> Why does climate change increase exponentially? For reasons other than our collective output increasing exponentially? I'm a decades long 'climate change ala

> Why does climate change increase exponentially? For reasons other than our collective output increasing exponentially? I'm a decades long 'climate change alarmist'. We really don't know if the temperature is really increasing exponentially, considering the proper definition of exponential: "a value increases in proportion to its current value". Also consider that "exponential growth" doesn't necessarily mean "extremely fast"...at least in reasonable time horizons. I and many others think that the amount of energy in our planet's atmosphere is increasing, and we also believe the rate of increase is increasing. This might be technically 'exponential', but it very well might not. It could 'just' be quadratic...which, given the 'right' constants, could be even worse. > For reasons other than our collective output increasing exponentially? Humanity's greenhouse gas output was growing (something like) exponentially (ie, 'very fast') for a good while, but it's probably no longer: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-region https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/annual-co-emissions-by-re... To your underlying, fundamental question: why is the rate of increase probably increasing? Feedback effects. To seriously get into the weeds, look here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_feedback https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climate_change_feedback In short, all chaotic but meta-stable systems, such as our planet's climate, have built in many 'tipping points', where a small change in input can have a very large change in behaviour. Under ideal circumstances, such tipping points are quite hard to identify with any precision, and virtually impossible with the most complex system in the world: earth's climate. Even shorter: we don't know for certain, but there's a large and ever growing pile of data that shows here and now impacts of a warming climate. Per my other comment, for example: the rate at which 100, 500 and 1000 year extreme weather events are occurring. In summary: us not knowing with certainty does NOT mean we should not make it a top priority to start reversing the things we do know are causing damage: enormous releases of CO2 and CH4.