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You should probably also feel bad for every living create on earth including for yourself. Their extinction is likely a sign ours might not be so far behind. E

You should probably also feel bad for every living create on earth including for yourself. Their extinction is likely a sign ours might not be so far behind. Edit: Go for the down vote, but the uncomfortable truth is that we're not likely to colonize Mars in 50 years or live underground, we need the biosphere just like these creatures. No level of denial will alter this fact.

kortilla 6y ago
At our current rate humans won’t face extinction for thousands of years. We don’t need a biosphere to live in a 5C warmer planet. What will happen is likely massive unrest and famine due to crop shortages leading to a significant population decline. But we can lose 80% of the population and barely be set back 1-2 centuries.
- anaganisk 6y ago
  Its mother Nature b we're talking about, no level of optimism can predict what can go wrong.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    But humans can currently live in vastly different climates on the earth already. Unless something happens way outside of the worst case climate change models, we’re just not looking at anything near an extinction level event for humans. The big island of Hawaii alone has enough population to not suffer genetic inbreeding problems and it’s mountains mean it can handle multiple meters of sea level rise. The entire rest of the planet could be dead and they would be enough to avoid extinction. If we’re going to start ignoring climate science to scream about human extinction, then we’ve moved into the same corner of the deniers. Let’s stick with what we know, which is catastrophe and mass migrations; but that’s leagues away from extinction.
    - jounker 6y ago
      The worst case scenario is the oceans shift to a eutrophic ecosystem https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4802792/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4802792/
      - kortilla 6y ago
        Which isn’t extinction for humans.
        bamboozled 6y ago
        Where do you suppose your oxygen will come from? A lot of our oxygen comes from the ocean.
- eCa 6y ago
  > barely be set back 1-2 centuries The journey from 1800 to 2000 will likely be harder the second time around. The fall of Rome led to a few unhappy centuries. And let’s not talk about the the trip back to 1800...
  - graeme 6y ago
    We also used up all the easy carbon reserves. Not obvious we could bounce back easily if we go to a before the industrial revolution level of technology.
    - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
      We've also concentrated obscene amounts of hard to extract elements near the surface of the earth.
      - graeme 6y ago
        I thought if mentioning that. On the other hand, many of those will remain as scrap So I’m less sure how that balances out. The burned carbon is just gone. And makes the atmosphere less hospitable to boot. So any new civilization with 1800 era tech would have headwinds.
- jbotz 6y ago
  Aside from probably being plain wrong, this sort of thinking is also a germ for boundless evil; from saying "we can lose 80% of the population..." to saying "we should lose 80% of the population so things will be better for the other 20%" and then "let's do something to lose that useless 80% so that ours will be the 20%" is all too small a step.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    FFS it’s just a simple refutation of the “human extinction” bullshit. It’s horrific enough without making shit up. There is no scientific evidence for climate change being an extinction event for humans so there is no substance backing your “probably wrong” statement.
    - jbotz 6y ago
      Of course there is no "scientific evidence" for exactly what it will take to drive humans to extinction seeing as that that's never happened yet. But some things we need to consider even if we can't "scientifically" define their probability, and many people who are quite well versed in scientific thinking don't think the probability of human extinction as a direct or indirect consequence of global warming (especially combined with other forms of environmental destruction that are also happening) is too low to bother talking about. Anyway, even if "human extinction" is unscientific, the rest of your comment is rather even less scientific than that. Let me see now... 1) "We don’t need a biosphere to live in a 5C warmer planet." What scientific evidence is there that we can survive without a biosphere (regardless of temperature for a moment)? I know! We'll do it just like the Martian colonists did it. Oh, wait! (facepalm) Or are you saying that a 5C warmer planet will making living easier, because somehow agriculture will work better when it's warmer even without the "natural" biosphere? It's a bit hard to understand what you really meant with that statement, but I'm pretty sure nobody who studies agriculture or ecology would agree with that statement any way you parse it. So: unscientific, I'm afraid. 2) "we can lose 80% of the population and barely be set back 1-2 centuries." Oh, so that's what happened last time we lost 80% of the population? Oh, wait! (facepalm again) Seriously, if you want a scientific, or at least scholarly take on that question, read Joseph Tainter's "The collapse of complex societies"... sometimes when societies collapse they settle on a lower level of complexity, but other times they just disappear. Also, there simply is no such thing as just being set back 1-2 centuries... we no longer have the technology of the 19th century and it's nowhere nearly as easy to recreate as you might think. And we no longer have the same resources; in your scenario fossil fuels would be gone, at least those that can be accessed with 19th century technology, and that 19th century technology ran on coal. Go back to wood and charcoal and you have to go back more centuries, too. 3) "massive unrest and famine due to crop shortages leading to a significant population decline" There's another problem with this... you know what usually happens when you have massive unrest and famine? Especially when some of those people who are starving happen to be heavily armed? I'll give you a hint... they don't just starve to death quietly. Again, there are quite a few illustrative examples from past civilizations in Tainter's book. Human extinction may have war as its proximate cause and still be due to global warming at the same time.

kortilla 6y ago

At our current rate humans won’t face extinction for thousands of years. We don’t need a biosphere to live in a 5C warmer planet. What will happen is likely massive unrest and famine due to crop shortages leading to a significant population decline. But we can lose 80% of the population and barely be set back 1-2 centuries.

anaganisk 6y ago
Its mother Nature b we're talking about, no level of optimism can predict what can go wrong.
- kortilla 6y ago
  But humans can currently live in vastly different climates on the earth already. Unless something happens way outside of the worst case climate change models, we’re just not looking at anything near an extinction level event for humans. The big island of Hawaii alone has enough population to not suffer genetic inbreeding problems and it’s mountains mean it can handle multiple meters of sea level rise. The entire rest of the planet could be dead and they would be enough to avoid extinction. If we’re going to start ignoring climate science to scream about human extinction, then we’ve moved into the same corner of the deniers. Let’s stick with what we know, which is catastrophe and mass migrations; but that’s leagues away from extinction.
  - jounker 6y ago
    The worst case scenario is the oceans shift to a eutrophic ecosystem https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4802792/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4802792/
    - kortilla 6y ago
      Which isn’t extinction for humans.
      - bamboozled 6y ago
        Where do you suppose your oxygen will come from? A lot of our oxygen comes from the ocean.
eCa 6y ago
> barely be set back 1-2 centuries The journey from 1800 to 2000 will likely be harder the second time around. The fall of Rome led to a few unhappy centuries. And let’s not talk about the the trip back to 1800...
- graeme 6y ago
  We also used up all the easy carbon reserves. Not obvious we could bounce back easily if we go to a before the industrial revolution level of technology.
  - throwaway0a5e 6y ago
    We've also concentrated obscene amounts of hard to extract elements near the surface of the earth.
    - graeme 6y ago
      I thought if mentioning that. On the other hand, many of those will remain as scrap So I’m less sure how that balances out. The burned carbon is just gone. And makes the atmosphere less hospitable to boot. So any new civilization with 1800 era tech would have headwinds.
jbotz 6y ago
Aside from probably being plain wrong, this sort of thinking is also a germ for boundless evil; from saying "we can lose 80% of the population..." to saying "we should lose 80% of the population so things will be better for the other 20%" and then "let's do something to lose that useless 80% so that ours will be the 20%" is all too small a step.
- kortilla 6y ago
  FFS it’s just a simple refutation of the “human extinction” bullshit. It’s horrific enough without making shit up. There is no scientific evidence for climate change being an extinction event for humans so there is no substance backing your “probably wrong” statement.
  - jbotz 6y ago
    Of course there is no "scientific evidence" for exactly what it will take to drive humans to extinction seeing as that that's never happened yet. But some things we need to consider even if we can't "scientifically" define their probability, and many people who are quite well versed in scientific thinking don't think the probability of human extinction as a direct or indirect consequence of global warming (especially combined with other forms of environmental destruction that are also happening) is too low to bother talking about. Anyway, even if "human extinction" is unscientific, the rest of your comment is rather even less scientific than that. Let me see now... 1) "We don’t need a biosphere to live in a 5C warmer planet." What scientific evidence is there that we can survive without a biosphere (regardless of temperature for a moment)? I know! We'll do it just like the Martian colonists did it. Oh, wait! (facepalm) Or are you saying that a 5C warmer planet will making living easier, because somehow agriculture will work better when it's warmer even without the "natural" biosphere? It's a bit hard to understand what you really meant with that statement, but I'm pretty sure nobody who studies agriculture or ecology would agree with that statement any way you parse it. So: unscientific, I'm afraid. 2) "we can lose 80% of the population and barely be set back 1-2 centuries." Oh, so that's what happened last time we lost 80% of the population? Oh, wait! (facepalm again) Seriously, if you want a scientific, or at least scholarly take on that question, read Joseph Tainter's "The collapse of complex societies"... sometimes when societies collapse they settle on a lower level of complexity, but other times they just disappear. Also, there simply is no such thing as just being set back 1-2 centuries... we no longer have the technology of the 19th century and it's nowhere nearly as easy to recreate as you might think. And we no longer have the same resources; in your scenario fossil fuels would be gone, at least those that can be accessed with 19th century technology, and that 19th century technology ran on coal. Go back to wood and charcoal and you have to go back more centuries, too. 3) "massive unrest and famine due to crop shortages leading to a significant population decline" There's another problem with this... you know what usually happens when you have massive unrest and famine? Especially when some of those people who are starving happen to be heavily armed? I'll give you a hint... they don't just starve to death quietly. Again, there are quite a few illustrative examples from past civilizations in Tainter's book. Human extinction may have war as its proximate cause and still be due to global warming at the same time.