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"The plants and animals will adapt and evolve to handle the additional heat" Evolution takes thousands of years. In that time species will go extinct, so there

"The plants and animals will adapt and evolve to handle the additional heat" Evolution takes thousands of years. In that time species will go extinct, so there is no chance for them to evolve. For a simple demonstration of how fast we are changing the climate compared to other periods when ecosystems may have been able to adapt, see https://xkcd.com/1732/ https://xkcd.com/1732/

cryptica 6y ago
>> Evolution takes thousands of years Not true. Natural selection can work its magic in a single generation. For example, given any normal population, choose any trait and remove all individuals which have this trait from the population. The next generation will not have this trait. Specimens with the trait will become extremely rare depending on how accurate the selection process was. It can be quite radical. For example, if a law was introduced (with death penalty) which prevented all people of normal height and above from having children. In just one generation, all humans would become much shorter.
- Aachen 6y ago
  Yeah, because there exist short humans and so their genes would indeed be passed on. Now check that for all organisms relevant to our food chain (assuming we even know which ones those are, and assuming we only care for ourselves and the rest can go extinct) there is a sufficient number of individuals in the relevant places able to cope with droughts, heat waves, flooding, storms, and other extreme weather introduced in the new climate. It doesn't magically just solve itself, even if that's the easiest thing to tell yourself and look for confirmation bias for.
- Jabbles 6y ago
  That's not natural selection, that's artificial selection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_breeding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_breeding
  - cryptica 6y ago
    Your counter-argument is about semantics. Logically, it only reinforces my argument. Unless you're suggesting that global warming is natural and not caused by humans... If you agree that 'artificial selection' can work quickly (as scientific evidence suggests) and you believe that humans are the main driver of climate change (as is the consensus among climate scientists). Then my proposition that evolution can work very fast in the context of global warming (being an 'artificial', human-driven process) is a logical conclusion. QED.
    - Jabbles 6y ago
      Wow what a watertight argument. The key is the word "can" - which you interpret to mean "extremely likely", and I interpret to mean "extremely unlikely". Other than that, we agree.
      - cryptica 6y ago
        At a global scale, even things that are extremely unlikely tend to occur. Because there is so much going on in parallel, it's like the lottery; it's extremely unlikely to win the lottery but play it 1 million times a minute and it becomes very likely.
- 8note 6y ago
  Now try this with food. In one generation get these animals to stop needing to eat.

cryptica 6y ago

>> Evolution takes thousands of years Not true. Natural selection can work its magic in a single generation. For example, given any normal population, choose any trait and remove all individuals which have this trait from the population. The next generation will not have this trait. Specimens with the trait will become extremely rare depending on how accurate the selection process was. It can be quite radical. For example, if a law was introduced (with death penalty) which prevented all people of normal height and above from having children. In just one generation, all humans would become much shorter.

Aachen 6y ago
Yeah, because there exist short humans and so their genes would indeed be passed on. Now check that for all organisms relevant to our food chain (assuming we even know which ones those are, and assuming we only care for ourselves and the rest can go extinct) there is a sufficient number of individuals in the relevant places able to cope with droughts, heat waves, flooding, storms, and other extreme weather introduced in the new climate. It doesn't magically just solve itself, even if that's the easiest thing to tell yourself and look for confirmation bias for.
Jabbles 6y ago
That's not natural selection, that's artificial selection. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_breeding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Selective_breeding
- cryptica 6y ago
  Your counter-argument is about semantics. Logically, it only reinforces my argument. Unless you're suggesting that global warming is natural and not caused by humans... If you agree that 'artificial selection' can work quickly (as scientific evidence suggests) and you believe that humans are the main driver of climate change (as is the consensus among climate scientists). Then my proposition that evolution can work very fast in the context of global warming (being an 'artificial', human-driven process) is a logical conclusion. QED.
  - Jabbles 6y ago
    Wow what a watertight argument. The key is the word "can" - which you interpret to mean "extremely likely", and I interpret to mean "extremely unlikely". Other than that, we agree.
    - cryptica 6y ago
      At a global scale, even things that are extremely unlikely tend to occur. Because there is so much going on in parallel, it's like the lottery; it's extremely unlikely to win the lottery but play it 1 million times a minute and it becomes very likely.
8note 6y ago
Now try this with food. In one generation get these animals to stop needing to eat.