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Those are all rather localized and minor events that still can and do devastate whole countries for a long time. Now take them all (except earthquakes, maybe ad

Those are all rather localized and minor events that still can and do devastate whole countries for a long time. Now take them all (except earthquakes, maybe add social issues like war) and start gradually increasing frequency. Do you expect there to be a breaking point? What do you expect to happen when least lucky countries collapse and add refugee pressure on neighbors. Is there a threshold where dominoes start to fall?

ThomPete 8y ago
Again how are those things different than what we are already dealing with? Less people die from extreme weather today, how does that square with your claim if the trend has in fact been increasing(hint not actually proven)
Jach 8y ago
This might be the point of disagreement... Let's agree to assume that many disasters, natural and social, have befallen humanity over its existence, and that some of them are going to increase in frequency proportional with the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Can we also agree that humanity has gotten dramatically better at mitigating the negative impacts of various disasters, and especially over the time frame of people who are currently alive? If we're good on both of those, then I think the disagreement is whether we'll continue to dramatically improve or not. In other words, if we can drive the total negative cost (premature deaths, property damage, civil unrest, etc.) of certain disasters towards 0 by improving our response/mitigation capability, then it won't really matter if they come at an increased rate, the additional impact is a rounding error. If you agree with this, or see how one could agree with it, then maybe you can see why it's frustrating to hear people freaking out about climate change being an existential threat (it can be, given Venus, but that planet had no humans opposing it) which will doom our planet unless and only unless global CO2 is reduced (at some cost, perhaps partly of our species' ability to improve our mitigations fast enough).

ThomPete 8y ago

Again how are those things different than what we are already dealing with? Less people die from extreme weather today, how does that square with your claim if the trend has in fact been increasing(hint not actually proven)

Jach 8y ago

This might be the point of disagreement... Let's agree to assume that many disasters, natural and social, have befallen humanity over its existence, and that some of them are going to increase in frequency proportional with the increase of CO2 in the atmosphere. Can we also agree that humanity has gotten dramatically better at mitigating the negative impacts of various disasters, and especially over the time frame of people who are currently alive? If we're good on both of those, then I think the disagreement is whether we'll continue to dramatically improve or not. In other words, if we can drive the total negative cost (premature deaths, property damage, civil unrest, etc.) of certain disasters towards 0 by improving our response/mitigation capability, then it won't really matter if they come at an increased rate, the additional impact is a rounding error. If you agree with this, or see how one could agree with it, then maybe you can see why it's frustrating to hear people freaking out about climate change being an existential threat (it can be, given Venus, but that planet had no humans opposing it) which will doom our planet unless and only unless global CO2 is reduced (at some cost, perhaps partly of our species' ability to improve our mitigations fast enough).