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Several replies brought up that the climate change caused by mankind is too quick that it is causing or will cause mass extinction. Now I don't necessarily disp
by cletus 7y ago
Several replies brought up that the climate change caused by mankind is too quick that it is causing or will cause mass extinction. Now I don't necessarily dispute that we may already be in a mass extinction event. I do however think that practically speaking there's very little we can do about it at this point.
But as for the abruptness of these changes consider [1]:
> Each successively deeper ice layer represents a snapshot of Earth's climate history from the past, and together, the oxygen isotope record told a story of abrupt, millennial-scale climate shifts in air temperatures over Greenland between extremely cold stadial conditions and relatively mild interstadial periods during the last ice age (Figure 1) (Alley 2000, Alley et al. 2003). There are twenty-five of these distinct warming-cooling oscillations (Dansgaard 1984) which are now commonly referred to as Dansgaard-Oeschger cycles, or D-O cycles. One of the most surprising findings was that the shifts from cold stadials to the warm interstadial intervals occurred in a matter of decades, with air temperatures over Greenland rapidly warming 8 to 15°C
8-15C in "a matter of decades". So my point stands: we've had many abrupt climate changes, at least 15 in the last 100,000 years. So I remain skeptical that we're reaching some tipping point and we'll have anything approaching Venus-like runaway greenhouse effects.
As well as these predictions not really gelling with historical events, I find the level of alarmism to be generally unhelpful. I realize there's probably good intent here and I'm sure many genuinely believe these slarmist predictions but I also think some of it is motivated the desire to get people to act. I think this has the opposite effect. I mean, if you're screwed anyway, why not enjoy yourself?
[1]: https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/abrupt-climate-change-during-the-last-ice-24288097/ https://www.nature.com/scitable/knowledge/library/abrupt-cli...
- atq2119 7y agoThe real question for our human self-interest isn't about Venus-style runaway warning, it's whether civilization can survive any of these dramatic shifts.