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Or its warming but the warming isn't so terrible to outweigh the other advances.

kerkeslager 7y ago
Yes it is. Global warming is an existential threat to human existence on earth in a way that few other environmental issues are.
- ars 7y ago
  I really don't understand people who believe this kind of thing. Existential means existence, yet not a single scientist believes global warming threatens human existence. Where exactly are you getting this from? It's certainly not from the science.
  - kerkeslager 7y ago
    > Existential means existence, yet not a single scientist believes global warming threatens human existence. If you're going to argue this pedantically, perhaps don't start by claiming you know the opinions of every scientist, because if we're being pedantic, that's obviously not true. Less pedantically, I think we agree that probably humans will survive global warming. But I think that we can agree that there's a temperature that's not survivable, even if we don't know what temperature that is. There's no long-term upper bound on how hot earth can get, and we're modeling uncharted territory: earth has never been as hot as it's going to get, while life has been on earth. So we really don't know how bad it will get. There is some chance that global warming will literally wipe out humanity, and given the stakes, I think that's a significant risk we need to be addressing.
    - mcguire 7y ago
      Is there any science to back that up? By that reasoning, literally everything is an existential threat to humanity.
    - ars 7y ago
      Is this some kind of satire modeled after climate deniers? I mean that's even less scientific than what climate deniers say. Is this what the world has come to? You have two camps: climate deniers, and climate alarmists, neither party caring in the slightest about science?
    - Isinlor 7y ago
      > There's no long-term upper bound on how hot earth can get, and we're modeling uncharted territory: earth has never been as hot as it's going to get, while life has been on earth. So we really don't know how bad it will get. Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum [0] The associated period of massive carbon release into the atmosphere has been estimated to have lasted from 20,000 to 50,000 years. The entire warm period lasted for about 200,000 years. Global temperatures increased by 5–8 °C. Paired δ13C, δ11B, and δ18O data suggest that ~12000 Gt of carbon (at least 44000 Gt CO 2e) were released over 50,000 years, averaging 0.24 Gt per year. Since at least 1997, the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum has been investigated in geoscience as an analog to understand the effects of global warming and of massive carbon inputs to the ocean and atmosphere, including ocean acidification. Humans today emit about 10 Gt of carbon per year, and will have released a comparable amount in about 1,000 years at that rate. Take a look also at "Abrupt climate change" article [1]: Timescales of events described as 'abrupt' may vary dramatically. Changes recorded in the climate of Greenland at the end of the Younger Dryas, as measured by ice-cores, imply a sudden warming of +10 °C (+18 °F) within a timescale of a few years. Other abrupt changes are the +4 °C (+7.2 °F) on Greenland 11,270 years ago or the abrupt +6 °C (11 °F) warming 22,000 years ago on Antarctica. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Therm... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrupt_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrupt_climate_change
- rapnie 7y ago
  > in a way that few other environmental issues are. I often wonder about that. It could also be that our collective attention can only handle one big emergency at the time, and we make that our sole focus. I would not be surprised if in some years another emergency will dominate the news. Maybe its about ecocide then, large-scale collapse of ecosystems due to a combination of overfishing, poaching, natural habitat destruction and pollution. And man-made climate change only an additional factor in that.
scarmig 7y ago
I can even buy that! I have the apparently rare perspective that economic growth is good; climate change is likely to be both deadly and a consistent drag on economic growth; and well-designed policies to decrease carbon emissions (like a carbon tax with rebate) are likely to more than pay for themselves. Climate change denialists seem to have zero interest in that debate, though, while at least green politics seems interested in that dialog.
- C14L 7y ago
  > deadly and a consistent drag on economic growth It seems to depend very much on where you are: https://web.stanford.edu/~mburke/climate/map.php https://web.stanford.edu/~mburke/climate/map.php
  - scarmig 7y ago
    Yes, people who are highly invested in beach resorts in Siberia will benefit by climate change. Countries with an aggregate population today of roughly six billion will suffer for it, though.

Yes it is. Global warming is an existential threat to human existence on earth in a way that few other environmental issues are.

ars 7y ago
I really don't understand people who believe this kind of thing. Existential means existence, yet not a single scientist believes global warming threatens human existence. Where exactly are you getting this from? It's certainly not from the science.
- kerkeslager 7y ago
  > Existential means existence, yet not a single scientist believes global warming threatens human existence. If you're going to argue this pedantically, perhaps don't start by claiming you know the opinions of every scientist, because if we're being pedantic, that's obviously not true. Less pedantically, I think we agree that probably humans will survive global warming. But I think that we can agree that there's a temperature that's not survivable, even if we don't know what temperature that is. There's no long-term upper bound on how hot earth can get, and we're modeling uncharted territory: earth has never been as hot as it's going to get, while life has been on earth. So we really don't know how bad it will get. There is some chance that global warming will literally wipe out humanity, and given the stakes, I think that's a significant risk we need to be addressing.
  - mcguire 7y ago
    Is there any science to back that up? By that reasoning, literally everything is an existential threat to humanity.
  - ars 7y ago
    Is this some kind of satire modeled after climate deniers? I mean that's even less scientific than what climate deniers say. Is this what the world has come to? You have two camps: climate deniers, and climate alarmists, neither party caring in the slightest about science?
  - Isinlor 7y ago
    > There's no long-term upper bound on how hot earth can get, and we're modeling uncharted territory: earth has never been as hot as it's going to get, while life has been on earth. So we really don't know how bad it will get. Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum [0] The associated period of massive carbon release into the atmosphere has been estimated to have lasted from 20,000 to 50,000 years. The entire warm period lasted for about 200,000 years. Global temperatures increased by 5–8 °C. Paired δ13C, δ11B, and δ18O data suggest that ~12000 Gt of carbon (at least 44000 Gt CO 2e) were released over 50,000 years, averaging 0.24 Gt per year. Since at least 1997, the Paleocene–Eocene Thermal Maximum has been investigated in geoscience as an analog to understand the effects of global warming and of massive carbon inputs to the ocean and atmosphere, including ocean acidification. Humans today emit about 10 Gt of carbon per year, and will have released a comparable amount in about 1,000 years at that rate. Take a look also at "Abrupt climate change" article [1]: Timescales of events described as 'abrupt' may vary dramatically. Changes recorded in the climate of Greenland at the end of the Younger Dryas, as measured by ice-cores, imply a sudden warming of +10 °C (+18 °F) within a timescale of a few years. Other abrupt changes are the +4 °C (+7.2 °F) on Greenland 11,270 years ago or the abrupt +6 °C (11 °F) warming 22,000 years ago on Antarctica. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Thermal_Maximum https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paleocene%E2%80%93Eocene_Therm... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrupt_climate_change https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abrupt_climate_change
rapnie 7y ago
> in a way that few other environmental issues are. I often wonder about that. It could also be that our collective attention can only handle one big emergency at the time, and we make that our sole focus. I would not be surprised if in some years another emergency will dominate the news. Maybe its about ecocide then, large-scale collapse of ecosystems due to a combination of overfishing, poaching, natural habitat destruction and pollution. And man-made climate change only an additional factor in that.

scarmig 7y ago

I can even buy that! I have the apparently rare perspective that economic growth is good; climate change is likely to be both deadly and a consistent drag on economic growth; and well-designed policies to decrease carbon emissions (like a carbon tax with rebate) are likely to more than pay for themselves. Climate change denialists seem to have zero interest in that debate, though, while at least green politics seems interested in that dialog.

C14L 7y ago
> deadly and a consistent drag on economic growth It seems to depend very much on where you are: https://web.stanford.edu/~mburke/climate/map.php https://web.stanford.edu/~mburke/climate/map.php
- scarmig 7y ago
  Yes, people who are highly invested in beach resorts in Siberia will benefit by climate change. Countries with an aggregate population today of roughly six billion will suffer for it, though.