> BUT it is not new. This is a gross misunderstanding of the issues we are facing, especially with regard to climate change. This is not just "bad things have

> BUT it is not new. This is a gross misunderstanding of the issues we are facing, especially with regard to climate change. This is not just "bad things have always been happening", but change on the level the planet has not see in literally millions of years https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/All_palaeotemps.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/5/5f/All_pala... Just one quick example: look at lake Mead right now http://mead.uslakes.info/level.asp http://mead.uslakes.info/level.asp We are already having energy issues in the US and we're looking at a near term future where there is not enough water to run the Hoover dam. This is already impacting people in the US and it will get worse. Within our life time we will very likely see an ice-free arctic. The blue ocean event will have major impacts on weather patterns and we currently can't really predict exactly how this will pan out, but there is a lot of extreme risk here. Complex systems, such as our climate and our economy are remarkably resilient. Just like the human body, a lot of unexpected change can happen and it can still function shockingly well. However there are limits and once things start to breakdown the escalate quickly. What we're seeing know is just a tiny, tiny preview of what's to come. Let's ignore climate. We are still part of the 6th largest mass extinction event in the history of life on this planet: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocene_extinction Let's ignore the biosphere. First of all your examples of "it's happened before" are all in the last century, a blink of an eye on species level time scale. While you are correct that there has always been war, and plenty of examples of extremely destructive war, we are a very close to potential global nuclear war. The "this is fine" meme dominates HN thinking, but this is largely because the HN crowd cannot accept the existential terror that is involved in facing these issues. In the long run I still hold that this deep denial is more psychologically harmful that working towards acceptance.