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> global temperatures would slowly revert to normal I share your concern regarding the gravity of the situation, and that a whole battery of efforts need to be

> global temperatures would slowly revert to normal I share your concern regarding the gravity of the situation, and that a whole battery of efforts need to be made in order to mitigate the effects of current global warming. But I wish intelligent people would refrain from supporting the notion that there is any kind of "normal" regarding the climate. There is no such thing. We have enjoyed a climate favorable to humans (in many places) in the last 8000 years or so, which has really been an anomaly in terms of the geological record. And the notion that we can manipulate the climate forever so that cities can stay put where they happened to be built at some point has to go. It is not sustainable.

worldsayshi 7y ago
> But I wish intelligent people would refrain from supporting the notion that there is any kind of "normal" regarding the climate. There is no such thing. While I agree that that is true for a sufficiently long timescale, the rate of change that we force on the world right now does make it look like we're changing the normal.
- piva00 7y ago
  I believe if we refrain to refer to it as "normal" and use "the current balance" it would be more precise. And yup, we are changing that fast, not as fast as a supervolcano of the past or an asteroid impact but not so many orders of magnitude away from it, even more considering geological scales.
mcv 7y ago
That is a fair point. It's unavoidable in a discussion about these issues that things get simplified, or nobody will understand it anymore. I try to be more nuanced than most, but I think it's impossible for anyone to fully grasp the total complexity of the situation. It's undeniable that the past 8000 years have been pretty good to us, and that's not going to last forever, but the impact we're currently having on the planet is much faster, and very likely to be larger and more dramatic than the end of the last ice age.

worldsayshi 7y ago

> But I wish intelligent people would refrain from supporting the notion that there is any kind of "normal" regarding the climate. There is no such thing. While I agree that that is true for a sufficiently long timescale, the rate of change that we force on the world right now does make it look like we're changing the normal.

piva00 7y ago
I believe if we refrain to refer to it as "normal" and use "the current balance" it would be more precise. And yup, we are changing that fast, not as fast as a supervolcano of the past or an asteroid impact but not so many orders of magnitude away from it, even more considering geological scales.

mcv 7y ago

That is a fair point. It's unavoidable in a discussion about these issues that things get simplified, or nobody will understand it anymore. I try to be more nuanced than most, but I think it's impossible for anyone to fully grasp the total complexity of the situation. It's undeniable that the past 8000 years have been pretty good to us, and that's not going to last forever, but the impact we're currently having on the planet is much faster, and very likely to be larger and more dramatic than the end of the last ice age.