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Having a higher CO2 or methan level for 100 years is on a geological timescale a rounding error. There were times in earth history (vulcano eruptions, meteor im

Having a higher CO2 or methan level for 100 years is on a geological timescale a rounding error. There were times in earth history (vulcano eruptions, meteor impacts) where life had to face a rapid and drastic climate change. And we are still here.

jackmott 10y ago
Yeah, and those past times also had mass extinctions.
sqeaky 10y ago
I think you are unaware of the scope of the problem. (also I did not and cannot downvote you) The amount of life and species lost to human activities already makes the past few thousand years a major extinction event in line with the 5 other major ones. With this fact in mind taking the stance that this is OK because "life had to face a rapid and drastic climate change" is the moral equivalent of saying killing most of the life is OK because it happened before. That is morally repugnant. I do not think are morally repugnant so I must presume you are unaware of the facts I just presented. CO2 stays in the atmosphere a long time. If we keep putting there permanently. If we kill ourselves (not with CO2 but with wars caused by the resource availability changes caused by climate change) then what happens during our "rounding error" many will still be dead. The planet will probably be fine, the Bay of Texas will probably be fine and my newly made beachfront property in Omaha will be damn fine. If you live on a coast, get most of your goods by boat or live in one of the areas that will tear itself apart in useless resource wars then the eventual cooling trend doesn't help you and has no place in this discussion.
- NumberCruncher 10y ago
  Moral is a human construct and as such it is subjective. Anyhow, I said that the life on earth survived a couple of disastrous events and still flourishes. Life will flourish wether the coast is under water or not. There were times when there wasn't any coast at all, or it was somewhere else. And does it really make a difference? You won't see anything of the war of resources except you live for 200 years. You may take care too much about things you will never see and can not have an impact on.
  - leot 10y ago
    What do you mean by "flourish"? Increasing biodiversity?
  - enraged_camel 10y ago
    >>Life will flourish wether the coast is under water or not. Life may flourish, but many lives won't. >>And does it really make a difference? It does make a huge difference to the 44 percent of humanity that lives on coastal areas.
    - jacobolus 10y ago
      I think the point is that after the extinction of humans and a large proportion of existing species on earth, life itself will continue and the next few million years will result in speciation to adapt to new niches on a planet with radically different climate. I don’t understand how anyone finds this comforting, however.
      - gajjanag 10y ago
        > I don’t understand how anyone finds this comforting, however. Why can't it be viewed as a source of comfort? At a longer time scale, even life on earth won't exist as the sun dies. At a sufficiently long time scale, none of this stuff on earth matters, the universe continues to move on. As these highlight the transitory nature of life on earth, there is no reason for why one can't "let go" after a point. I find that a tremondous source of comfort, as I often face the problem of when to "let go" in many contexts. I won't get into a detailed discussion of the purpose of existence (a natural counter-question to the above), or why one should still strive in one's own way to tackle issues like climate change up to "one's capacity" (which depends on accepting the purpose of existence). These fundamental questions are extremely hard to address. It took me a long time and a lot of thought to have a reasonably satisfactory answer to these questions - though of course what answer one is satisfied by will vary from person to person. For me, the bulk of the answer came from a study of the Indian Vedantic tradition (chiefly Adwaita Vedanta) through the "Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda" among other such books, and the works of Leo Tolstoy. Mileage may vary of course.
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yongjik 10y ago
That's like getting stabbed and saying "Losing a liter of blood in a matter of seconds is a rounding error on the scale of my life." No, it's not a rounding error. It means things are changing at a speed never seen before, and it's a big fucking deal. Disclaimer: Of course I'm not suggesting the Earth will bleed to death. I'm just highlighting the logical fallacy.

jackmott 10y ago

Yeah, and those past times also had mass extinctions.

sqeaky 10y ago

I think you are unaware of the scope of the problem. (also I did not and cannot downvote you) The amount of life and species lost to human activities already makes the past few thousand years a major extinction event in line with the 5 other major ones. With this fact in mind taking the stance that this is OK because "life had to face a rapid and drastic climate change" is the moral equivalent of saying killing most of the life is OK because it happened before. That is morally repugnant. I do not think are morally repugnant so I must presume you are unaware of the facts I just presented. CO2 stays in the atmosphere a long time. If we keep putting there permanently. If we kill ourselves (not with CO2 but with wars caused by the resource availability changes caused by climate change) then what happens during our "rounding error" many will still be dead. The planet will probably be fine, the Bay of Texas will probably be fine and my newly made beachfront property in Omaha will be damn fine. If you live on a coast, get most of your goods by boat or live in one of the areas that will tear itself apart in useless resource wars then the eventual cooling trend doesn't help you and has no place in this discussion.

NumberCruncher 10y ago
Moral is a human construct and as such it is subjective. Anyhow, I said that the life on earth survived a couple of disastrous events and still flourishes. Life will flourish wether the coast is under water or not. There were times when there wasn't any coast at all, or it was somewhere else. And does it really make a difference? You won't see anything of the war of resources except you live for 200 years. You may take care too much about things you will never see and can not have an impact on.
- leot 10y ago
  What do you mean by "flourish"? Increasing biodiversity?
- enraged_camel 10y ago
  >>Life will flourish wether the coast is under water or not. Life may flourish, but many lives won't. >>And does it really make a difference? It does make a huge difference to the 44 percent of humanity that lives on coastal areas.
  - jacobolus 10y ago
    I think the point is that after the extinction of humans and a large proportion of existing species on earth, life itself will continue and the next few million years will result in speciation to adapt to new niches on a planet with radically different climate. I don’t understand how anyone finds this comforting, however.
    - gajjanag 10y ago
      > I don’t understand how anyone finds this comforting, however. Why can't it be viewed as a source of comfort? At a longer time scale, even life on earth won't exist as the sun dies. At a sufficiently long time scale, none of this stuff on earth matters, the universe continues to move on. As these highlight the transitory nature of life on earth, there is no reason for why one can't "let go" after a point. I find that a tremondous source of comfort, as I often face the problem of when to "let go" in many contexts. I won't get into a detailed discussion of the purpose of existence (a natural counter-question to the above), or why one should still strive in one's own way to tackle issues like climate change up to "one's capacity" (which depends on accepting the purpose of existence). These fundamental questions are extremely hard to address. It took me a long time and a lot of thought to have a reasonably satisfactory answer to these questions - though of course what answer one is satisfied by will vary from person to person. For me, the bulk of the answer came from a study of the Indian Vedantic tradition (chiefly Adwaita Vedanta) through the "Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda" among other such books, and the works of Leo Tolstoy. Mileage may vary of course.
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yongjik 10y ago

That's like getting stabbed and saying "Losing a liter of blood in a matter of seconds is a rounding error on the scale of my life." No, it's not a rounding error. It means things are changing at a speed never seen before, and it's a big fucking deal. Disclaimer: Of course I'm not suggesting the Earth will bleed to death. I'm just highlighting the logical fallacy.