univesities, especially in the US, have no affiliation with the government, and no agenda except to show the facts. What do any of them have to gain by telling everyone that there is global warming, and why are none of them refuting this claim?

And what exactly do these political leaders have to gain by claiming global warming anyway? You say they just want more taxes, and converting to socialism. I'm not going to argue with you about the merits of Socialism, but needless to say, the US is pretty much the only country in the western world whose people don't actually support the idea. And even if it were just about the taxes, the government's budget is open for everyone to see, so it isn't as if they would be able to hide the fact that they aren't spending that global warming money on global warming.

Greetings from the "extremist"

There have been lots of good points made in this thread. Yes, indeed, there have been areas of our planet that have warmed up in the last 100 years. There are also areas that have cooled down. Overall, the earth's temperature has increased by about 1 degree C in the last 100 years. Whether human activity had anything to do with it remains an open question. I say that because 2/3 of the increase occurred between 1920-1945. The increase in temperature over the last century may be just part of the warming trend that got earth out of the "mini ice age" that ran from about 1450-1850.

My whole point on this thread is that I'm glad that global warming is not in Civ 3 and I don't want it back in Civ4. My reasoning is that the hypothesis "human activity, particularly industrial activity, causes global warming with negative consequences" remains a long way from proven.

If someone took my comments about former communists and thought that I meant all environmentalists, I apologize. Watermelon politics is indeed alive and well, but that's a long way from saying that all environmentalists are closet communists- that was not at all my intent.

Many of you asked for sources, and rightly so. I would expect that for an issue as important as this, in order to convince people that I'm not a total wacko I have to show data.

I admit to one mistake: when I said that 8 years of satellite data showed the earth was cooling, I was wrong. It was 18 years of data from 1979-1997 (see reference 5 below).

The following general sources give a good overview of the science of the global warming issue. My thanks to Richard Derham, former president of the Washington Institute for pulling these sources together.

1. Green, Kenneth, "A Plain English Guide to the Science of Global Change," Reason Public Policy Institute, 1997.

2. Hamer, John and Parks, Mariana, "Global Warming is Globaloney," Eastsideweek, Dec 10, 1997

3. Jones, Laura (ed.), "Global Warming, The Science and the Politics" The Fraser Institute

Some more specific references:

4. According to Vincent Gray, the surface temperatures since 1851 have varied as follows:
1851-1879 increased 0.2 degrees Celsius
1879-1919 decreased 0.3. degrees Celsius
1920-1945 increased 0.65 degrees Celsius
1945-1978 decreased 0.2 degrees Celsius
1978-1990 increased 0.3 degrees Celsius
Vincent Gray Climate Change, 95: An Appraisal, pg. 11-13, (The Heartland Institute, Sept 10, 1997)
On page 9, Gray also points out that temperatures fell 0.2 degrees Centigrade from 1945 to 1978 while atmospheric carbon dioxide rose 9%.

5. From 1979 through April 1997, satellite measurements show a cooling of 0.09 degrees Centigrade. Robert Balling, Jr., "Calmer Weather: The Spin on Greenhouse Hurricanes," Competitive Enterprise Institute, May 1997, pg. 14.

6. Statement of John Cristy, a scientist who heads NASA's Temperature study: "We don't see any global warming in our data and our satellites monitor the entire world, not just urban areas like the ground temperatures show." Quoted in Gregg Easterbrook, A Moment on Earth, Viking Press, pg. 280

7. Dixy Lee Ray: "Environmental Overkill: What Ever Happened to Common Sense", 1992, pg. 19-20. Dr. Ray notes that citrus fruit used to grow as far north as the Carolinas and now cannot grow north of Orlando, Florida.

8. Referring to the 1970s fear of another Ice Age:
Nigel Calder, "In the Grip of the New Ice Age," International Wildlife, July 1975; Douglas Colligan, "Brace yourself for Another Ice Age," Science Digest, February 1975; "Are We Headed for a New Ice Age?" Current, May/June 1976.

9. Also on the Ice Age, I would mention a quote from Dr. Kenneth E. F. Watt to a crowd on the first Earth Day in 1970: "If present trends continue, the world will be about 4 degrees colder for the global mean temperature in 1990, but 11 degrees colder by the year 2000."

10. Referring to glaciers growing in Alaska in the 1990s
Gregg Easterbrook, A Moment on the Earth pg. 293. After shrinking during the 1980's, the Bering Glacier in central Alaska began growing, reaching a growth surge of as much as 300 feet per day.

11. Robert C. Balling, Jr., "Calmer Weather: The Spin on Greenhouse Hurricanes," Competitive Enterprise Institute, May 1997. The author cites several studies confirming that hurricane frequency and intensity have not been increasing in recent decades.

12. A 1991 poll conducted by The Gallup Organization, for the Center of Science Technology and Media asked the meteorologists two questions: whether they think that average global temperatures have increased in the past 100 years and whether, if so, they believe it is within the range of natural, not human induced, fluctuation. Only 19% said temperatures had increased due to human activity. Letter to the Wall Street Journal, by Harry E Cotugno, Vice President, The Gallup Organization, Dec. 18, 1997.

13. A conference of 60 climatologists in Leipzig, Germany produced the Leipzig Declaration on Global Climate Change in Nov. 1995 . the statement states: "[I]t has become increasingly clear that --- contrary to conventional wisdom --- there does not exist today a general scientific consensus about the importance of greenhouse warming from the rising levels of carbon dioxide. On the contrary, most scientists now accept the fact that actual observations from earth satellites show no climate warming whatsoever."

Interesting comments on this thread. Saved me having to start my own thread.

The remarks about global warming are approximately correct. That is because as a species we are not long-lived enough to perceive the effects of our activities. This is not to say that the effects of poor husbandry of our environment do not exist. You only need to consider the activities of the Mongols in the C13th. They slaughtered millions of people in Mesopotamia and destroyed the irrigation works that had been there for thousands of years. That part of the world has never properly recoverd. How about the over use of North Africa by the Romans, once considered to be the grain basket of the Empire. Of course a lot of things have happened since then (the Civ equivalent of I've slept since that happened, please re-educate me).

On climate in general, I would venture the opinion that we still do not fully understand how this works, but we have information that ought to have some bearing on how Civ works. We know that Ice Ages take water out of the oceans into the ice caps. The effect on sea level is fairly direct if you exclude the effect of uplift and plate settling. The range of sea levels associated with Ice Age melts and freeze ups seems to be between +50M and -200M based on present seas levels. The most recent Ice Age ended some 10,000 years ago. As a rule Ice Ages take a long time to build up to maximum glaciation and then rapidly (over a period of 10,000 years or less) move back to interglacial conditions. Work on determining the periodicity of the glaciation events points towards a link with orbital cycles although ocean current deserve an honorary mention for local climatological changes. Ice core samples taken from Greenland indicate that average global temperatures have changed by as much as 10C in less than 30 years.

The effect: well the Mediterranean has been land locked enough times in its history for the salt deposits from previous dry-ups to be identified. It is not beyond the realms of possibility that what we regard as continental shelf to have been part of the happy hunting grounds of our very distant ancestors.
I make that point 1: how about a rising sea level / inundation threat during the earlier stages, it will make that search for lebensraum even more poignant. Heck maybe you just lost eden to inundation (well I made that one up really)
Point 2: If we are capable of tipping the balance of the glaciation - deglaciation cycle with a good old fashioned bit of warming, we just need to think Volume of Ice in Ice Caps = amount to spread over the oceans and any low-lands. I would be fascinated with an end game that told you what was left in the Ice Caps and how far you were off from drowning some of your rivals. So please Mr. Civ 4 designer give it a whirl.

I've seen a screenshot of grassland turning into coastal due to "rising tides." I think it was in the SOTD.

Unfortunately recorded history does not easily go earlier than circa 4,000 BC. Nonetheless I consider the factors introduced by climatological changes to have created the necessity of adaptive migrations. These migrations form the backdrop of the earliest phases of what we consider to be civilisation.
So really what I am asking for is a bit of a Pandora's Box of a climate during the pre-settling phase. Heck! did I say that - Pre Settling Phase - it almost makes me want to think of the Promised Land.
Nice graphics would be nice too, but they ain't gameplay. :)

I have to admit, I didn't have time to read the whole thread, so maybe someone already said this.

My experience with coastal flooding and rising sea levels mainly comes from SMAC, and it was one of my least favorite features. But on a positive note, they did include a very effective way to deal with it. You had the option of constructing a dome or something that would keep your city safe if the sea levels rose too high. Sure, you'd lose all your improvements under the water, but at least your city was still intact. If they brought back flooding with Civ4, I'd want to see a pressure dome included in the city improvements since losing your coastal cities could put you at a severe strategic disadvantage.

Our best understanding is that the inundations were gradual. It is unlikely there were any catastrophic floodings (with the possible exception of what is now the Mediterranean). This would fit nicely with game start up conditions where many game years elapse per game turn.

Which nicely leads to things like the effects of Ice Melt on habitability. For example we suspect that declining ice-melt run offs are part of the reason why the Harrapan / Indus civilisation failed circa 5000 years ago. It is quite arid there now so hanging about was not an option, mebbe they just upped sticks and moved closer to the Deccan plain. Nevertheless their cities are still knocking about in North West India / Pakistan, completely uninhabitable. This type of thing makes me quite interested in a climate model, however crude.

End of game scenario conditions are an entirely different matter as global warming IMHO should use a specific frozen water content in the Ice Cap which can then be spread over existing oceans and low lying land. This is the sort of thing for you to coldly calculate as you watch your enemies squirm.

I thought the coastal flooding on SMAC was cool. I only stopped playing it because the other factions were way too smart for me. Had to dum down the game to win, LOL.

For any budding CIV4 design team, here is the some recent thinking (from Britannica) on what the climatic activity seems to be related to. The record of cores from the deep ocean shows frequencies of climatic variation at essentially the same frequencies as the orbital cycles--that is to say, at 100,000 years, 43,000 years, 24,000 years, and 19,000 years. These results along with those of more recent analyses, provide firm evidence of a tie between orbital cycles and the Earth's recent climatic record. The variations in the Earth's orbit are generally considered the "pacemaker" of the ice ages.

If I was really mean, I would suggest that factors like planet size and land mass ratio should have a pretty significant bearing on climatic cycles; just be glad I haven't asked for calderas or asteroid strikes!
:)

A very good one indeed!
We usually don't have any problems with bumping old threads, as long as you have something constructive to add.

Alireza, you again reply to a thread which is 1 year old :lol:

Hey I don't have a problem. Climate and catastrophe are just pet interests of mine. I think that the past can teach us a lot about ourselves.

Pook: planet is far less fragile than told; but the bridges and buildings you walk on are opened to public after they have been demonstrated to be capable of supporting atleast 10 times the allowed values of strain. We do not want to touch the limits, do we? Who knows the improbable may just happen!

Global warming is a good concept for game. In the game those countries should especially react who have cities on islands/coasts.

Too bad this issue (like so many others) has been politicized to such an extent that it's become "untouchable." For some reason every modern issue is either "Rightist" or "Leftist," and both sides can line up their scientists, just like lawyers can line up "experts" in court. Obviously, if you are a consortium of energy companies, you want your scientists to come up with one finding (the one that enhances your profit margin), and if your agenda is to use the environment as a wedge issue to redistribute wealth, you want your scientists to come up with a different finding.

The fact is that polar ice is disappearing at an alarming rate - on both poles, and tundra (that has remained frozen for thousands of years) is thawing. Whether or not the overall world thermometer is going up or down is almost impossible to detect. Depends where your thermometer is. Whether mankind's contribution, or normal global fluctuations, are the significant, governing factors, nobody knows.

But if the patient has lung cancer, isn't it prudent to tell him to stop smoking, even if you can't decisively, scientifically "prove" that smoking caused the cancer?

As far as the game goes, I don't want to see global warming. I get enough grief from barbarians.

More climatological thoughts

Thread-creep!/thread-drift! I suppose I ought to declare before you read on.

During the pre-civilisation phase, our remote ancestors were at the mercy of the elements, ie the climate as it was. So although the Ice Ages cycle and Climate Change is cool ( :) ) in telling us how we got to where we are; it occurs to me that the other stuff affecting how the climate actually was, is surely the the actual lay of the land.
Therefore hand in glove with the Ice Age cycle IMHO is Plate Tectonics. Plate tectonics provides the shape of the land on which to overlay climatological stuff. It handily determines where continents should appear, giving us geological action in the strike-slip boundaries, with added mountain ranges at convergent plate boundaries. Naturally from this we get precipitation patterns, water tables, rivers, deserts etc. This happy state of affairs also gives us rift valleys / tectonic basins, subduction zones, sea trenches and occasional landlocked seas aka the Mediterranean; and joy of joys, should give some pretty specific locations for that most finite of resources: petro-chemical deposits.

Enough already :crazyeye:

WIthout reading this or trying to recall too much science, I believe the ice cap melting is one of the weakest (at least slowest) response to global warming (which is still debatable in itself if forces other than man are responsible for the temperature variations). If I recall correctly, ice cap melting would be a very powerful result, but one that'd likely take 100's of years of response to occur measureably.

Pook:
After communism fell everywhere except North Korea, Cuba, and Berkeley, California

So cruel :(

Pity, as that would leave us with slow inundations. Hmm not sure that has quite the umph required for catastrophe style events. However I am sure that I have heard news reports commenting on the amount of bones / trunks and stuff dredged up from the North Sea bed by trawlers. Maybe there was a speeded up slow inundation at the time. :-) The jury is probably still out on this one.

Regarding climate change:

1. http://www.ipcc.ch/
2. http://www.grida.no/climate/ipcc_tar/slides/index.htm

Anthropogenic forcing on the climate is a reality (positive and negative, with a net positive reaction), and we are witnessing actual increases of temperature in key areas of the world (glacier loss at altitude; ice thinning at poles; unusual weather events; warming seas; biological feedbacks, such as reef bleaching).

Also - I suggest you follow up on the Christie debate which is ongoing, especially with regards to differences in temperature measured at different atmosphere layers.

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As for Civ4 the game, it ends automatically at 2050 (iirc), so barring profligate highest-end lifestyle for the majority of cities in the game, it is unlikely that the most dramatic realworld impacts of climate change will be fully felt. Especially considering Civ4 has no natural disasters, climatological, tectonic, or disease.

Personally, I think natural disasters should be brought back into the game, and I particularly like how CivIII: Conquest brought the Plague. Theoretically, drought and flooding could be replicated in the style of Alpha Centauri's "hail events" and "solar increase/decrease".

Regarding climate change, if one wants to pull in the more dramatic possibilities with the game...some of the more interesting things one could do:

- A river dries up

- The polar ice starts to move toward tropical latitudes...present a navigation hazard.

Also - it would be kind of interesting if they brought back soil fertility loss in the style of Alpha Centauri on farmland. Especially, imo, to do so for land irrigated without a water connection, and for land irrigated by water connection, but to a river that has been dammed by cities along its way (loss of natural flooding).

Interestingly, I think Civ4 does a very good job of demonstrating species loss (once human species becomes dominant, wild animal encounters quickly go to nil).

Well one of the things Global Warming Could do, especially if done well, is be used to make the Environmental Civ worthwhile. (plus rename it environmental degradation or something that is broader so that Nuclear events, etc. can still realistically contribute to it .... although Coal Plants and Population should probably be the dominant effects)

It would fit very well as an 'imposed' ie UN Civic one in which if you choose it, there is a net cost to you and a benefit to everyone else.... So the only reason anyone ever gets it is by imposing it on the whole world through the UN (to prevent Global Warming from interfering with getting your space ship off in time)

Admittedly it would have to be exaggerated to unrealistic levels, to be a reasonable consideration. Of course there a number of things for which that has been done in the interest of balance (Combat model for instance)

Regarding the Leipzig Declaration (1995 and 1997) ... consider some of the following:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leipzig_Declaration_on_Global_Climate_Change
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fred_Singer
Also notable the links with this particularly flagrant deception: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oregon_Institute_of_Science_and_Medicine

Frankly, their rebuttals have not amounted to much in the way of any original research or analysis (economics or physics or chemistry) that add constructively to the issue at hand.

Back on the question of Global Warming in Civ3/4... evidently there ought to be the option to turn it on or off based on whether or not you believe it to be true!

For those who don't know, in Civ2 what happened was that about 40% of coastal squares turned into swamp. Which was good but didn't look like it was, because in those days swamp looked an awful lot like a blue jungle. But still.

Something similar in Civ3/4 would be good. In Alpha Centaurii, you could reverse the effects of global warming by planting forests - something similar here would be a good idea. Most importantly, global warming should not be a result of using Nukes! Radiation and Fallout has nothing to do with the greenhouse effect.