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The earth's climate has never been static. I find it odd that people expect some sort of stasis at this point in time just because they happen to be here.

by crypot 5y ago

PragmaticPulp 5y ago
The earth's climate has changed on a scale of 10-100 millions of years. The current sharp increase in a span of a century is completely unprecedented. Six orders of magnitude makes a huge difference.
- G3rn0ti 5y ago
  > The earth's climate has changed on a scale of 10-100 millions of years. Wrong. The last ice age only ended about 11000 years ago -- our ancestors lived in a world where most of the British isle was covered by ice. > The current sharp increase in a span of a century is completely unprecedented. This might still be true, however. Mankind should do something about its carbon emissions. But please stop all this doom saying, please.
  - eropple 5y ago
    This is a disingenuous framing. Ice ages are part of a geologic-timescale cycle; there have been four significant glacial periods over the last half a million years. Human carbon barf is not.
    - G3rn0ti 5y ago
      Even during an ice age lasting about 100k years you had interglacial periods on a shorter time scale where the ice shields retreated significantly. The point is we‘re talking about immense natural geological climate changes happening on the order of 1000 years within the life time of all human kind. It’s disingenuous framing to imply mankind to go extinct because of the current temperature trends. Again, this doesn’t mean we should just watch and go on burning coal. But it’s a bit ridiculous seeing intelligent people on HN to get carried away by scaremongering.
      - lovecg 5y ago
        It will probably not go extinct, no. But these changes might not be compatible with the kind of advanced civilization we’re all used to and that supports a population of billions. I, for one, am not ready to go back to whatever living standards they had in 1000 AD.
MarkLowenstein 5y ago
I guess we've decided that temperatures in 1850 were the perfect temperatures, and we're going to stick with them. If humans continue to live in a peaceful and technological world over thousands or millions of years, the natural climate ups and downs will seem to be suddenly forced into an unnaturally straight line, starting somewhere around now, due to everyone being unwilling to allow change.

The earth's climate has never been static. I find it odd that people expect some sort of stasis at this point in time just because they happen to be here.

by crypot 5y ago

The earth's climate has never been static. I find it odd that people expect some sort of stasis at this point in time just because they happen to be here.

PragmaticPulp 5y ago

The earth's climate has changed on a scale of 10-100 millions of years. The current sharp increase in a span of a century is completely unprecedented. Six orders of magnitude makes a huge difference.

G3rn0ti 5y ago
> The earth's climate has changed on a scale of 10-100 millions of years. Wrong. The last ice age only ended about 11000 years ago -- our ancestors lived in a world where most of the British isle was covered by ice. > The current sharp increase in a span of a century is completely unprecedented. This might still be true, however. Mankind should do something about its carbon emissions. But please stop all this doom saying, please.
- eropple 5y ago
  This is a disingenuous framing. Ice ages are part of a geologic-timescale cycle; there have been four significant glacial periods over the last half a million years. Human carbon barf is not.
  - G3rn0ti 5y ago
    Even during an ice age lasting about 100k years you had interglacial periods on a shorter time scale where the ice shields retreated significantly. The point is we‘re talking about immense natural geological climate changes happening on the order of 1000 years within the life time of all human kind. It’s disingenuous framing to imply mankind to go extinct because of the current temperature trends. Again, this doesn’t mean we should just watch and go on burning coal. But it’s a bit ridiculous seeing intelligent people on HN to get carried away by scaremongering.
    - lovecg 5y ago
      It will probably not go extinct, no. But these changes might not be compatible with the kind of advanced civilization we’re all used to and that supports a population of billions. I, for one, am not ready to go back to whatever living standards they had in 1000 AD.

MarkLowenstein 5y ago

I guess we've decided that temperatures in 1850 were the perfect temperatures, and we're going to stick with them. If humans continue to live in a peaceful and technological world over thousands or millions of years, the natural climate ups and downs will seem to be suddenly forced into an unnaturally straight line, starting somewhere around now, due to everyone being unwilling to allow change.