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> Eventually, the earth is going to warm significantly without the aid of mankind What exactly are you referring to here? The sun expanding and becoming hotter
by stevenleeg 9y ago
> Eventually, the earth is going to warm significantly without the aid of mankind
What exactly are you referring to here? The sun expanding and becoming hotter as it ages? If so we're talking about the timeline of a few billion years. Climate change is something that has already begun to affect us and will continue to worsen over the course of the next few decades, which makes this issue far more pressing than whatever "natural warming" you're referring to.
- cderwin 9y agoNo, he or she was just observing that natural warming/cooling moves pretty randomly, and even if we can null out the human effect on it, we need to be able to withstand a dramatic change in global temperature.
- prawn 9y agoAre you sure it's random? I think there have been reasonably regular cycles through history? e.g., https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milankovitch_cycles
- xienze 9y agoNo, the fact that the earth goes in and out of ice ages. That is not something that occurs on the order of billions of years.
- stevenleeg 9y agoSure, but those kinds of changes happen on the order of thousands of years. The climate change we're talking about preventing is something that, again, will affect us now and even moreso in the coming /decades/ due to anthropological causes. Frankly, if we're going to die out because of "natural cycles" so be it. I just don't want our species to die out because of something we could have prevented by being less selfish/exploitative.
- umanwizard 9y agoOur species will go extinct someday no matter what we do. I'd prefer it doesn't happen in mine or my children's lifetimes.